Trojan battery manufacture date

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Hi all,

 

This morning I came across a lightly used (6 month old, I'm told) set of Trojan T-125 batteries (4 of them), apparently thrown out of a golf cart not because there's much wrong with them, but because the owner of the golf cart converted to petrol after the controller board died. I was also given a warranty by the seller, so I can take them back.

 

What I'm trying to do now, is check the manufacture date. The interwebs says to look at the number stamped into the negative pole, but mine has none of those. It has several other numbers all over... someone had engraved A1027 on all of them, it has 0611 (or 1190, it's hard to make out what's up and what's down) melted into the case, and below the positive terminal it has what looks like U13C0AB. So at the moment my best guess is June 2011, which is hardly 6 month's old, but better than nothing.

 

Anyone know what to check for? So far 3 out of the 4 measures quite low, (SG somewhere in the 1100s, voltage around 6V, indicating a 50% charge level), so right now I have them hooked up to the solar panels to charge them up a bit... but it is somewhat of a cloudy day so this might take a while.

 

I also read a rant somewhere where someone claims these cells needs to be held at 14.8 (for a 12V bank, for me that would be 29.6V) to get a proper absorption charge. Anyone know if this is true, or whether 14.5V (or 29V for me) is sufficient?

 

Any other advice also welcome of course :-)

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Alright, I got hold of the spec sheets, and it appears there is little difference, you can do an absorption charge at 29V for a 24V bank, so I don't need to adjust anything.

 

I had the solar charger on it the whole day, it says it's put about 1.7Kwh into them today. The result is that another one of the batteries now has an SG of 1250 (just barely in the green), while a third is leaving the red zone and beginning to move into white on this cheapie hydrometer (SG of 1225). Tomorrow I will reconfigure the bank somewhat and make a 12V bank out of the 2 weaker ones, and do an absorption charge on those two.

 

I also suspect that the friendly guys at the store where I bought them might have topped off the water as they went out, adding to the low reading.