Lead Acid batteries, can they be revived?

[paulharvey]

I currently have 4 or 5 car and tractor batteries that won't hold a real charge anymore. Two where left in trucks that didn't get ran, and when completely dead, they will jump off fine, but no amount of charging brings them up to enough to start it back up. One is on the tractor, it will hold a charge for a bit, but you better get it started on the first try, cause a second try means jumper cables. I also have a large Cat battery from a dozer that doesn't hold a charge either.

I've heard dozens of myths/tricks/snake oil to bring them back, including using an Arc welder to jolt them. Does that work? On AC or DC? What amps? Will I blow my self up, lol.

Is there a cheap way to revive them, not to 100% I know, but to stretch some life out of them. These are all starter battery's, but my step dad has two or three marine trolling motor batteries that are bad as well. Would they work


I have a HF trickle charger but it's a pain dragging a cord 100 ft to where you need it, and then I end up unplugging it when I need the cord. I also have an old box battery charger, but I put tester on it and it's putting out 12.4V, but varies up to 14V and as low as 11V... would that damage a battery or just not effectively charge it?

 

[ultrarunner]

I bought a pulse charger/maintainer and had some success.

 

[grsthegreat]

ive heard of these methods also, but personally id take the $5/battery from the recyclers, add it times x number of batteries and buy a new one hehe

i even have a pamplet telling me how to reverse ion buildup in 18 volt tool batteries, but hjave never actually tried it. I was going to, until Dewalt offered a great deal thru my wholesale house...turn in a completer set of cordless tools (dead) and receive a 20 volt LI set of drill and imp[act driver, 2 batteries and charger for $100.00


i jumped at it. man, i love that set.

 

[art]

Normally after a battery is about 4 to 5 years old they are to weak to use. Problem is the amount of use they might give you even by adding fresh acid to open the plates back up is only a temporary thing.

 

[GManBart]

i even have a pamplet telling me how to reverse ion buildup in 18 volt tool batteries, but hjave never actually tried it. I was going to, until Dewalt offered a great deal thru my wholesale house...turn in a completer set of cordless tools (dead) and receive a 20 volt LI set of drill and imp[act driver, 2 batteries and charger for $100.00


i jumped at it. man, i love that set.

Wow, that was a great deal! I have the same set and with the hammer drill and impact driver, and they are really nice. People don't believe it, but you can turn the head off smaller bolts if you're not careful!

 

[GManBart]

Look into battery desulfators....they don't always work, but it sounds like some folks have decent success with them (never tried one myself, but I'm looking into them).

 

[Gary Fowler]

Look into battery desolators....they don't always work, but it sounds like some folks have decent success with them (never tried one myself, but I'm looking into them).

Did you mean de-sulfator?Spell check seems to not be smart enough to know what a desulfator is.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have heard of Epsom salt being added to an old battery to recondition it also but I don't have any details about how that is done. I usually just buy a new one when they start getting weak or die completely.

 

[GManBart]

Did you mean de-sulfator?Spell check seems to not be smart enough to know what a desulfator is.

Ack, you're right....fixed it. Thx

 

[Depmandog]

Look into battery desolators....they don't always work, but it sounds like some folks have decent success with them (never tried one myself, but I'm looking into them).

I found one called DaPimp Battery Desulfator.

http://makezine.com/2013/03/27/how-to-recover-a-sealed-lead-acid-battery/

I would recommend a large dose of caution as one of the reviewers posted this:

Dax says:
October 14th, 2013 at 4:02 am
Remember that the DaPimp offers no isolation from mains, so it’s actually very dangerous to use. If the battery leads should come disconnected, or if the battery has an internal break, you get high voltage with enough amperage to kill on the wires and the device may catch fire because the voltage is fed back through a pair of low wattage resistors that will start to overheat.

Following the circuit diagram, the device basically takes raw mains power, limits the maximum current with a bunch of capacitors that act as impendance to the AC (they don’t contribute to any sort of high-current pulse), and then puts the AC through a diode bridge to get pulsating DC current out. The less current the battery draws, the higher the circuit lets the voltage rise which makes the circuit draw more current and operate like a rudimentary constant-current source, forcing about 1 amps through the battery whether it wants it or not.

The rest of the circuit simply implements a voltage meter.

The pulsating DC doesn’t really work as advertised. Generally speaking, the sulfate deposits formed on the battery electrodes need a higher than normal voltage to dissolve back, and the capacitive coupling allows the charging voltage to rise to accomplish this, but as small spots of sulfation are removed, the battery’s internal resistance drops and so the charging voltage drops. So this device won’t exactly revive your battery to full health, but it’s better than nothing.

Proper desulfators use very fast very high current pulses to drive the voltage at the plates up and break down the deposits while keeping the average charging current low so the battery won’t boil over or develop hydrogen bubbles.

Using it on NiCad is inadvisable because NiCad batteries behave opposite to lead acid – they develop metal whiskers that decrease the internal resistance by shorting the electrode material, so the device doesn’t really do anything for NiCads, except perhaps overcharge and overheat them. For smaller NiCad batteries, the forced current may burn some of the whiskers away to allow the battery to operate again, but the heat will damage the battery otherwise.

NiMH batteries have no known mechanism to revive so the device is useless for that, and using it on lithium batteries is a receipe for disaster because lithium batteries are very sensitive to overvoltage and can burst into flame if so treated.

Dax says:
October 14th, 2013 at 4:25 am
Also, one of the battery terminals will always carry mains voltage when the device is operating. Depending on which way tha AC plug is in, you get either a 1.5 Amp fuse and a diode, or a capacitor and a diode between you and the grid if you touch the wrong terminal. The capacitor or the fuse will not limit the current enough, nor will they protect you because the body won’t pass enough current to burn the fuse.

That’s why TOUCHING THE BATTERY TERMINALS IS DEADLY.

I’m a little surprised that they still allow this device to be sold.