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Forklift battery "flakes"

keezer

Plastic
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
I'm doing a balancing/electrolyte adjustment service on my battery pack and I observed that each cell has one of these "good" poles and one of these "bad" poles.

good_one.jpg
This is the "good" one. It looks matte gray, neat.

bad_one.jpg
This is the "bad" one. It is black and flaking in layers. If dislodged, the flakes fall off and land on the plate guard.

Keep in mind, these are not the plates themselves. The plates are below a plastic cover with holes in it (the plate guard), and are covered with electrolyte and otherwise appear fine. What you see in the pictures are part of the header for the plates, which then extends to the outside of the battery to become one of the terminals.

Is this black flaking material normal? Is the water level lower than it should be? Should these headers be normally covered?

The unit is normally filled via a single point watering system, which tops out such that it leaves these things exposed.
 
I have always been under the impression that the correct water level is about 1/4" above the plates allowing expansion after charging...that was in the "olden days".
 
On car batteries I was taught you fill it until the bottom of the fill port tube just kisses the surface and makes a weird shape in the surface of the water. This leaves some air space above the water for expansion with heat.
Bil lD
 
The gray material is lead, the black material is maybe lead oxide? Not trying to rebuild, only maintenance. I've just been topping off with distilled water until now. Finally got around to checking electrolyte density, and after popping the caps off, the first thing I see is this black "rust"...

The plates are covered, but it seems the liquid level is still not high enough. This is a forklift battery pack, so you can't look on the side and see the shadow of the liquid vs the high and low marks, as you would with a car battery. I've been relying on the single point watering system to indicate the fullness level - there are little floats that rise with rising liquid level.
 








 
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