Water Miser vs. Hydrocaps for batteries [RE-wrenches]

[Windy Dankoff, Dankoff Solar]

<x-flowed>
(subject title changed)

>Scott Suddreth said:
>
>>2) Does anybody have any preference between HydroCaps and Water Misers?
>Gator Tom introduced me to
>>the Water Miser in Atlanta and I'm leaning towards them. The seem to be
>less troublesome
>>maitenance-wise. The park rangers on the island are not the best at
>keeping the water levels topped
>  >off.



>Scott,
>
>If you want an easy opening battery cap Water Miser does a superb job. If
>you want to minimize the battery watering chore HydroCap can help you (or
>your sloppy Park Rangers) better.
>
>PS The other advantage of Water Miser is you don't have to communicate with
>George.
>
>Bill Loesch


Bill - it's not George himself that's the problem (G. Peroni at 
Hydrocap) -- it's the critical nature of fitting the cap to the 
parameters of the system. George is diligent in keeping you within 
those parameters whether you like it or not. Unfortunately, you have 
to keep within critical limitations of hydrogen output, or the things 
will overheat and melt. You must tell George the HIGHEST charge 
current and voltage that will EVER occur, or you might see the caps 
leaning over some day from overheating. When they are designed for 
those max conditions, they don't do well at recycling water under the 
usual lower current conditions. Dat's da way it is. They are terrific 
for most battery systems used in various industries. They are 
terrific for PV systems and backup systems that don't (and won't) 
have high-rate backup charging. But, with many of today's systems 
with backup generators, they aren't optimum. If the customer thinks 
they will eliminate (rather than just reduce) the water loss, he 
doesn't even think of checking the water. Also, Hydrocaps need to be 
baked in warm oven about every 5 years to revive them. They are a 
great product if you treat them right, but to many customers remember 
the ideals and forget the realities.

Water miser caps? -- They good for what they do, but are misnamed. 
They are a really nice easy-opening cap that probably reduces acid 
spatter, but they do NOT recombine H + O2 and recycle the water like 
the true catalytic Hydrocaps do. We tried some on a home system -- 
put them on 4 cells of a 24V battery and after many months, the water 
loss was about the same in all cells, NO less with "misers".

Windy

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: michael.welch at homepower.com

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================


</x-flowed>