Battery Desulfation Demonstration Start to Finish - Part 2/2
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video I demonstrate the full desulfation process using a lab style power supply and a lab style electronic load. After editing part1 of this video I realized it would be very boring so I set the project aside, but decided to pick it up again later on to finish it as I thought it was still informative. Please let me know if this is something that interests you.
Where to purchase the Lab Power Supply used in this video:
Amazon
amzn.to/3fCunJp
Where to purchase the Electronic Load used in this video:
Amazon
amzn.to/2V9yZx0
FTC Disclosure Statement:
Some links may be affiliate links. I may get a commission if products are purchased using the links provided.
EDIT - I realized after uploading but before posting that if this battery sat on a shelf for 5 months and held its voltage well that it does NOT have a cell with an internal discharge issue. I suspect it just has a higher internal resistance than a new battery.
I cannot guarantee against improper use of the information contained in this video, nor guarantee against unintended consequences of replicating what is seen in this video. I assume no liability for property damage or personal 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 practices 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.
Maybe it's just me, but I find these kind of videos entertaining, not boring.
You're a weird person.
I like you.
These videos make me want to learn more about the equipment and what you can do with it. Besides i am tired of buying farm machines batteries they die and freeze over the winter great ohio weather
@@Dm65-gpyThe best thing is to take the batteries out and store them where they won't freeze and charge them every once in a while. Otherwise a previously frozen battery will usually recover to some extent if you desulfate it. I've done this many times and they usually give many years of service after even though their reliability will always be in question: It may last 10 years or it may last 1 month. Freezing a battery isn't good.
@@knurlgnar24 it such a pain to take them all but i do need to I agree. I think im going to order a power supply should i get a 30v 5 amp or 60v 5amp they also have some 10amp
Any thoughts on this? Thanks
I have 4 AGM truck batteries that were fully discharged and kept that way for over 3 months when the truck was sitting in the shop, and somehow I accidentally kept it undercharged at 13.5V for a month before running the truck with them in. The sitting voltage went down to 12.4V so I swapped the batteries out and have the AGM batteries worked on. After watching the video I fully discharged my battery (down to 11.15V since there’s a huge voltage drop to the inverter and the inverter shuts down at 10.5V) with the lowest sitting voltage (12.44V) with a 60W fan (that’s all I got in the truck that I can use while being on the road) then charged it back up and run the repair mode (voltage goes up to 16.5V theoretically). That battery is now sitting at 12.51V. I am gonna hook up a battery monitor to count capacity and to repeat the process until it gets between 12.8-13.0V and work on the rest of the batteries too. Hope it works I am hoping to use them for another 3 years before needing to replace them
I like this video
Will this technique also work on 200ah Gel batteries?
Yes, but gel batteries will require a low current limit to avoid creating voids in the electrolyte. I am not sure exactly what the current level needs to be for any particular battery.
Aahahhaa
On that electronic load use the sense terminals and connect them to the battery terminals, that will solve the voltage drop issue.
Thats' to EZ. I did collage gud.
www.youtube.co/watch?v=wv4eTE0aUiQ
Next time Gadget. Next time.
Ullllu
This is the content I joined youtube for.
I just got a college course on battery restoration. Very informative. I have those same sealed 12v batteries for a stair chair lift that I'm recharging now with a Beleeb 30A charger, which is supposed to desulfate with pulse and discharge cycles. We'll see. Meanwhile, I also have an old school Schumaker dumb charger, and a 10A, 30V DC power supply I'm going to mess around with some old batteries I have here and see if I can restore. This is really cool.
Figured you needed to have at least 1 comment for 2023...
Your video was about as exciting as watching a battery charge. 🤣
At the age of 70, this is about all the excitement I can handle. Nice Job
And that's exactly the kind of excitement I deliver!
I really appreciate all the detailed narrative as you go as I learned a couple things listening along! Thanks so much. I appreciate looking at batteries more like someone like myself thinks, using theory and application in a live scenario. Much appreciated. Sub’d
Thanks for the support! This channel is not very active at the moment so videos are currently posted infrequently. Perhaps in the future that may change.
Fascinating, obviously with AGMs it is difficult to see what is going on, from my observations with wet lead acids during desulphation you get localised bubbling where a part of the plate has begun to recover. The bubbles of course are not conductive so the cell internal resistance will rise temporarily. Lead acids seem to recover very well, obviously there are other modes of failure that cannot be reversed. Good to see you back.
I am not sure why I have a Battery recovery fetish... But I love this ;P Thanks
If it's not in the DSM-5 it should be, I share your condition. My condolences..
@@knurlgnar24 I thought this was the support group for that?
Most Excellent... I happen to have a completely dead AGM Car Battery that won't take a charge... down in my barn, I also happen to have an old school battery charger that I don't use anymore... hoping it still works... I'm about to hike down there and get it, and hook it up to that battery and just see what happens in a day or 10. :)
Glad to have you back and thanks for the video. Please add one vote for a discussion of how you maintain your battery banks. I have a bunch of group 31s that I'd like to play with/set garage on fire. Nostrovia!
I would love to see a video on maintaining batteries...
@@LewisMoten 7 Months Ago!!!🤣
Love the philosophical intro.
Hahaha if you were going to lose 5 months
2020 was the year to do it
Great Pt 2 👍
Another brilliant video. I wonder if the battery's history played a part in your results. If it has come out of a UPS, then wouldn't it have spent a lot of time being trickle charged just to compensate for losses?
Hi Fred! Based on what I discovered in this video and where I salvaged it from I suspect this battery was never installed and instead was stored for a long period of time and 'failed' self test immediately upon installation and was then scrapped. Usually used UPS batteries are only useful for scrap.
I'm impressed with that battery bank. I'm surprised it's still working that well. It was pretty old and used when you first got them and here we are five years later and they're still pretty good.
@corey Babcock I think his batteries were in service for several years before he saved them from the scrap heap and that was over 5 years ago and many of them are still at 100% capacity. He made some interesting videos on them.
@corey Babcock I was amazed to find, when I had to replace my car's battery, that the one in it was the original one from the faactory. It's date marking showed that it was 11 years old !
I know this is an old comment but I still use these same batteries at least once per year as a test to demonstrate how they will perform powering my household needs with generator backup. No issues so far.
Thanks a lot for this video. I am currently trying to salvage two similar batteries that has been totally discharged. I am a bit at loss about when to stop the high voltage "overcharging". The thing to watch out for, you say, is temperature. How high temperature is "ok"?
Surely you should have set the cutoff voltage lower not higher... 10.5v at the curve tracer was 11.5 at the battery
I think what he meant, was that with the cutoff voltage set at 9.5v it would actually be stopping at 10.5v.
A good winter project, trying to desulfate some old batteries I've accumulated.
Are you sure you can't top up old agms??? I think you can? Just pop the thing in the middle and the seals should be under
Wow, i had no idea there was so much to learn and know about recharging a "simple" lead/acid battery. For starters i didn't know of 'lead-antimony' vs. 'lead-calcium' type. And the process of repeated charge/discharge cycling to work the capacity and voltage holding ability higher and higher....never knew that either. Fascinating stuff. Thank you for making these very educational vids.
I have a question if i may; what do you mean by "controlled over-charging"? I think i understand the "controlled" part (controlling what voltage to push the process with, and also controlling how much current to push), but i'm unclear on what you mean by "over charging". P.S. New sub.
I wouldn't consider 'controlled overcharging' to be a technical term as it is more a description of the process. A sulfated battery when charged according to standard charging procedures as documented by the battery manufacturer will stop accepting charge well before it is truly charged. The sulfation isn't going to be converted back into useful active material in any substantial portion unless forced to by charging more aggressively than normal use procedures. Even equalization procedures don't really reverse sulfation to a significant extent in most cases as it is too tame to do much. What is needed is an overcharge condition that goes beyond ordinary use procedures. An overcharge severe enough to permanently damage the battery is required and this must be controlled by the user for obvious reasons. Fortunately the easiest part of a sulfated battery to damage is the sulfation and so it can improve the battery performance at the expense of some irreversible corrosion and shedding of active material of the battery plates, something that would otherwise be highly undesirable in a battery that is in good condition.
@@knurlgnar24 Thank you for the reply, i understand now what you meant/mean by that term. But still unclear on whether you're referring to voltage applied or the amp-hour capacity that you push the battery to. How does one know when they've over charged the battery to an ample degree without going too far with it?
Dear respected sir
Please. Make a vedio on 150 - 200 AH. Lead acid battery for
1. Why. Equalization is required for lead acid battery
2. How a battery cell are being over charged and under charged when 6 cells of battery are used the same current and voltage from inverter ....
3. How can we equalize the battery in series like 2 battery inverter of 24 volts as 1500 va ....
4. What should the current and voltage and charging time and ideal process to equalize the lead acid battery
Please help .....
Anil maurya(Architect)
India
Vstop @ 10.5V, and then Vstop @ 9.5V... maybe that's why you got much more juice out of it the last time... however, I'm gonna give it a try :) thank you for ideas...
Great stuff! Literally just what I needed. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
Have you ever heard of reverse charging a dead battery? Get the battery to 0 volts then charge it backwards. I heard of this but haven't tried it to see if it actually does anything
Great to see you again. I always appreciate your videos! 👍👍👍👍⚡️⚡️
I have a 2 year old car battery that I converted into a magnesium sulphate electrolyte aka:epsom salt and I've rinsed it out with baking soda and water about 3 times, added the epsom salt and distilled water mix, and cycled it and zapped it with a 10 amp charger on muanual a few times, dumped out the epsom salt mix and added some new with a little more e salt, and repeated the process a few times with the charger, and have had it setting with a 1 amp trickle charger for over a week and after letting it set for a few hours it settles at 12.2 volts until i put a load, a 12 volt headlight bulb i turned into a 12 volt lamp to drain the battery with to recycle it, and the voltage hangs at 10.9 volts and just slowly discharges. Is this epsom salt gonna do the trick if I recycle it some more or should I go ahead and put the acid back in it. I'm just using it as a backup battery for when the power goes out or to hook my 500 watt inverter to it when i need it. It's a starting battery I know, a walmart neverstart 730 cca, but I just want it as an emergency battery, and just keep it topped off for an emergency. Any educated advice you can give a greenhorn?
I'm not a fan of adding epsom salt to batteries to revive them as the chemistry doesn't make any sense - meaning there is no chemical mechanism at play to allow it to do what is claimed - but what you did in terms of replacing the electrolyte does make sense. I have to say I haven't tried this before but it sounds like what you did is very similar to what some industrial battery recovery businesses do. How to properly reform it back into a traditional lead acid battery? I'd have to do some research as I admit I don't know how.
This was very interesting video indeed. You seem to know your subject. Ive been watching few videos on desulfation and yours seems most professional approach. I was especially interested the part where you mentioned that you have used lab power source to desulfate individual units on 1000Ah battery bank. This got me thinking if I could recondition my eletric forklift batteries using same method? Before anyone asks, yes total noobie here. Maybe lab power source is just too small for forklift battery bank cells.
Short background info: noticed that my battery bank does not hold charge as it shoukd be, measured the acid concentration in the electrolyte and all cells are between green and red in the white area. pretty much center of it. What do you think should and could be done to this battery bank to recondition it?
Thank you already in advance for any help you can provide.
Very informative videos, I need to watch more. Maybe after enough of those even I can learn more about batteries and eletricity. :D
If the batteries are full charged but reading low on your hydrometer then they are likely sulfated. Depending on the battery cell size and type you may need something more like a 10A supply and they may vent a lot during desulfation, so be ready for that and make sure they don't run low on electrolyte. There are safety concerns working with large flooded batteries but a lab supply of sufficient amperage will work on them just the same as a smaller battery. Assuming you have a lead-antimony battery bank a 5A supply probably isn't enough for a forklift battery/cell.
@@knurlgnar24 Hi, Thank you for fast reply. I was not expecting such a rapid responce. Yes, that hydrometer reading was after charging batteries. I have forklift battery charger which should be original. there are lights, which indicate cell charge from 2.1 to 2.65. While charging reading was highest at 2.52. immediatly after charging 2.3 and it is dropping slowly to 2.08 ( few days after charge) I´m keeping eye on eletrolyte levels and I also have fume extractor available. Do you have safety concerns beyond hydrogen build up?
Those seems to be 500 Ah cells so most likely lab power supply is not right one for the job. Since all 12 cells are quite same condition maybe I can recondition battery with original charger? Just enough charge and drain -cycles?
Thank you alredy in andvance for any help you can provide.
You need much heavier wires when discharging to get accurate voltage readings. Too much resistance in small wires. Also, use the sense terminals to get accurate battery voltage.
Looks like you don't have a 2024 comment yet. You are awesome! This video is very interesting and useful! Thanks!
Thank you!
Great info. I hope in the future you can explore some junkyard ev lithium batteries on youtube. You seem to have a balanced view of the battery process.
Oh knurlgnar, we missed thee.
thats a good way for me to revive some old batteries to use for running led lights on an outdoor Christmas tree.
It looks like you boiled battery this way and evaporated part of capacity.
Correct desulfation process requires leave battery alone for at least 8-10 hours after every over-voltage (>15V) recharge procedure to finish and stabilize its own internal chemical reactions.
Once removed from the charger the battery stops desulfating. Nothing happens when sitting static. You're free to let it rest for 10 hours but it's just wasted time.
@@knurlgnar24 thanks for your reply.
First of all I need to say that I missed part 1 of your video and didn't realize what kind of battery did you used and general idea of that video (battery restore process).
But what situation for a little bit sulfated battery which well maintained before? I'm not really sure it should be cycled that way, am I wrong?
Greetings, during the sulfation process, do the residues fall to the bottom of the battery or simply disappear by virtue of Epson Salt dissolves? If it falls to the bottom is it important to get rid of it for the best functionality of the battery itself?
Most of the lead sulfate is retained by the plates and stays in place, but some plate shedding does occur whenever a sulfated battery is recharged. All flooded batteries are designed with plates that have empty space at the bottom of the cells to allow this shedded material to collect without shorting out the active plates. Longer life batteries have more space than shorter life ones, but they all have this feature to some extent. For most people I take the stance that it's best to just let the shedded plate material settle to the bottom and not worry about it. Industrial battery restoration companies do flush that material out before selling them as used batteries but as this requires disposing of lead contaminated acid and reintroducing pure acid in the proper concentrations I just don't see it being practical for the typical individual.
Good lord, someone who actually checks the capacity afterward. What a concept.
I think most commercial desulfators go to about 60 v with a more or less constant voltage ramp at 13 khz or so to the normal charging voltage, and the pulse width for the spike looks like about 20% just guessing from what I remember of the waveform. I think the pulses are what break up the sulfation. I've seen actual picks of the sulfate removal from the plates and it looks quite good. Not many actual current load voltage time curves. I would like to see your battery maintenance vid, will search it. Thanks for spending time and actually DOING something. As an EE I appreciate it. The fact that you don't sound like a moron is quite nice, too. I think there are more brain dead videos on resurrecting bad batteries than about any other subject. I saw one goofy kid salt a battery that had been laying around forever, and claimed it was functional now because he could get teeny tiny sparks when shorting it on jumper cables.
Nice vid, thx.
I can tell you what would REALLY help battery packs is if the manufacturers would voltage monitor EVERY cell in the pack, and as soon as one hits it's minimum spec'd discharge voltage, SHUT OFF THE BATTERY by just opening the circuit. If you did it such that the shut off occurred at about 85% discharge I expect they would last MUCH longer. As soon as you back bias a cell you are degrading that cell at a VERY high rate, time wise. Dead is not great, especially for long lengths of time, but charging them to a negative voltage is MUCH MUCH worse.
> Dead is not great, especially for long lengths of time, but charging them to a negative voltage is MUCH MUCH worse.
Can you further elaborate on this to someone who isn't an EE?
@@HaploPrime It has to do with the chemistries involved in some types of batteries. In the case of lead acids (car starter batteries) leaving them at exceedingly low charge for any period of time causes sulfation on the lead plates, usually rendering at least one of the six cells virtually or totally inoperable.
In other chemistries, like NiCads, there are chemical processes when charge is reversed (happens when a cell in a pack loses capacity) and/or when the pack is discharged under load to extremely low voltages. In that case chemistry the cell is not designed to operate with occurrs, usually leading to irreversible damage, like some chemical bond occurring that is very hard to break. You can sometimes fix this to some extent, but the cell will probably never be the same. This is why cells are carefully matched for capacity for a given pack, but by definition there is ALWAYS a weakest soldier, and he will get felled first. If you don't deep discharge (quit discharging at the recommended pack voltage and recharge) this problem can be avoided, at least for the normal expected charge/discharge cycles, in that case about 1000, but I have had battery packs go FAR longer than that. Ni Cads can be stored almost indefinitely fully discharged, from my experience, but just one reverse charging will degrade a cell significantly, a few times will destroy it, and it will have virtually no capacity.
Li Ions I don't know all that much about, but IIRC they are not supposed to be discharged below 1.1 V for a given cell. I also understand that in a hybrid or electric car battery, for instance, charging them to about 85%, and not letting them discharge below about 15% of recommended, AND keeping the cooling fan filters changed or cleaned regularly will VERY MUCH extend the life.
You can probably get more/better info searching the web. I am certainly no battery expert, not even a little bit, but that is some of what I have found and/or understand to be true. Hopefully I got it right. NiCads and lead-acids I'm pretty solid on, some of the later technologies not as much. Hope this helps.
I am interested in a video on properly storing batteries. Glad your back making videos again.
keep them outside give it plenty of sunlight, rain and throw some salt on the terminals every now and then :)
Yes specifically deep cycle battery's that seldom get cycled
Thanks for this vid I learned alot.. Stay cool and keep making vids! Peace man
$25 or $30 may not be much to some here, but it can be expensive to people like me. Making my batteries last as long as possible is important to me. This video is very interesting, and I will try to obtain similar results as the author has done with much lesser equipment either bought "off the shelf" or built with my own two hands. To the author: is it possible to restore LiPo 18650 batteries? Can you show why or why not?
Thank you!
Lithium batteries are quite a bit different and cannot be recovered this way. There are different methods I have seen to partially recover them which I have not attempted, however I have not found any reputable sources that indicate they can be safely and effectively recovered once they have been damaged or aged. Unfortunately my current opinion is that bad lithium batteries should be recycled and replaced.
@@knurlgnar24 OK, I will follow your advice, they aren't all that expensive anyway to replace. Damaging them can be quite risky and I do not want to breathe lithium gas anyway. Thanks!
Probably a few drops of destilled water would have helped
for me personally, tomorrow was
I suspect one could make significant amounts of money simply using the information you're imparting in these excellent videos.
Wish I had known that. ;) There are industrial battery re-conditioners who use similar processes. They often also change out the electrolyte and such in some valuable batteries. A quick search for used forklift batteries should show who does that in your area. As shown here there's no magic to it and one can do this themselves with a little know-how.
Do batteries that have been desulfated re-sulfate faster than new batteries? I'm thinking of refurbishing my dead UPS battery, for fun but also to use it, but if it re-sulfates much faster than a new battery then I kinda don't wanna deal with it.
Sulfated batteries will always have some permanent damage as a result of the abuse they sustained but any used battery will have some level of damage just from being used. Previously sulfated batteries that are desulfated will not re-sulfate faster than any other battery. Some people claim the sulfate crystals are nucleation points for new sulfation but I've not seen that borne out in any real world applications I've come across. Just take care of them like you would any other battery and they'll give you good service.
@@knurlgnar24 Alright awesome thanks for your reply
What is tomorrow?
For desulfator tomorrow is 500 years.
I found it very useful for what I am doing at the moment . ! have watch both video twice , the second view gave a lot more informations about voltage and current that CAN flow in a battery and it`s effects on the resistance down in it .
I am testing a little solar system for only a room and does not want to invest high amount of money on the test . So il will rather find some old batteries and wake them up for all my test .
I have watch 100 of videos about reviving batteries ( Epsom salt/ baking soda / DC stick welding / and more ) I will probably mix some of theses and take the most of it to revive the battery closest to 100% .
Will probably empty one totally , neutralize all acid in there then rince to get all residue out of it then refill with epsom salt solution before making the desulfurization then rince it again and add new diluted acid before a normal charge .
the experience will demand some trial and error may be then figer out what is the best combination .
A car electrician has some 100 + batteries lying in his shop , so I will make a deal with him to get them . Hoping I may make some money from them while I can also make a power bank from some of them for my solar things .
Your video interested me because you did mot open the battery at all , But in that case the lack of fluid covering the plates will probably never give a long shot for the battery I think .But It worth the lesson . THANKS .I will give a like and subscribe to your chanel
If you get old car batteries make sure they have the proper water level before doing anything else. I wish you well in your project!
@@knurlgnar24 Yes of course . I already tested a small bat that had only 2V and after adding some distilled water it came to 4.3v without any charge and it has lied like this for 4 days and still hold the 4.3V .
Will put it on charge as soon I get a god weather ( dull rainy weather at the moment ) I will force 20V at 6A from solar panels .So I need sun lol.
Thanks for your reply
dude you have lots of knowledge about this stuff but I have no idea how you don't know that 12.8v and above means battery is 100% charged. those values you see on the battery is for float charging, doesn't indicate open circuit voltage.
Lead calcium batteries as well as pure lead will usually sit at a much higher voltage when fully charged. 12.8V does NOT mean fully charged in many cases. The 12.8V rule of thumb applies to lead antimony much better and is frequently stated simply so that people don't complain about their battery not being fully charged. My pure lead batteries sit at nearly 14V for months after being disconnected.
@@knurlgnar24 well I've had a lot of (and I mean a lot!) experience with lead type batteries and I've never seen any one of them that sits above 13v after resting fully charged. that small agm battery you're testing will rest at 13v at best when it's brand new. now I don't know if your "pure" lead acid batteries are any different (which I highly doubt) but there is no such thing as 14v resting OCV in LC batteries. it's maybe 13.2v at best. nothing more than that.
The battery shows 7.2AH but you tell that this battery is rated 2.5 AH. Please advice.
The useful Ah is different depending on the discharge rate. I showed this chart in part1 of the video.
A while back, I found a new in box APC UPS that had sitting for more than twenty years. Not knowing about any of this, I gave up on its batteries as hopelessly dead. They've probably long since been recycled. Now I wonder if they might have come around...
Even with good batteries, the UPS had a hard time coming back to life. At first the relays inside would buzz when the power button was pressed. Then it'd buzz and produce a painful sounding beep. Today it's fine. If I had to guess, I'd say it was capacitors reforming...
That's a good guess on the capacitors. I suspect if those batteries were new and never used they would have come back. No guarantees though!
When you desulfate a battery, and it works, ... how long does that buy you typically before its back at the same level of desulfation? I'm curious to ask this to figure out how long a desultation job is going to last and how often to do, particularly for large amp hour batteries. Thanks.
It depends on how healthy the battery is otherwise. Some last only a few months, others last for over a decade. If your battery was 'new' and just sat on a shelf then you'll likely get nearly the full lifespan out of it. If it was heavily used and then got sulfated then it's probably not going to last very long.
I also should mention that desulfation only helps sulfated batteries. This is obvious but often overlooked. If the battery has other issues then this procedure isn't going to help matters. Batteries age and degrade over time and use and nothing short of recycling them can bring them back to a useful state at that point. A good number of batteries go to the recycler that are simply sulfated though and that's a shame.
Thank you for the wonderful advise and help. @@knurlgnar24
Just hook up your welder at maximum amps for 5 min then let them cool off and repeat the process for 5 times easy
That's a 'dirty' way to do it, but it can work. It will NOT desulfate a battery by itself though as much more time is required. That procedure will only recover a battery just well enough for it to start taking a charge from a charger.
You're very good at what you do..
A great power bank you got 💪
rigol is not a bad brand albit cheaper than some others
You probably wont see this, but do all these 30v,5amp power supplies reduce the voltage as the battery charges like it did in your video when you set it at 2amps Or is that a feature of that power supply?
They way they work is that you set a 'voltage limit' and a 'current limit'. If the current the load is drawing is below the 'current limit' the power supply will increase the voltage it supplies in an attempt to increase the current until the 'voltage limit'. If the 'current limit' is exceeded the power supply will reduce the voltage it is supplying in an attempt to reduce the current all the way down to 0V if necessary until the 'current limit' is no longer violated. All lab supplies work this way.
@@knurlgnar24 thanks for response man your units $90 now bit there are others for less just didn't know if they would work the same
Thanks I purchased the 30v one you shared have trouble getting to stay on cv like you did in the video, sure it just a learning curve.
Saved one battery working on a second but it might not work one cell smoking and getting hot was hoping it would stop but no luck yet
I would like to know the internal resistance delta for each reconditioning cycle. What does your conductance tester say about it?
I was going to use my conductance meter but the video was getting so long I omitted it. Now I wish I hadn't.
@@knurlgnar24 Well, just post a final reading here. (24 hours after full charge)
Did you add any water to the big batteries? There is a way to add to the glass matts. Awesome informative video thanks.
I did not and yes water can be added to the glass matts. I don't recommend this for various reasons but if the cells are low on electrolyte then adding water will help.
@@knurlgnar24 I understand the not recommending it on here. I have several full river agms I've been using in a off grid solar system for about 8 years. I've brought back several Small inexpensive AGMs by either adding water to the matt or pulse charging but I don't have those awesome toys you have for checking the ah and such. I wonder if the cycle life the factory puts out is the actual lifespan or if by desulfating and adding electrolyte can get far more life from them. What you say to this question? Awesome videos BTW.
Very interesting experiences and explanations, lot of thanks!👍👍
...But what a pain to try (not always with success) to recover a sulfated battery with falled voltage ...and still all cells alive! . I think it can only run with a battery with still good lead plates, only sulfated by negligence. If one cell is dead or short, or all plates too much "tired", it's a permanent issue.
...It 's also the demonstration that lead technology becomes slowly out of order : necessary maximal charge permanently, progressive inevitable sulfatation, quick auto-discharge, maximal weight, and random lifetime.
I use now most of all Lifepo4 batteries , more expensive, but I build them easily : very stable, no sulfatation, very minimal auto-discharge, accept long half discharge without any issue...(it's the best way to keep them safe if not used) , very regular amps/output until complete acceptable discharge...and 10/12 years minimal lifetime. And if one cell is dead we simply change this cell if the IR of the others can accept the changing.
But it's another choice. Friendly, Michel
If you do the discharge test directly after the full charge it use some of the surface charge. It should sit about 2 hours before the discharge test so that surface charge dissipates.
The surface charge certainly contributed but it would only affect such a test by a few percent. Now years after this experiment when I look back it's pretty clear that battery temperature was the only significant factor. I was thinking of covering this in a new video at some point.
@@knurlgnar24 Was the temp factor good or bad?
I'm a little confused - on the battery case it says 7.2AH,yet you you were saying it was above capacity at 3.8AH (I think) on the last cycle. What have I missed?
Excellent video series by the way. Very informative. I've learnt a lot!
I was discharging it at the C/1 rate, and at that discharge rate the datasheet claimed the battery had about 3.5Ah. I would have gotten different results if I used a more appropriate C/10 discharge rate but I didn't want to wait a day per cycle.
@@knurlgnar24 Thanks - see, told you I'm learning a lot!
Best video. Thanks a lot
ABYC is making the neg yellow to eliminate potentially harmfully confusing the DC neg with the American AC live. They are both black on a lottov boats.
Yes, the wire color convention for DC is not consistent. Is Black hot or is Black neg/gnd? What is white? Black is ground/neg on battery systems so white must be positive/hot? No, wait, white is neutral. No? ???
@@knurlgnar24 - For our rings here in the U.K. we use brown = live, blue = neutral and green/yellow stripes for earth.. We used red = live, black = neutral (earth y/g) until a few years ago. That could lead to an interesting situation for a Brit emigrating to N.A. who decides to do any electrical work!
It's a lot more straight forward in Europe. Single-phase 230V, 3 phase 400V, unique colours, you guys are nuts. I'm over here; www.fieldlines.com/index.php/topic,150161.0.html
I do pretty similar work to yourself.
Kind regards,
Liam.
Please , can you tell me what is the cut-off current for battery charging : Ex : for lead acid 12V 7.2A
If you had a 100ah batt what voltage and amp would you use and if u could guess how long would you run it to being back capacity.
Well after hearing the price of those orange batteries, I would think that would be a good time to start looking at LiFePo4's as replacements.
Put a hot jacket on the battery while in everyday use?
I suppose that is one solution!
i watched both these and my iq went from 113 to 129, but it slowly started going back down when i unhooked...
It is quite easy to add water to this type of battery. Just have to take the top cover off. Perhaps you should try that with it, and also with your larger batteries.
I have gone through this process with a vented lead acid automotive battery and it now has 4 good cells (overcharged based on specific gravity) and two that are still low. The battery does read 12v on a meter, but drops to 10-11v with a load ('90s headlights). I want to try giving an equalization charge, which as I understand it would be charging at 15-16 volts and adding water as needed to the good cells to keep the plates covered. My "dumb" charger has a 10amp and a 30 amp setting. Will the 30amp setting be 15-16 volts, or just allow a higher amperage. On 10amp it shows ~13.5v on a meter while charging.
The cells probably shorted out, how old is the battery? What SG in bad cells?
As I understand things, it would show 12 volts if a cell is shorted. It's a pretty old battery but the vehicle was not used for several years. That's it's problem, discharged too long and sulfated. I don't have an exact SG figure, just 25% of charge.@@SinsBird
@@TomDay-dt7ne The open circuit voltage on a fully charged battery should be at least 12.6 volts sulfated or not. Charge at 2-3 amps for 2 hours a day, then let it sit until next charge. Before every charge measure and write down the specific gravity of each cell. Add 10 ml or 0.3 oz of water if specific gravity is higher than 1.27.
Correction - I meant to write "it would NOT show 12 volts if a cell is shorted." @@SinsBird
@@TomDay-dt7ne Yes, I understood that.
LOL! "...five months!!"
The process is the process.
Cool man. Tks for sharing
I am glad you did this ’exercise’ so I don’t have to figure this out. Learned a lot in both videos. Thanks!
I have 150 neglected sealed lead acid batteries that come from an Eaton UPS sold at auction. They're 12V 5.5Ah and I'd like to triage them into:
* Great
* Average
* Knackered
What tool should I use to triage them - fast (like 10 secs per battery) ?
Then I'd like to put them through recovery - "average" ones first, and "knackered" ones later on - but I want to do this with FOUR batteries at a time. I can't spend the hours doing them individually. Does anyone know what techniques and equipment to use so as to treat four simultaneously ?
Simple off-the-cuff thought: Connect a bunch of them up in parallel and force 0.5A through them (if 10 batteries 5A) for x hours depending on their condition. I'd do more than 4 at a time personally. Check the status with a DMM and conductance meter. Sort and continue. Sounds like a fun project.
Why did you stop the load test at 10.5v? With the 1v drop across the cables you should have discharged down to 8.5v which would have been 9.5v at the battery. Or am I missing something?
You're not missing anything. The situation is that discharging to 8.5V would have made very little difference vs 10.5V.
Cycling the battery obviously is important in the desulfation process, but I don't want to spend $500 for a DC load. Did you mention something about running a inverter with a load (light bulbs for instance) as a way to discharge the battery before recharging again. What would be considered a reliable, steady current load for this project? Thanks!
The ideal load level depends on the battery size but really your patience is the limit. Any load will work. Put it in your car and turn on the headlights, find a 12V appliance and connect it to the battery, etc. An electronic load is a luxury. I think everyone should have a cheap 12V to 120V inverter for emergency situations so that's what I'd suggest. Even a $20 one would charge your phone, run your laptop, run LED lights, let you watch TV with physical media, etc and be pretty useful for power outages, camping, traveling, etc.
LOL. The gaggle of alligator clips is a popular technique on my bench as well.
excellant instructional video. I really needed to watch this as 1. Im having issues with my 12V LA deep cycle marine batteries. probably more a load V charging problem, Im so bad with batteries they scream quietly when they see me coming. that aside I invested $100 in a genius 10 NOCO charger that has a battery “repair” mode, didnt seem to do anything. I get 12.4V on the battery but low SG readings. the batteries are only 6 months old and I have disharged them and put them away before recharging a few times so I either ruined them or theyre heavily sulfated. going to look into one of those lab power supplies and try the method you demonstrate here. it gives me hope and I like that. glad to see you back, hope you continue providing your version of most excellant content.
If your batteries are only 6 months old it is pretty much a guarantee that they will recover to near 100% with the method shown in this video. Irreparable sulfation damage take more time than that. I am not surprised that the NOCO charger didn't work - that isn't a negative comment on that particular charger, just a comment in general on the state of chargers today.
sitting that long should self discharge to something like 12.5 - 12.6 . Above 12.7 means your cells are starting to dry out and the acid is getting stronger concentration, time to open it up and squirt some distilled into the cells (5-10mL). Wait a couple days and recharge, and should settle after a day to something in the 12.6 to 12.7 range.
A battery that settles to 12.7V after a few days is a damaged battery (lead antimony chemistry excluded). Any good battery should stay above 13V for a long time - usually months. I do agree that this battery may have lost some water.
What does it mean when the voltage amperage doesn't decrease? I did add concerntrated sulphuric acid to it.
The Florida pool pump motor bearing repair guy approved ! that was good info
Thanks
How about using a dc welder?
Probably too much voltage for a 12V battery and voltage regulation isn't their strong suit, but depending on the welder it may work.
I was under the understanding that with an AGM, if the over voltage causes any bubbles in the mat, the gas will get trapped, arc and burn that cell and lose capacity?
I have seen that de-sulfating / maintenance charging flooded lead-acid it is very normal for bubbles, even during normal charging they out-gas.
AGM batteries bubble just like flooded lead acid except that the bubbles are slowed down by the fiberglass mesh. The idea is that they are slowed down enough so that the hydrogen and oxygen recombine into water before escaping out the top of the cell. Overcharging doesn't cause issues unique to AGM batteries aside from pressure which could deform or rupture the case if the bubbling is violent enough, or more likely simple dry-out due to electrolyte loss.
You earned another subscriber
Awesome! Now I have 2!
thanks . H.
Soon come 😂
Question, have you ever restored a battery? Doing your procedure. At the last. You make conflicting statements.
I have restored many of them, yes. I have an older series on a 1000ah battery bank that I restored years ago.
I have a Foxwell battery tester that I'm still learning how to use. Would that work on a battery this small?
I once tried recovering a couple (2 x 12V in series) of small SLA's from a standby application (automatic door back-up, on charge basically for 24/7 ) that were so bad that when you pulled any current out of them the voltage would just drop to near-zero. Open clamp voltage was about 11V. They didn't take a normal charge any more (no current).
Since I figured they must have boiled dry over the time they were installed, I opened the top cover plate, and removed the rubber caps (which actually serve as valves). I added distilled water (you can buy it easily in every supermarket for less than 1 euro for 1 liter) to each cell, while carefully noting if I started to see the water level rise above the absorbent material. Some cells required more, some less water. Excess water was removed by shaking the battery upside down in the kitchen sink (It doesn't become acid immediately. That takes a good amount of time, so don't worry)
Now that I knew about at least one parameter (water level) of the physical condition of each cell I went ahead and put them on the lab supply set to 20V/current limited to 500mA (small batteries). I put my bench multimeter (34401a) in series to monitor the charge current that started out below milliamps... The charge current rose to a couple of mA in 5 or so hours. I let it charge until I was satisfied and stopped charging. With a small incandescent light bulb I tested to see if the battery was able to deliver some current and discharged it.
I repeated this multiple times with some experimentation but safe limits set and I was able to recover both batteries, but unfortunately one of them had developed a bad cell that would always run hot both when charging and discharging. While the other good battery after charging and sitting for 24hrs still had over 12V on its terminals (over 2V per cell = good/fair IMHO), this one dropped to 10V, indicating one failed cell. While charging I was able to clearly hear the batteries "boil", which indicates that the acid is doing its thing and the added water is being converted.
During the recovery process I monitored the temperature "evenness" with a thermal camera to avoid problems.
After recovery I put the rubber valves in place and taped the cover plate loosely on, the one good battery was being kept as a hobby thing, not for critical applications anyway. When replacing the top cover plate I made sure not to block the vent path.
Needless to say this recovery didn't make any economic sense, but it was fun experimenting!
Nice work! Most of the time this sort of thing isn't really economical but on occasion it can be. There are businesses that specialize in recovering and reselling forklift batteries for example.
@@knurlgnar24 Yup. It was a good exercise. Later my neighbour put his old car battery on the side walk, a big ass one for a large Mercedes Diesel. I scaled up the charging and discharging with my huge lab supply (up to 20A) and a massive electronic load form my employer. I used jump starting cables to connect the battery to the load. They got hot. In fact, I was lucky to play it safe and be physically present and monitoring, because one of the terminals' isolation caught on fire (due to the high temp cause by the contact resistance) while testing at 80A(!). Unfortunately, that battery had a defective cell as well and after charging and sitting for 24hrs the clamp voltage dropped to below 12V by itself. I did get some cash out of it when recycling though, as it was very heavy!
Love to send you something from Xtx for your work. get a hold of us. Ask for Will
Would you follow similar steps to recovery larger 6 volt batteries that are rated over 100 amp/ hr. ?
Would you use a power supply with higher amperage?
Yes, this exact same method will work on a 6 volt battery. A power supply like this would be sufficient for a 100Ah battery and I have used them on my bank of 100Ah 12V batteries.
Great explanation. Can a gel bat. be desulfated in the same way, or can a gel bat. not sulfate? I have gel bat. with almost no capacity 1 year since new.
Do NOT use this high current method on a gel battery as it will cause permanent bubbles in the electrolyte which, hopefully, is not already your current problem. You can instead use a lower current for a much longer period of time and the general process will still work. It may take an order of magnitude longer though.
This video has made me a little less dumb. Thank you for spending the time to do this.
Shouldn't you have stopped at 8.5V, considering the 1V drop on the cables?
Yup. Didn't realize the large voltage drop until the test was started and as described in the video it doesn't really matter anyway.
What power supply is this?
The power supply I used in this video is a Korad KD3005D. It is a low budget unit but I've had good luck with the two I own after quite a bit of use.
Thanks Knurlgnar!!! That was an informative video, it was of great help.
So can i use regular charger and lab only for fast charge?