Step 5 – Use a Hydrometer and Read The Gravity of Each Cell Next we’ll show you a final way to test each battery cell in the forklift battery. This is the most accurate way to test each cell but probably the most advanced. For this step you’ll need a hydrometer. A battery hydrometer is a glass tube with a suction bulb at the end, which is used to draw up the electrolyte from inside each battery cell. Once the electrolyte is in the hydrometer tube it will give you a reading of the cell’s health by telling you what the gravity is. Taking each cells gravity reading is a good way to check the health of each cell because when a lead-acid battery (like a forklift battery) is charged, the gravity increases because the sulfuric acid gets heavier. But as the state of charge of the battery gets lower when it’s discharged, the sulfuric acid binds to the plates and forms lead sulfate. This makes the density lower and therefore lowers the gravity. So in this step, if we notice every cell gives us a gravity reading of over 1.2 on the hydrometer and only a single cell shows a 1.12, that means something is off and that cell is probably bad. To conduct this hydrometer test, follow these steps: 1. Make sure the water filler caps are still off of the battery like we mentioned in the last step. 2. Take the hydrometer in your hand and squeeze the bulb prior to inserting it in the first cell. Copyright © 2017 EZbatteryReconditioning.com · All Rights Reserved
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