water for battery

[Pottree@domain.elided]

In a message dated 11/12/2001 11:08:47 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:


> ?  In the colling system the differences between tap and
> de-ionized is small.  Remember you are adding a whole bunch of chemicals
> on top of what is there anyway, and in much greater concentrations.  In
> a battery, which lives or dies on purity, literally, use di-ionized or
> distilled only.  This has been said before on this digest, and maybe
> needs saying again.
> 

It's been a long time since I've had a battery that is not sealed.  I thought 
checking and topping the water in the acid was a thing of the past.  
Obviously, there are still some manufacturers making the old type cells.  Q: 
Why?  Is there an advantage?  Sealing all that potentially dangerous stuff 
seems like a wise idea to me, plus the sealed batteries don't seem to lose 
the acid level like the ones with the caps did (I assume it was the caps 
themselves that allowed some of the water to evaporate from the acid?).

On the topic of distilled v tap in the cooling system (or anywhere else): I 
know you can instigate a low grade battery type reaction (galvanic?) with 
water and two types of metals (see my post re: cheesy design of GTV6 coolant 
reservoir caps and their tendencies for suicide).  Does using tap v 
distilled/de-ionized water affect this phenomenon, and is there any 
difference in the electrical v corrosive damage potential?

Expatiate.

Charlie
LA, CA, USA

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