Hello Danny, I use to work on aircraft nicads in a battery shop. The nicad electrolyte does not change which is a solution of 30% potassium hydroxide and 70% distill water. It is best to get this electrolyte premix.
Once a month we would remove the batteries from the aircraft and discharge the battery to about 0.2 volts first by applying a load bank and than installing shorting bars across the battery terminals to lower the voltage to about 0.1 volt. Match all the other cells to the same voltage. This is how we balance the cells back then. Replace the electrolyte with distill water and place the battery on a vibrating table which is use to remove the crystallization on the expose surfaces above the electrolyte line. Another method we use to remove the crystallization and clean the cells, is after we remove the electrolyte and add distill water, install the caps on the battery and immerse it into a tank of distill water upside down and than remove the battery caps. The tank is also a vibrating sonic cleaning tank. Install new electrolyte of 30% potassium hydroxide and 70% distill water and charge each cell separately with a constant voltage charger design for nicads. We use a special 19 lead battery charger that can charge a bank of 18 cells to 28-30 volts which balance charges the batteries. Roland ----- Original Message ----- From: "Danny Miller" <[email protected]> To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, April 01, 2013 1:56 AM Subject: Re: [EVDL] Have LOTS of Saft aircraft nicads > Yeah, I noticed that it rose. Not too far above the level, though. I > noticed that was a minor mistake- actually says on the pack case to > check electrolyte level 2 hrs after full charge. > > I kinda wanna get maybe like an electric scooter whose SLAs have bitten > the dust (as they are so prone to doing) and Nicad it? > > Danny > > On 3/30/2013 11:33 PM, John Lussmyer wrote: > > Do NOT ADD WATER before charging them! > > We ran into this a LOT with the BB600 NiCd batteries. (BB600 Yahoo > > group) > > Charge first. Even if they look "empty". > > THEN if they aren't full, you can add any needed distilled water. > > > > On Sat Mar 30 20:23:47 PDT 2013 [email protected] said: > >> Now the box loose cells are "dry". I don't know why, they don't appear > >> to have external damage. The valves are in place and intact. Can they > >> be restored by adding new electrolyte? What mix would I make there to > >> try? What happens if they "dried out" and the electrolyte turned to > >> powder, and thus would end up overconcentrated? > >> > >> These things ARE old- are there any tricks to dealing with them? They > >> appear to have been stored ok, caps in place and all. > > > > -- > > > > Tigers prowl and Dragons soar in my dreams... > > _______________________________________________ > > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA > > (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA > (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
