STARTING THE FINAL BOTTOM BALANCE ON THE BETTER PLACE BATTERY MODULE

Neither of my garden tractors were mowing properly, so I decided to sell both of them and and buy a new one. After listing them on Craigslist, I received an email from a guy who wanted to come and pick it up the Yard Machine on Saturday. Sure enough, he showed up with a trailer and after the usual dickering on price a little, handed over the payment, loaded the 10 year old Yard Machine and drove off a happy camper! Ok, one down and one to go. The other garden tractor is a 1970 John Deere 110 that I restored. It has a new paint job and the motor was completely overhauled. The tractor has a 48 inch blade and is just a little too big for my 1/2 acre yard, as it will not make as sharp of turns as a newer tractor but would be great with someone with a couple acres. The tractor had been sitting all winter and was a little dusty, so I decided to spend Sunday cleaning it up and getting better pictures for the listing but this could be done while starting the final bottom balance on the Better Place module, so felt a little multitasking was inline. While I was washing and waxing the tractor the EPM-5740TVR with a flashlight bulb attached to the aux. contact was draining the voltage to 2.75 volts on all of the 1/2 cells. 

1970 JD 110

EPM-5740TVR

The highest 1/2 cell was 2.98 volts so none of them had gone back up to 3 volts like they usually do, so felt that draining them all down to 2.85 volts would be a good plan. When the leads are first hooked up the light bulb turns on and off kind of like a blinker light on a car but finally settles down and only comes on every 5 or 10 minutes until finally it just stays off. So far, I have balance 5 full cells and when going back to check the ones I started with, was relieved to learn that they were still holding at 2.85. I always take a temperature reading because I believe the voltage tends to come up as the temperature rises. Not sure if this is actually happening but from past experience, have found this to be the case.

This process will be repeated until all of the cells stabilize, then the module will be charged to full voltage and then drained down to match the cell already in the Fiero, so it can be added to the pack.