When do you replace a battery?

[chopped]

JD sounds interesting. I wonder the cost of the acid and its avalibility.Im looking forward to what others say but it seems as though it would work..

 

[BobRip]

I have wondered a few times if it was possible to renew a sulphated 12 volt battery by removing the caps and draining the acid and water mix, then using a pressure washer to inject a stream of water to maybe remove and flush out deposits, rinsing and rinsing, and then refilling with the proper acid/water mix and charging?

I have heard of people disassembling batteries and fixing them. It sounds a little dangerous and a lot of work. I dn't think the resulting battery would be as good as new or even close. You would probable loose some lead. Just guessing here.

 

[ultrarunner]

When I walked to school I would pass a little shop that rebuilt batteries...

He would take them apart to see the condition of the plates... if they still had life, he cleaned them up and the case... the case bottoms would always have cast of lead.

Assemble them back together and seal the rubber case with tar.

The old exide battery plant his had ongoing soil contamination for almost as long as I have been around... when they closed the plant the neighbors persuaded the city to make it a park with youth center.

 

[JDgreen227]

When I walked to school I would pass a little shop that rebuilt batteries...

He would take them apart to see the condition of the plates... if they still had life, he cleaned them up and the case... the case bottoms would always have cast of lead.

Assemble them back together and seal the rubber case with tar.

The old exide battery plant his had ongoing soil contamination for almost as long as I have been around... when they closed the plant the neighbors persuaded the city to make it a park with youth center.

That seems very risky....working with that amount of lead every day.

 

[ultrarunner]

That seems very risky....working with that amount of lead every day.

He was an old guy... one-man shop and a helper.

One day the business had a out of business sign and not too long after that, the old block building was gone.

He wore a long black rubber apron, rubber gloves and a face shield... no mask that I remember... all the floors and benches were timber...

Interesting little fellow... did a lot of Fork Lift Batteries... he said not much money in automotive anymore... everyone wants maintenance free now...

One thing I found interesting was he had two automotive batteries that were looked the same... one had almost nothing inside and the other about double... also the cheap one had some type of wood or fiber separators... might have been something else... he said it was made to sell and the other to last.

A lot of batteries could be rejuvenated by simply cleaning the inside and straining the electrolyte through a filter and putting it back in...

 

[EE_Bota]

I have wondered a few times if it was possible to renew a sulphated 12 volt battery by removing the caps and draining the acid and water mix, then using a pressure washer to inject a stream of water to maybe remove and flush out deposits, rinsing and rinsing, and then refilling with the proper acid/water mix and charging?

I don't think that would work out well, based on some of the technology some batteries use to try to defeat the problem. Much of the material will be within the pores of the the lead sponge, not on the surface, since surface area is very important.

Look at the battery technology from Firefly. If they have not taken down the graphics on it, you will likely find them here.

Technology Overview - fireflyenergy.com

 

[BobRip]

I don't think that would work out well, based on some of the technology some batteries use to try to defeat the problem. Much of the material will be within the pores of the the lead sponge, not on the surface, since surface area is very important.

Look at the battery technology from Firefly. If they have not taken down the graphics on it, you will likely find them here.

Technology Overview - fireflyenergy.com

That is certainly an improved battery.

 

[psdx]

Used to be you were supposed to have one CCA per cubic inch of engine displacement, minimum. And yet today...my 364 cubic inch GMC has a battery with 770 CCA, and the wife's Saturn has 182 cubic inches and a battery with 650 CCA. Makes me wonder why they put such a huge battery in the Saturn when it doesn't require all that CCA.

One change is that the compression on these engines have gotten higher since that rule of thumb came along. Presumably this requires more starter hp to spin the engine, and subsequently more current draw when the starter is operating. This would affect the reserve capacity requirement. I certainly can't say how much this contributes to the change referenced above, but it will be a piece of the equation.

 

[jonyyuma]

JD sounds interesting. I wonder the cost of the acid and its avalibility.Im looking forward to what others say but it seems as though it would work..

I did some work years a go in a battery re-build shop, they stood by them a year.....I then took apart a Diehard a couple years old and cleaned it...Everything has to be perfect, the lead sulfate had set up like putty{so much for washing it out} no way to apply pressure on it? trying to reseal the top was tedious, ,so I kept it in a plastic battery box for a boat. Electrolite is not cheap, bought it at parts supply...For sure a waste of time.. and resources, plus exposure to lead to my body.

 

[crazyal]

So I have an update on my battery. First a little background. The battery in question is a 1400CCA 8D Interstate Workoholic. I have it in a gas powered International Loadstar 1700 2 1/2 ton 4x4 dump truck. The truck has air brakes so when turning the engine over it's also compressing air. Two years ago I bought an old fire truck (same make and model but the engine was larger and in great shape) and used the two to make the truck more reliable. I use the truck mainly for plowing my driveway, it has a 10' plow with a Western electrically powered (starter motor) hydraulic pump.

The truck sits for quite some time, mainly in the summer. This fall it was slow to turn over but I did get it to start in about 50 degree weather. As winter set in the battery would turn the motor over for a few seconds pretty strongly but then quickly (seconds die). Every time I needed it I would jump it off of my Tundra, it would quickly start. Once started and running it would show the alternator charging the battery but even after a half hour if I stalled it there's no way the battery would start the truck.

What finally pushed the issue was when I stalled it half way down the ROW and was blocking the driveway. I was lucky and was able to roll backwards fast enough to bump start it but since I do plow down to the main road where I sometimes drive on it and stalling on a state road with a truck that big and having to walk back up (uphill) 3/4 of a mile to get my truck to jump start it wouldn't be a good thing.

So after the BatteryMINDer work so well on the other battery (one of two that were in the firetruck when I got it) I put it on the larger battery. Before charging it I put my SpeedCharger on it and it said 20% charged and 12.1 volts. So I left the BM charging it set to 8 amps for 5 days and just checked it this afternoon. Now it's reading 13.4v and 100% charged. I couldn't find my battery load tester so I used some cheap jumper cables and shorted the other end with a piece of 12 gauge copper wire for about 15 seconds (enough to get the wire very hot), the voltage dropped to 13.3v and went right back to 13.4v and still reads 100%.

Tomorrow I'll put it back in the dump truck and see how well it works. I'll also put the other battery in the passenger's side of the truck with jumper cables just in case. I'm still not ready to say the BatteryMINDer works but I'm starting to think that I should put it on some of the other older batteries I have, better safe than sorry.