How to PROPERLY Recover and Recondition a Sulfated Battery
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- Опубликовано: 19 сен 2013
- I have an updated video available here where I use different equipment.
• Battery Desulfation De...
There are many 'snake oil' salesmen out there who would like you to purchase their product. Do not be fooled. There is no magic solution or product to recover an old battery, the only complete solution is to purchase a new one. However you can get more life out of an old sulfated battery with the proper recovery technique that anyone can perform with very basic equipment. This video shows you how to do it.
Tired of terrible battery chargers? Try this one! You'll need to put a cable and clamps onto it (cut apart a jumper cable) but after trying one of these you'll realize that ordinary consumer style battery chargers are absolute junk. This does NOT desulfate. Powermax sells similar chargers but they do not output the current advertised and are constructed cheaper.
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Need a DC current clamp meter? Save vs purchasing an expensive Fluke meter.
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I cannot guarantee against unauthorized modifications of this information or improper use of this information. I assume no liability for property damage or injury incurred as a result of any of the information contained in this video. Be sure to read and follow all safety instructions for any equipment seen or implied in this video, and use safe practicies when working with potentially dangerous equipment. No information contained in this video shall create any express or implied warranty or guarantee. Any injury, damage or loss that may result from improper use of these tools, equipment, or the information contained in this video is the sole responsibility of the user. 
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good grief... to think that a 10 year old video contains a far higher amount of relevant and practical information than I can find on any modern content... this right here is what youtube is for. Thank you.
" You can patent anything. It doesn't have to work. ""
Greatest comment ever.
What a great video. I learned A LOT. Thanks.
I have lived off-grid for 15 years and have been a ham operator for 45 years. THIS DUDE KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT! The rest are hucksters! I have used an Infinitum desulphator (this is not an ad, BTW, there are other brands as well) for the last 7 years and my average system voltage has gone from 23.9v to 24.8v after about a year's use. I believe adding a desulphator is good maintenance, but it does not restore batteries. Using a desulphator to keep a battery in good condition is not magic. Remember, what he said, taking good care of a battery is what it's all about, not free lunch...This is a first-rate post! Thanks!
Mad respect for living off grid for 15 years!
@@knurlgnar24 I've had pretty good luck with my new battery charger so far
Not only is this instructive, it's informative and explanatory. This is what the internet needs!!! I've been looking this sort of thing up for about an hour and after several youtube videos, this one came up, and I wanted to say Kudos and thanks for this informative video! I like when someone explains how and why something works. Leads to better understanding.
Followup for anyone interested: I still use this battery today 5 years later for various purposes. It has about 50% of its expected capacity and about 200% of the normal series resistance. It is still useful to this day which is better than being thrown out, even if it isn't as good as a brand new one.
oh wow, that's awesome
Oh man make some new videos ive missed you on the tube
I've been considering starting to make videos again but it is a lot of work, time, commitment, and money. In short life and motivation have gotten in the way. Perhaps someday... Thanks for the support!
@@knurlgnar24 awesome i understand got 700 plus videos up. Takes alot of time
Hi there, not sure if I've skipped it somewhere in the video, but the time you got it charged, how long had it been with you?
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to educate us. Being that we only have about 32,000 days, or 960 months of life, if we live to be 80 years old, time is priceless.
Some say life is meaningless. Some say time is priceless. Some say the 80 years we live is nothing compared with eternity. Some say live for today because tomorrow may not come. The truth is I just made this video because I have an interest in such topics and I wanted to, but I'm glad people are finding it useful!
@@knurlgnar24 I thought about putting silicone carbide powder and water in a battery and then putting the battery on a paint shaker to clean the plates off. Any thoughts on that?
@@Noble3dprintersLLC I suspect the plates would destruct from the vibration, but I think your idea is super interesting as industrial battery restorers perform similar processes (without the vibration). If you make a video showing your process and results, positive or not, please let me know.
This method works 100%! Picked up a use NIB Back UPS and when I opened it I discovered it had been unopened for 16 years. The 12v 5 mAh SLA was totally dead. Watched this video then I proceeded to fill all the cells (all were completely dry) and connect it to my bench power supply pushing it @16v. For the first 24 hours it was only drawing about 1 mA and had only come up to about 6v, at the end of the 2nd day it'd come up to 10.6v but was still only drawing 1 mA and it stayed there for 48 hours, I was beginning to doubt that this battery was salvageable. I noticed it the middle of the 4th day that it was drawing 3 mA and had come up to 11.9v (there might be something to this!) 4 hours later it was sitting @13v and as it stands now I'm draining it down to 10.5v with a turn signal bulb and it's been running for nearly 30 minutes. Amazing that I could bring a 16 year old battery back to life with this process.
With what did you fill the cells? And how did the battery perform over the months since?
@@princeinflorida214 if the cells are dry then you need to refill them with distilled water. Restoring already used SLA batteries never seems to work that well but if you do this with new ones it can work extremely well. I got a battery from a car jump starter pack which had been sitting unused for 8 years and was at 0.2 V but after charging it for a couple of days the 8AH battery puts out about 80% of the power of a brand new one and gets about 6AH of capacity. I did this about 7 months ago and the battery still works great.
Excellent honest video. Thank you for taking the time to make it! Exactly the no snake-oil engineering approach I was searching for.
I have restored many car batteries using the old charger method and for the most part, maybe 7 out of 10, would all recover. Some were old truck batteries which take a lot longer to stabilise, but most get there in the end.
My reason for needing these old batteries as a kid - C.B Radio, until i was old enough to buy a stable rectified and regulated PSU. I did miss the bubbling sound beside my bed though...lol.
Some good info for cycling the batteries you have given. Info I will no doubt benefit from one day. Top vid mate.
Thank you . I have a habit of watching your videos for good information . Thank you again and please keep making these great videos .
This is a helpful video. Nice to see an educational video where the "comments" and "questions" section isn't disabled as i've seen in other videos.
Finally some more videos on stuff I have been doing forever. You can restore lead acid batteries and you can’t restore lithium batteries easily at home. The companies want you to spend money and keep buying more batteries or new technology. I love maintaining and restoring anything I have. Lead acid batteries are perfect for home base solar storage And I easily restore lead acid batteries with Raw solar power without the smart solar charger. I would use lithium for lighter transportation needs. People need to know the truth.
Thankyou Reggie
Reggie could you explain your process ?
Thanks for this; I'll try again. I had no idea that it might have to go on the charger for so long...
Understanding the physical chemistry is slightly useful and this video is good for this. After 50 years of car battery life cycle experiments I concur with the approach taken here. Cracking that sulphate layer is needed, but not so hot that the plate loses useful material underneath. That's why a pulse charger isn't so good: the plate reforming doesn't work so well with high currents so you lose capacity.
You said “not so hot” what is too hot?
I have the foxsur Amazon charger which does indeed use pulse method. I’m trying to restore a battery that keeps dropping volts. I cleaned the cells out then added an epson salt/distilled water solution and set the charger on repair. But now I’m afraid I may have messed up using this charger
This UT brought back fond memories. My uncle owned a small automotive repair shop. I worked there during a few summers while in HS. I noticed he had a bank of batteries that he had on chargers (all were dumb at this time. LOL). I asked him what he was doing with all these old customer batteries. He said he was reconditions them. I thought it odd at the time, but he seemed pretty confident that it work for some. I guess he was right. I learned a lot about cars. If you maintain the battery, rubber hoses, belts, oil, coolant, and tires even long ago most car almost never stranded one the road. And true today.
Thank you! I'm glad your blunt Abd straight forward. Love your videos!
Very nice and straightforward, and I also appreciate the brief explanation of dubious "alternative" methods… thanks!
Just restored 2 100AH scrap yard batteries Using a 20V 90W laptop charger and a 65A load using a similar method to this
It took me 2 days to restore instead of 2 weeks just by changing the voltage and load
Initially after charging with a smart charger and both batteries linked in parallel they would run the load for about 20 sec before the inverter shut down
After recovery they ran the load for about 2 hours
I let the battery voltage go up to around 15-17 volts and left it at that voltage with the laptop charger switched on for about 20 min then disconnected the charger and let it rest for an hour then drain it with the inverter then recharge with a smart charger then overcharge with the laptop charger
I repeated those steps about 4 times a day for 2 days and now they are in service powering my off grid system
You da man !I will copy, but have to keep an eye on temp etc, sounds slightly dangerous
@mewantbrains - "I let the battery voltage go up to around 15-17 volts". Hi, can you, or anyone else, explain the above sentence, i.e. what charger was used to get the battery voltage to 15v-17v. Is the foll. interpretation correct - Use the smart charger to charge battery upto 14.4/14.7.(or whatever the smart charger charges). Then immediately, use the 20v 90w laptop charger. Once the multimeter (keep checking battery terminals) shows around 15v/16v, keep the charger connected for more 20 min. Thanks.
I have used this method before in the past (and still do) and it works well the the most part.
Excellent video.
I really admire your honesty and your professional presentation, well done, you have a big thumb up from me, thank you so much for all the useful info
This tutorial is packed with the good information and zero bad advice. As a simple safety tip it should be pointed out that flooded lead acid batteries expel flammable gasses (hydrogen and oxygen) during the charging process and should be performed in a well ventilated space. Hydrogen is a lighter than air gas so common sense would say "don't do this in a closet or under a non-ventilated hood. But hey, who needs eyebrows. My old man used to tip them upside down, rinse them out, smack them with a dead blow hammer a couple of times and refill with clean acid solution. I could see the old sulfur and crud poor out and it usually helped on old farm tractor batteries. The main trick is getting the crud (sulfates) to slough off of the plates as he clearly explained in the video.
Thanks so much for the information! This is a fantastic tutorial as are your other videos on reconditioning batteries. I was struggling with getting severely imbalanced SLA Group 4D batteries back to health, (they were only 6 months old and in light cycle use) and your videos pointed me in the correct direction.
What I found, and what helped me: The key is to not stop at the voltage of the 20 hour rate, but make sure the resting voltage after discharge is at the 20 hour rate. I had tried to recondition stopping at the 20 hour rate (10.5 volts in my case) but that did not work. my batteries were not improving. I tried slow recharge with 2 ohm resistor for a week, recharge at 1 volt over the upper limit (condition equalization charge) for 24 hours, charge at 14.8 volts for 2 days, 40 amps for 10 hours, nothing worked. Then I thought about what you said about referencing the spec sheet in one of your reconditioning videos and getting amps through the battery - I'm theoretically putting a ton of amps back into the battery, its not holding the charge - it wasn't even going to heat, it was just doing nothing..., so maybe I'm not discharging enough 10.5 and stopping is just not enough? That was the case. After complete discharge cycles so my resting voltage was at the 20 hour rate spec, the batteries started to improve with the reconditioning you outline.
I had 10 out of 26 Group 4D batteries like this, so far I've got 4 recovering, 2 back in service. I read up on how imbalances that ultimately lead to sulfation like this can happen, turns out it is manufacturing defects! Improper ratios of the lead + active materials (tin/calcium/etc) during manufacturing causes the internal cells to become imbalanced when lightly discharged and slowly recharged. (however the manufacturer of these batteries will not refund me or give me replacements, soooo I won't ever purchase from them again) but your methodology works to bring them back into balance and back into service. I just hope I don't have to do this too often, because it is ridiculously time consuming :)
Thanks for your videos! Useful and accurate information that solved my problem!
Well done young man! Years ago I used a similar method to restore thousands of dollars worth of batteries in building inverting systems. The charger I used was so old it actually had tubes in it!
Old tube equipment is some of the best equipment! I prefer transistorized stuff myself and while work with computerized equipment for a living I ONLY want smarts in my equipment if it actually provides value in excess of it's cost and complexity drawbacks. Not everything new is better.
@@knurlgnar24 Tungar rectifiers were quite popular for battery charging. A tungar rectifier is a vacuum tube diode with a low voltage drop. The cathode and filament connections came out the bottom to a screw in light bulb base. The anode connection came out the top pin. Service stations had them and in the time of battery powered radio sets many brought their batteries to the service station for charging. Of course radio dealers and repair shops also had them as well as home garages.
@@knurlgnar24
I have that battery charger. That thing alone has brought back dead batteries for me numerous times. I absolutely love that little charger.
I think you guys are DINOSAURS, and I'M 69!
@@dictare those were the days
Great advice delivered without BS and with humble qualifiers.
Excellent tutorial and very professional.
It`s surprising how easy this reconditioning steps are t.co/Folp6e7Dkc ! My auto batteries, cellphone battery, drill battery, camera battery, along with other forms of batteries are all repaired and useful again! Since starting this program I have ended up saving over $ 400 on batteries!?
I just saw one of your battery revival attempts, try this if you have the time and effort. There's an old trick that used to be used here in Sweden for tired batteries with thick plates. The old ones didn't have as soft lead clay so what we did was; 1. Discharge the battery to less than 10%. In the end, use an iron rod or similar to completely discharge it. 2. Charge the battery in reverse polarity, make sure it doesn't get hot. - If so, decrease the current. Leave for 12-48 hours on a dumb charger. 3. Do as point 1. 4. Charge with normal polarity. (5. Small particles of lead may be present on the bottom and making a soft short circuit. If so, drain the battery, rinse it several times until clean. Fill with 32-37% H2SO4 and charge as normal. Leave on a dumb charger for overcharging for 12-48 hours.) Get back to me if you try it, it’d be fun to know the results.
very interesting where can we get back at you?
Where do I get H2SO4?
@@nwakammachijioke622 not at all it's banned in europe
@@nwakammachijioke622 you can buy battery acid (sulfuric acid) at Oreilys and autozone in the US. They come is 1 quart, 1 gallon, 2.5 gallons, and 5 gallons.
You speak good sense really helped me out thanks!
Probably the only legitimate video on the subject. Everybody else on youtube nowadays is in love with epsom salts and trickle chargers.
Thank you for this tutorial Knurlgnar
I tested my car battery from my car (varta d59) with a conductance tester that calculates the amps the battery puts out based on its internal resistance, it tested at 388A out of 540a. I made some tiny 1mm holes on the top and used a syringe to add a bit of distilled water in it each cell, all of them had the plates covered but each one was at a different level. I then put it in an equalising charge at 16 volts for 24 hours, then i did a discharge with an h4 headlight bulb and after recharging it it went to 432A. I just finished the second discharge cycle and i am waiting for it to charge to test again.
One of the best, no SHIT, video that I have seen. I loved it!
Thank you. Nicely illustrated. Time to give it a try on a few batteries I have kicking around.
this video helped me recover both of my optima batteries ! I could not do it with smart chargers. Smart chargers could only get me to 12.5v resting - with a 10 AMP manual charger and a few weeks of patience I have both batteries at 12.8v. Thank you !
Excellent video. Thank you! No hate, but I've recovered several batteries with a cheapo pulse charger I got off eBay. It's not 100% and I haven't recovered anything heavily sulfated. There also is a happy medium with it. You can't just put it on every battery and leave it. It will interfere with normal charging at some point. Even so, It has saved me from buying new batteries several times. When the dead battery is a relatively new one that was left to sit for too long, you're glad for the de-sulfator. It has more than paid for itself several times now.
Summary to help locate details in video.
0:00 How to identify when rechargeable lead-acid battery is failing.
2:34 Two "recovery" methods that knurlgnar24 does not recommend: (i) adding chemicals to the cells and (ii) pulse charging.
3:40 Introduction to recommended 5-step procedure. Equipment needed: Non-smart (old) battery charger, low-ohm resistor (such as an incandescent light bulb), voltmeter, and clamp ammeter capable of measuring at least 5 amps.
5:14 Step 1: Connect non-smart charger through a low-ohm resistor to the battery. [Be careful where you put the low-ohm resistor. It can get hot if the battery starts to accept more current.]
7:48 Step 2: Monitor current until it rises to and stabilizes at 1-4 amps. Add distilled water [carefully!] to keep battery plates covered if possible. It may take up to a month before the charging current stabilizes at 1-4 amps. If it never reaches 1 amp, the battery is not recoverable. Buy a new battery and recycle the old one. Some vendors will pay you a "core charge" credit if you return your old battery to that vendor. [Determine details before purchase.]
8:20 Step 3: Assuming charging current stabilizes at 1-4 amps, leave the charger connected for an additional 48 hours.
8:42 Step 4: Disconnect the charger, wait 24 hours, and measure the battery's voltage. If not 12.5 V, reconnect the charger for another 48 hours. Repeat step 4 as needed to bring the voltage to 12.5 V after 24 hours of no charging. If you still can't get 12.5 V after a week or two of repeating step 4, recycle the battery. Successfully passing step 4 means that the battery is desulfated.
9:50 Step 5: Cycle the battery about 5 times by partially discharging through a load and recharging.
13:23 Final comments
It is refreshing to watch & listen to your video. The incredible videos that are a compendia of lies, misinformation, & just plain nonsense , are ubiquitous on the net. I would have thought that most adults were topically familiar with the chemistry of a lead/acid storage battery. Thank you for revealing the FACTS !
Thank yoh for your honest opinions in your presentation. I think pulse chargers also have their place if they are properly utilised. I'm planning of building a diy version of that, and I will share the results if I do.
Thanks. Just got handed a treasure trove of batteries and already finding some good ones. This method may help me get the most and the best out of the pile. I'm actually looking for several with a decidedly dead cell or two, reducing the voltage to 8.1 to 10.4 that can be used to run transmitters requiring that voltage range. Ah rating can be also reduced as the transmitters are low power. Tired batts can also be used for lighting and other appliances not voltage sensitive or appliances that designed to operate at a 'failing' batteries maximum voltage... Get creative!.
To the heckler,
Yes, I do in fact plan to go to MARS and will need this information. There i will likely find a colony of vulcans and fellow geeks. We will gladly watch from a far as the earth denigrates. Have a nice time.
Hello. I use a different approach. I use a laboratory power supply unit (lab PSU for short) that can output between 0 and 30VDC (selectable via knob). My model allows up to 3A maximum. It should have similar results to your method shown here but MUCH quicker. So for example let's suppose the internal resistance of the battery is abnormally very high. To compensate for that, we maybe have to initially put 20V or even the full 30V to the battery terminals but since the lab PSU has current limiting, I can set that at anything I want from 0 to 3A. Let's suppose I set it at 2A. Now it wont matter how much initial voltage I put to the battery terminals since the lab PSU will not flow more than 2A and will adjust the voltage accordingly. What usually happens on a bad battery is the voltage will start out high, then creep down as the battery takes on some charge. When the voltage gets down to more normal levels (such as 14V for a 12V battery), I can then pull it off of the lab PSU, drain it slightly to remove surface charge and to prep it for a normal smartcharger. Then just let the smartcharger do its thing. So what you do in possibly a month, I can do MUCH quicker.
I agree that cycling an old battery helps the Ah capacity as even letting a battery sit in a nearly full charged state seems to somewhat hurt the capacity slowly over a long period of time. I have seen an old AGM battery that had only 48 minutes of runtime at about a 500W load jump up to 63 minutes the very next cycle cuz that battery was sitting for years (but fully charged before each drain test).
Also, why burden yourself having to keep checking if the load voltage is 11.0V when you can just let the power inverter inform you when it drops to between 10.5 and 10.7 by letting it sound the audible alarm? That is what I do. I put the load on the battery via the power inverter then I go in another room on my computer and just listen for the alarm then quickly turn off the power inverter and immediately recharge the battery using my standard smartcharger.
I think it is also a good idea to charge a battery at different charge rates. The idea is each different charge rate has pros and cons but it should improve the overall health of the battery to sometimes blast it with high amperage but other times use a more reasonable amperage and if you are not in a hurry, sometimes use a rather low amperage. For example, on a 100Ah AGM battery, sometimes I hit it with 25A, sometimes with 12A, and sometimes with 8A initial charge current setting.
One last thing: using incandescent lamps is a very good idea for a load, especially if you live in a cold climate cuz the heat will be put to good use. However, a lamp rated at say 100 watts at 120VAC will NOT be 100 watts if powered by a cheap non sine wave inverter. Those usually have less output voltage such as 110VAC and thus the actual wattage of the lamp will drop to something like between 80 to 90 watts. I normally use a pair of 300 watt lamps but connected to an inverter, I suspect they are considerably lower such as 240 watts each. So I call the entire load (including the power inverter) about 500 watts total. The actual wattage is not critical since I use it for all the drain tests so I am just checking the relative capacity of different batteries (or of the same battery after cycling).
hey ,if anyone else trying to find out nicad battery reconditioning try Jadonite Renovate Battery Buddy (do a search on google ) ? Ive heard some extraordinary things about it and my mate got great success with it.
excellent idea, btw i did somehow same procedure like you, but the outcome after 3 or 4 cycles was one cell in short for dendrites problems, now i used 110AC line with a lamp incandecent (the old ones very difficult nowaday to get one btw) a diode bridge rectifier and the battery all in series and till now it's working but i need to do more test and check if dendrites or cell shorts, will not appears
Here is by far the easiest method to recondition batteries: JoxCharge. com
HI. can i ask if you put resistor between or not? I'm try PSU set for 2 amp and voltage raise from 12v to 16V and battery start boil inside..after few hours of charge.When I know is done? Thanks
David James can I ask you some questions
Thanks for taking the time for the video...I'm going to give it a try..thank you
I am glad you emphasized the futility of restoration of a sulfated battery by pulsatile means! Snake oil analogy for those eager to pay for it!
Thanks, nice style of presentation and you seem to know your stuff. I'll definitely give it a try.
I actually have good experience with pulse charging, I made my own pulse source of 25 kHz frequency, and in combination with cycling i just revovered one battery from some 30% capacity to almost 80% (Ah). First I was cycling with overcharge, but I had small improve increments. Than I implement pulse charging instead my standard charger, and I keep on overcharge (battery voltage between 15-16V) for about 1-2 hours. Continue with cycling, and than it start to improve in much bigger increments.
I have done the pulse charging with the same result
i have a16v wall adapter i kept pluggin in and out, with smooth low frequencey rythmic pulsing, i think i could hear the sulphate melt in excitment.
@@mikejones-vd3fg lol. What amps? Did it work out?
@@shorelined1 I dont think so... The battery never came back, but maybe if you had more stanima you'd have better luck, i could only last a few minutes... and wasnt packing much amps like 1-2, so she never go off not surprisingly. Id like to try again perhaps with a DIY solution like zokonjazokonja did.
@@mikejones-vd3fg the original comment said he had a pulse frequency of 25khz that means 25000 pulses a second, i dont think you were that fast plugging and unplugging it lol
Ok this is THEE BEST VIDEO ever out there on restoring lead acid batteries!! Well done!! Thank you.
Excellent. A process that I have used and thought to be very helpful. Thanks for sharing and the edification.
I agree that this process takes time, but it is worth it in my opinion. You have essentially explained what I do when messing about with rechargeable batteries. I have never tried additives and found this method has a high success rate with batteries showing around 10 volts. Some of them were only half full of electrolyte when recovered. I use the ones recovered to form a reserve energy source when the Hurricanes hit and the power is out for a few days. (After my generator runs out of fuel.)
Right 4
Ni
$60 batteries have gone along with the dodo bird.
Man, I can watch this video over and over! Thanks so much for sharing!
It's nice to see so many people who are into battery culture.
I use my DLS-45 as you describe and it works well for it. 45A is faster than optimal for charging batteries but I haven't had a problem with outgassing or overheating even when charging single batteries. You just have to watch them more closely and it's best to not start with a warm battery. It does start tapering fairly early on in the charge cycle so it's not like it does 45A the whole time - probably just the first 20 mins or so on a normal deep cycle battery.
With lead-acid, it may be worth replacing the H2SO4 electrolyte if cells are accessible. If cells are 'lead sulphonated' then the battery equation says that some of your electrolyte will be JUST WATER. Have a nice day.
The method you describe is done industrially to recondition batteries. Replace the electrolyte with distilled water, Force current through it until the pH stops falling, then clean out the cells of liquid and debris and replace with the proper concentration electrolyte. It's messy and not too practical for the average person and I've never tried it. But it is well documented that it works and forklift batteries, for example, are often reconditioned this way before being sold to their 2nd application.
thank you!
This Guy is the only one that makes absolute senses about battery reconditioning. I have to say I fell for the BS put out there on Baking soda and epson salt process. I also spent a lot of money on a Battery Tender pulse charger that he states is worthless. I’m very glad I came across his video. .
Great video thank you for your time & effort
After watching a few years back I have revived a few batteries using this method. What I use rather then old charger is just a small 10w panel and controller hooked up to battery until it holds 12.5 then I cycle it...after about 4-5 cycles I can usually use it again to start a car. It takes quite a few weeks sometimes longer but doesn’t cost anything to leave them hooked up on a panel.
I used to sell solar and noticed that panels without a charge controller sometimes did this with old batteries.
Between all the video i wayching about reconditionning battery i just watch the right one with the right step by step. Thank you
I like this guy’s style. He knows his shit and dgaf what you think of it.
good video. No BS, just the facts. I liked it
Damn dude ur good at the whole information conveyance thing. Thanks
A good replacement for the 2 ohm resistor would be a headlight lightbulb. They should limit the current to about 2 amps.
great idea. you could try a tin can too, and any strange metals, just measure the resistance with multimeter and use a specific length.
Appreciate Video! Forgive me for chiming in, I would appreciate your initial thoughts. Have you heard the talk about - Lammywalness Trendy Trade Guide (google it)? It is an awesome one of a kind product for learning how to recondition batteries at home minus the hard work. Ive heard some unbelievable things about it and my GF after a lifetime of fighting got amazing results with it.
THAT is what he showed as a substitute if you did not have a 2 ohm resistor--- HELLO!
Jammit Timmaj - Pay attention dumbass. I figured any 100W light bulb would do, and was impressed he mentioned that. He knows what he's talking about.
12 V / 2 ohm should result to 6 amps, right?
Love the value of the information you give us and enjoy listen to you sense of hummer please keep making videos. I am making a small solar set up of three batteries and would really like your advice on were to hook up my inverter, the first battery for both pos and neg.or should I move the negation down to the last battery? I hear both methods and not sure witch would be best for the batteries. Thanks again and blessings.
Depends if your running them in series or parallel and what Voltage batteries they are, what voltage is your solar system?
Some people hook up 2 12v to make 24v systems, there's too much info needed to answer your ?
I made a highly concentrated epsom salt by filling one cup of epsom salt then mixing it with a little bit of water, then i emptied the battery electrolyte, then added the epsom salt to one of the weak cells that was not bubbling while charging but i didnt charge it affter adding the salt, i just poured the salt into the dead cell, i left it for 24 hours, and now it is accepting a charge and bubbling, then i emptied the epsom salt, gave it a rinse and added the sulphuric acid electrolyte again, now it is reaching 13v
next step moon!
@ 3:10 Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. It increases conductivity at the expense of positive plate corrosion and drastically accelerated self discharge. Keep watching for a better solution...I was shooting a video on adding the Epsom salt method that I have had mixed results with and I have to say this is by far the best way to restore a lead acid battery. Do you know if you add the Epsom salt and keep the battery on a float charger will that offset the accelerated self discharge problem?
Excellent! Found it very informative! And no bull shit! Loved the video!
A battery that was $60 in 2013 is probably twice or more now. Great video. thanks for sharing
Good video. I have a "Plan B" if you can get hold of sulfuric acid. I managed (with a bit of difficulty) to get 2 litres of 98% pure sulfuric acid (H2SO4). I had a car battery that was rated at 45 Amp-Hours and at 6 years old it could only deliver 0.4 A-Hr (at 6 amps). I put 6 ml of pure sulfuric acid (if you're American you'll have to convert, sorry, we haven't worked in the imperial system for 50 years) into each cell and charged it up and it immediately produced 11.14 Amp-Hr (discharged to 12.12 volts so it was actually a bit better than that if I'd let it drop further).
After a week it measured only 7.93 Amp-Hr so it's declined but it's still much better than it was.
It has a desulfator electronic circuit on it that puts very high voltage pulses into the battery 1000 times a second and I'll leave it on for a month or so. I built it from scratch years ago and even if it does nothing I'm sure it won't hurt it. Time will tell if this method (adding H2SO4) will permanently increase its capacity but I think it probably will. If you plan to try this read up on how to handle concentrated H2SO4 before you start, it's dangerous!
I work for a large industrial battery company and we have pulse chargers but we do not promote that they are better at desulfation which in my experience of two years they do not but the pulse charge is promoted to save electricity costs for people with many batteries to charge daily. Our guidelines for desulfation require a steady low amperage charge for 48 hours and then put them on a load bank to test for bad cells.......sometimes repeating the process two to three times to fully desulfate. This guy knows what he is talking about.......any other way is a gimmick or quick fix.
whoozbi 9*
Your statement is ambiguous. A combination desulfator/charger will attempt to desulfate as it is slow charging but they also have higher amperage desulfators for large capacity batteries (such as 100Ah or more). How do you know for certain that a desulfator is not any better than slow charging?
I did the distilled water with Epsom salt mix after emptying out the old acid and cleaning the inside with baking soda and distilled water the rinsed it out with more water after filled it up with the mix and to my surprise it actually worked so far its been good for some months
Very bad idea.mixing foreign chemicals with an acid is like a kids chemistry set.you are playing with avid for dad gum sake.and baking soda is a neutralizer.unless you can get every scrap of it out of the battery you will in effect neutralize your electrolyte in short order.
You can do this with a power supply pretty easily, too. Sometimes, that can be adventageous because you can run slightly higher voltages. Some cases of battery issues can be solved by running around 15.5-18.5 volts for a few hours until current increases, then dropping back down to 14 or 10.
As for pulsed charging, it works when combined with other methods, but it has a correct and incorrect application. A capacitor-regulated pulse charging approach can be extremely effective for certain types of issues. Those little pulse devices are garbage.
You're one of the few 'pulse charging' proponents I have run across who has reasonable expectations of the technology and because of that I will respond and say that I agree in general. There are applications where non CV/CC desulfation can be beneficial. I draw the line when people claim there is some sort of magic going on. All pulse charging implementations use the same physics and chemistry as constant current desulfation. I still argue that for most people CC desulfation is a better method but there are very valid arguments to be made against that claim. In any case I did publish a video that covers using a lab style power supply to do what you outline in your first paragraph. Yup. Works faster than what I show here though one needs more than a standard charger to accomplish it.
Thanks for the video. Answered my questions about my speed charger always cancelling the charging.
Thanks for your input, I think it's worth checking out. Maybe between my shop teacher and my science teacher were together on this project I could get their opinion
Great video.
This get's me to wondering if a simple 555 timer circuit driving a MOSFET would be useful. It occurs to me that a high current pulse at a low rate would work fairly well. This is something I've been thinking about for a while. I'm curious as to what you think about the idea.
I filled my sulphated deep cycle batteries used for my inverter with additives and it has lasted about 4 month with good result. Before I did that it would only hold charge for 30 minutes, but now it has even recorded 8 hours.
excellent common sense approach without all the snake oil that many try to sell
I'm sorry, but this is not how a car battery works. Electrons "electricity" are forced into a battery by a charger, then the lead plates transfer the charge to thee acid. The acid holds the charge, not the plates, the plates are only there to transfer the charge. What happens is the lead plates over time get a build up of sulfur deposits which prevents them from transferring electricity. The way to fix this is drain the acid, split the top of the battery apart from the case, thee lead cells are mounted under the top, that's what really needs to be cleaned, with something abrasive, like a wire brush, and or sand paper between the plates. But, this is not recommended, unless you're dead broke. Most people will prefer the convenience of buying a new one.. Less hassle, less dangerous, less worry. Everything now days is designed with whats revered to as Obsolete Engineering, meaning, its only meant to last for so long, then you need a new one. Nothing is built to last anymore. The same goes with battery's. Sorry to say..
I am not sure "Snake Oil" is the refference you want to use... This reference to an american named Clark Stanley in the 1800's who patented and sold to the public snake oil for health benifits. The true issue of the story was that Chinese water snake oil actually does have health benifits. That man used a rattle snake for his demonstrations but didn't actually have snake oil in his "medicine". His product had cow fat and turpentine, No Snake Oil. Snake Oil actually works! LOL
Please do a short series of videos all about automotive batteries. I'd pay to watch them. Your knowledge is unparalleled.
Thank you, very helpful, will try
Thanks for this video! I wouldn't dismiss pulse charging and Epsom salts entirely. Pulse charging allows for a much higher than normal charging voltage to get through the cells to help break up the sulfation, and the cyclic nature mitigates against heat build up as well as creating small oscillations to help mechanically break up the sulfation. Epsom salts don't do anything chemically other than reducing the resistance, which helps promote current flow to also break up sulfation when charging.
I am hesitant on discharging the battery completely, but the principle makes sense. People also discharge the battery, reverse charge it, then discharge, and charge it back up again as another method to "shock" the sulfation off. A combination of these methods can often help. But these methods only work when the problem is sulfation. When there's mechanical damage to the plates or if they are shorted out then the battery is junk.
I have recovered various varieties of lead acid batteries over the years, from my experience it sometimes helps to get a fairly high voltage across each cell, obviously this can lead to localized heating if part of the cell is in partial recovery. This is a merit to pulse charging, to get fairly high peak voltage but with a low duty cycle the heating and localized gassing can be minimized. A GE publication many years ago regarded sulphation as a reversible failure but also suggested current limited charging that could reach about 11v per cell. In my experience conventional wet lead acids will recover after many years of neglect, other types are more tricky. Obviously not all failures are reversible!
Good video. Tried this with a couple of small (3 Ah) APC UPS batteries I was going to toss out that have been sitting around for years. The APC doesn't maintain the battery properly and so the batteries die after standby use with hardly any cycling.
One was bone dry. Topped off with tap water (very soft water here). One battery took a charge, the bone dry one did not Got 8 seconds while running the inverter under load. Tried this a few times without improvement. Then tried an Everstart marine charger with de-sulphating mode a couple more times and got it up to 5 minutes, which is what APC is the run time on these small paper-weight UPS.
Not really worth it for a $15 battery but an interesting proof of concept, both for the battery and the marine charger.
Thank you for this very informative video!
Thanks! Great information.
I have found that although the battery voltage may reach a fully charged state, once I performed a load and capacity test, the battery was quite down on the specifications. I used a Power Products analyzer for a load test and a Torkel 860 for the capacity test.
Finally a battery video that makes sense considering all the BS found on RUclips and forums. Having worked in a battery lab, I have yet to see any charger with a so-called desulfation mode that works. And the key to long battery life is care and maintenance. My car batteries have all lasted over 15 years and I also choose a flooded lead acid battery because they can be maintained.
you are right, see voltage drop quickly as he measures, means self-discharge is high. watch is ok, but use old or new acid.
Let me say this a flooded battery can always and i do mean always be brought back to like new if not better than agm not as easy or cost effective but can be brought cback there is no such thing as a bad battery my friend if you going to state truths state em truly i may not have your college degrees but i have an uncanny ability to grasp the flow of electrons stereo systems is what got me into it but there are many ways you can completely revive a completely crystallized cell if not there would be no value in a core return battery companies dont want you to know but if you have knowledge of how it works you can remove led add led remove electrolytes and fresh change metals change electrolytes for about 1/3 the price of a truly brand new battery. CAUTION PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TAMPER WITH A FACTORY SEAL FOR MEANS OF RESTORING YOUR BATTERY UNLESS YOU KNOW THE DANGERS INVOLVED AND HAVE ALL THE PPE AND SAFTY EQUIPMENT
@@charliehull1326 But you shared absolutely no infomation on how to do anything.
Talk is cheap.
Great video, I have really enjoyed watching it. I have also watched your entire series on making a sine wave inverter from an old UPS which I intend to use for an old UPS I have. I appreciate the level of detail that you go into, and although some concepts and ideas may go over my head I feel like I'm really learning some things which is not always the case on the Interwebs today! Question: Have you tried this method on multiple batteries at one time, or is this only useful for a single battery at a time? I have a great deal of SLA batteries that I would like to recondition, some of which are really dead, some only "mostly dead" in the words of Miracle Max. Any tips would be helpful, but my end goal is to recover enough to use with the UPS and convert into a working solar generator with battery bank backup. Thanks!
Tried it and it WORKS!!!!
my dewault recondition without over charging and does very well
Hey man, I just wanna say thanks for this.
I have a fully dried out 6v 7.2Ah SLA which I have decided to try to recover and so I have followed your method here (almost) to the letter. I modified the voltage and current respectively & cracked the lid and refilled all cells with de-ionised water.
I don't have a dumb-charger but I do have a small power supply gutted from an HD Freeview decoder that happens to have an 8v 500ma rail that the battery lived on for 48 hours or so.
It is now at the end of it's 3rd cycle and has just discharged over 5Ah @ 900mAh according to the accucell 6 I'm charging it on so I'm confident this can go back into service for a while and am fairly impressed to get over 60% back!
So, once again, thanks!
I'm sure other methods out there work just fine but this worked a charm for me. I will update you with the results of the 5th cycle and the other sla's i'm gonna try and recover.
Did it work after more cycles ?
getting thar deionised distilled water has proven harder then it should be. they only sell purified water from mountain springs in some remote location....(probably local tap water)
I dont have clothes I can risk getting eaten up by this acid so it might be more practical to spend the 80 to 120 for another battery then 400 0n clothes
i like your style sir.waitng for your next video
I have never charged a dead battery before, I have 2 ,12v batteries for my Grandsons electric bike, exactly what you were doing, after watching your video I got my 12v battery recharged. Thank You 😎
I have two smart-chargers like the one you said would not work but it does! These are made to also be able to regenerate batteries. I regenerated a dead Motobatt AGM battery and am still using it on my Silver Wing.
I agree. I have used a ctec charger to bring back three very bad batteries, it did extremely well. I have also used an Oxford oximiser on a battery that has sat for many years, down to under 2.5v. Had to use a dumb charger to get volts up high enough to start charging on the oximiser, but Meh still works
I love the free harbor freight volt meter..the ones they cant even give away..lol
everyone has had one of those
I have spent months researching into fixing a car battery and discovered a fantastic resource at Jons mender guide (google it if you are interested)
yes i have one works fine
The probes are very delicate. They break easily. I guess I'll get a new free volt meter, LOL.
I have about 6 multimeters of various qualities, but I still want a free Harbour Freight one - just because it's both cool and ridiculous that they give them away lol. But alas I live in New Zealand.
Thanks for the video.
I realise this video is a few years old, so maybe smart chargers have improved since it was made.
I don't know about snake oil, but I have just recovered a 12v battery off my scooter with the desulfation mode on my smart charger. I had to repeat the process six times before it brought the voltage to a properly charged point. It started at 13.2v "fully charged" Now it's reading 14.3v.
Thank you for this clear, instructional video. Time to hit the garage now.
Appreciate the no BS video.
There is a good book online: "THE AUTOMOBILE STORAGE BATTERY ITS CARE AND REPAIR 0. A. WITTE".
It was written in 1922 and the information is still valid today - the technology barely changed.
A resistor can be made with simple SS wire wrapped around a non-conductive core. You can use an ohm meter to confirm the number of turns. I used .024 SS aircraft lock wire for one I needed to replace a blown power resistor on an automotive cooling fan.
Does SS wire just stand for stainless steel wire?
If your really need a resistor but dont have one you can make one out of a pencil clip lead to sharp end then cut into pencil a few spots exposing the graphite to what you want the resistance to be using a multimeter then clip the other lead to exposed graphite then to battery I know it works because ive charged smaller batteries using this method 👍
Nothing ventured nothing lost right? I've done this before myself, usually just to eek a little more life out of a battery that was junk otherwise. Another old trick was to 'drop' the battery a few inches a half dozen times, letting it settle for 30 minutes, then overnight charging it. Also worked a couple times. Side comment, I am in love with this guy! I love the geeky needy guys, they are just great!
It's funny that I just came across this video. A few weeks ago, I decided to try recharging this car battery that I've had for years. It's been dead, in my garage, on the ground, for at least two winters. I thought for sure that the plates were trashed. So, I busted out my battery maintainer and connected it to the battery. It gave me a green light, which means it's done charging. So, to trick it into charging, I put my test light in the circuit and walked away. I came back two days later, to find it charging. I took the light out and let the charger continue. Three more days passed, and it was full. I disconnected it and let it sit another two days, before checking the voltage. It was just over 12.6, which looked good. Then, I put a small load on it, similar to what you did, with a inverter and a 90 watt halogen bulb. The voltage dropped quick, so I charged it up again, and repeated the test. It got stronger, probably enough to crank an engine over or at least run my inverter for a few hours. I've done this trick a number of times I've the years, but this was the first to a battery that sat through a couple winters without a charge, and was brought back to life! So, I too, will disagree with pulse chargers, as I've used them to resuscitate a LA battery from 0 volts to 12.6.
I used Epsom salts and it works.
This summer the battery in my van started dying. It would barely crank over. I charged it and only got a few starts out of it during warm temperatures. I charged it again and left it in the van overnight and the temps dropped to 45 degrees overnight. It lost it's charge and wouldn't start. Just clicked. Since I have another van I left it sit for weeks while I researched how to revive a car battery. I stumbled onto a blog about Epsom salt.
I removed about 1/3 of the acid using a turkey baster. I heated up a half gallon or so of distilled water on the stove until hot and kept adding Epsom salt a quarter cup at a time until it was ridiculous. Stirring it the whole time. The solution was slightly thicker than water but it was totally clear. I filled the battery, put the caps on and shook it good. I charged it on an old charger for 48 hours. I let it sit for a day and it slightly discharged. I charged it again for 24 hours.
The temperature outside is cold. This is Wisconsin. The van has started every time over the last four days and today the temp is 21 degrees. Today the van started like it's a new battery. The battery is FIVE YEARS OLD. Just a month or so ago it was crap.
Okay so after you add the salt and distilled water and shake. You go straight to charging. Do you leave the epson salt solution in there permanently?
@@blairbushproject Yes. The Epsom salt stays in there for good. The battery still works great one month later. Like new. Just be careful with the acid when removing it and handling it. Wear eye protection and have water nearby to rinse it off if you get some on you. I used a suction device with a tube attached and stored the acid in a plastic milk bottle.
@Frank DeFalco It was an experiment with Epsom salts. I had some. I tried it. It worked.
@Frank DeFalco The acid is not the problem, changing acid does nothing to remove the sulfation on the plates.
The plates are actually made of a hard lead mesh impregnated with a soft lead paste. Scrubbing would remove the paste, and to get them apart you would need to cut and re-cast the lead straps holding the plates together. A better way to clean them is to empty the electrolyte, replace with distilled water, and charge. empty, charge, repeat, etc. Then refill with the proper ph acid. This will remove nearly all of the sulfation, whereas this procedure only removes some of it.
K
what about ultrasonic? or sticking it on the washing machine for a while..
Nice Video clip! Apologies for chiming in, I am interested in your initial thoughts. Have you considered - Lammywalness Trendy Trade Guide (do a search on google)? It is a good exclusive guide for learning how to recondition batteries at home minus the headache. Ive heard some pretty good things about it and my buddy after many years got astronomical success with it.
Load of rubbish
Hi ,
Have recently got a set of 600AHr OPzS (6 x 2v cells) that were in good service for 2 years and were decommissioned simply because the PO went on grid.
Unfortunately the PO removed the acid to make them easier to move:-(
That's how they came to me. The airtight caps are on. Some slight visible white fluff here and there.
Do you recommend anything I could do before I (re)do the commissioning procedure, e.g. add acid and CC charge at C/20
till I reach 2.75 VPC/or no more increase in voltage and no rise in SG for 3 hrs after maxing out on the voltage?
I would think that the above could only help. What kind of charging current would you recommend with the distilled water?
Anything else?
It's a really a beautiful set and it be a shame to toss
regards,
Nick
I remember seeing small ads for battery rebuilding supplies back in the late 50s.
The old batteries that had visible asphalt around the cells were rebuild able.. The visible cell connectors on top of the batteries were also another indicator.
The connectors were cut and the asphalt scraped out with a hot screw driver.
THe cells could be pulled and examined. some times the plated could be washed and reused.. or replaced.
Thanks for this.
I watched this video when you first uploaded it. I agree with you totally on chargers. The older ones will get the voltage above 15v which is critical to desulfinate the plates. What are your thoughts on the newer thing, capacitance chargers? I'm tempted to experiment with one.
I look for whitepapers and academic research on battery charging technologies from time to time and the reputable information I find has always debunked any complicated charging technique analyzed. A simple constant voltage is best. BTW, I went through my batteries again just a few months ago and for some reason this battery has now recovered to about 90% using this technique a 2nd time. (I used an electronic load for discharge and a lab power supply for charging, but the technique is the same as the 'cheap' way presented in this video.) Perhaps being on a low float voltage trickle charge for the last few years while not in use helped it out.
correction, constant voltage or constant current depending on the details. Either one can be valid depending on the circumstances.
The battery in my wife's car recently died..
checked with my multimeter and it was sitting at 11.4v, down to 6 or 7v when turning over the engine. attempted charging on a 20 year old "charge and maintain" charger that was my dads; that didnt work as the charger clicked over to ready after about 30 secs without actually charging... so bought a 9 stage smart charger that has a reconditioning mode and received it today.. its on it currently and the charger has recognised the battery is "low" and further during the pulses my multimeter is showing 15.41v for about 15-20 seconds then dropping back to 13.5ish volts before immediately climbing again and repeating the process. I guess ill see tomorrow how it's gone 💁 but as far as the reviews go these cheap multi stage chargers these days seem to have a reputation of working well at reviving dead batteries.
I'm guessing the technology has advanced a bit since you made this?!
@@malulsos I'm curious how that goes for you. If possible, keep me updated.