Mineral oil additive to lead acid batteries

[Redtick]

As long as it is on the outside of the battery it's fine.

But the original poster was putting a few ounces of oil in each cell of a lead/acid battery.
I guess as a way to limit fluid loss. You can buy battery tops that capture overspray and return it to the cell. Check the rolls/surrette battery website.
http://www.surrette.com/content/r-recombination-caps

You may get away with it a few times, but with an equalizing charge, the oil could end up in the plates of the battery, causing a drop in the performance and shorten the life of the battery.

[Chuck Losness]

It has been about 16 months since I added some mineral oil to my batteries and I have not noticed any adverse affect on the batteries. The boat is in daily use and I use about 70 to 80 amps per day. Mostly for the refrigeration. I have one 4 amps per hour solar panel that seems to keep up with about half the amp draw on sunny days and I charge my batteries every other day using either the boat's engine or a 1000 watt generater. The battery bank is comprised of 4 six volt golf cart batteries. two of the batteries are 30 months old and the other 2 batteries are 54 months old. I'll let the forum know if I run into any problems.

i would think if that mineral oil get to the led plates and in one way or another contaminate the so acid solution cant reach all that area your batteries will not have the same power as before since acid doesnt break down oil, so i would not do that to any lead-acid batteries at all, keep them as they are control level in em and fill em upp as nedeed, thats all. batteries from long time ago was not built as the ones of today that why they used oil in them. there is also jellified acid batteries u where you dont have any of those problem you have mentioned.

/mike

[CDK]

In the 50's and 60's many schools, hospitals and other institutes had a backup battery room. The faculty where I studied then, used several dozens of large square glass containers, each with a stack of plates connected to rails above them. On top of the acid was a thin layer of oil to prevent evaporation.

In a modern battery, of course oil serves no purpose.