Distilled water use Excessive Cancel The title field is required!

1. Nicolas Davies

   

   0 posts
   
   4/3/2012 9:04 AM

   Hi I have club cars and nearly 400 8 volt Trojan batteries , and currently using around 100 litres of distilled water per month on top up .. Question does this seem about right , at previous facilities have used much less also with club car. We run the buggies all year round, rotate usage as not all hired each day, day temps near 40 c in summer and winter around 22 c .
   
   Its not the cost that worries me , is there an underlying issue i need to worry about ?
   
   Any comments would be great .
   
   Nic

   
   
   
   
2. Andy Jorgensen

   

   1 posts
   
   4/3/2012 2:04 PM

   I would look into one of these.
   
   http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/portable+water+deionizer.do

   
   
   
   
3. Neidhardt John J

   
   4/3/2012 6:04 PM

   I just had this very dilemma ! We have 150+ golf carts at our facility. Distilled water is much cheaper to manufacture then purchase. We Lease our carts from a Club Car distributor.
   
   In our Agreement, distilled water is suggested but the Club Car Distributor suggested a De-ionizer (Which they coincidentally sell also)
   
   After research-
   
   The initial cost of the De-ionizer was extremely attractive but replacement cartridges were extremely expensive in our case. We found it was cost prohibitive for an operation of our size.
   
   We purchased a Distiller that makes 8 Gallons a day and a Clean 275 gallon Fertilizer tank for indoor storage.
   Total Cost $1 K Attaching a photo of our system.
   
   Oh, and yes... we have experienced accelerated water usage and our carts our relatively new.
   [attachment=0">Distilled water.jpg[/attachment">[attachment=0">Distilled water.jpg[/attachment">

   
   
   
   
4. Nicolas Davies

   

   0 posts
   
   4/5/2012 3:04 AM

   Thanks guys for the info , that certainly helps with volume question and how to save on cost .
   
   But i suppose the environment has a big influence on usage rates , we unfortunately don't get enough full discharge of the carts and feel that we over charge every night.
   
   Thanks Nic

   
   
   
   
5. Andy Jorgensen

   

   1 posts
   
   4/5/2012 4:04 AM

   Just a thought for comparison - our fleet of EZ-Go carts are 3.5 years old. We water batteries roughly once per month and only use about 35 gallons of distilled. The new chargers only charge until full, then shut off. That's about 680 batteries on our fleet of 85 carts. Not all get used each day, but we do rotate.
   
   I'm wondering if you are overfilling, and boiling off the excess. How full are you filling the batteries?

   
   
   
   
6. Dennis Cook

   

   1 posts
   
   4/5/2012 5:04 AM

   I agree with Andy, im thinking you are boiling off water. Do you have areas beneath the carts that the cement is getting etched or looks extremely rough? Do you get a lot of terminals that get corroded? These are signs of over filling. Its easy to do. Most batteries have a filler neck in each hole and you only want the water to be right below or just touching that. If water is up in the filler neck area it will boil over. The main thing is to keep the plates covered, but below filler neck. This has completely eliminated our boiling over problems. We also use a deionizer from Battery Filling Systems to make our water.

   
   
   
   
7. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   4/5/2012 7:04 AM

   I remember the good old days in the late 70's in Florida, dad used to have the fill the batteries every week. He used a hose because our distilling machine could not keep up.
   
   Sorry for not having a solution, but it's fun to reminisce I guess.
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
8. Robert Crockett

   

   4 posts
   
   4/12/2012 4:04 PM

   So a fleet of fifty carts, the small de ionizer would be cost effective ...We get more wk-end warriors than weekly

   
   
   
   
9. Nicolas Davies

   

   0 posts
   
   6/30/2012 8:06 AM

   Thanks for responses guys .
   
   40c everyday now for next 10-12 weeks here
   cheers nic