restoring depleted 12 volt battery

[jonyyuma]

hi, My son had a little bad luck with his tractor. It is a 250 belurus, and someone left the switch on..It depleted his 12 volt battery for about a month???. Now his 10 amp 12 volt charger has not brought it back up, in two days??. Someone here had posted about flashing a battery, by reverse polarity on a charger. Now to help him out, I might try this at home outside and with a long power cord to the charger?Would you be so kind as to repeat the procedure? i cannot reference the information in the forums???I assure you I have written many times about the battery dynamic ruptures and failures, that I have noted in the past on large gen-set batterys. ??I do have a Sears 30 amp and 40 amp charger at the house...If I don't find out, then i will just try a heavy charge schedule? THX> JY.

 

[jonyyuma]

I didn't memtion that the battery in question is two years old, so I doubt it is suphated out yet..

 

[bcp]

Many modern automatic chargers will not charge a dead battery. Some can be switched to manual and will then charge it.

Try hooking jumper cables to put some charge into it, then connect the battery charger.

Or jump-start the tractor to start it charging.

Bruce

 

[RPW]

I wouldn't reverse polarity the battery but you will need a much bigger charger. You'll need something in the neighborhood of a 200amp. Here's how I would do it. In a well ventilated area remove the caps from the battery (assuming it has them). Make sure the plates are covered with distilled water only. Setup charger on max. Let charge for about 10 min. (you'll see bubbles in each cell). Remove charger and check voltage. Hopefully you'll be around 10+. Continue charging at about a 25 to 50 amp rate for about 30 min. Repeat voltage test and hopefully you'll see about 12+ volts. Continue with about 10 to 15 amps for about 1 hour. Check voltage should be about 13+. Whatever the reading let battery stand for about 1 hour and check voltage again. If below 12 volts replace battery.

Also while doing this don't have a battery on staight concrete. Depending on the battery case it "could" discharge though the concrete.

Good luck and remember batteries under this high of charge "can" explode. If it's a mainenance free battery it might be cheaper and safer to just replace it.

 

[jonyyuma]

Thanks guys. the tractor is way down in Miss. and not available, they just pulled it from the big bog where it was stuck. Hence the battery switch being on ..My charger says 200 amps starting assist..40 amp charge....It is the large wheeled type. I'm waiting on him to bring me the battery for further attempts..Yeap, I will be doing the charging out in the yard and it on a box...I have a piece of plexiglass for a spill shield... I do not like battery explosions .. Plus i have experience with electrolite{Acid} from the past. I always let a battery sit after a charge..

 

[charlz]

If the battery got below 10v its life has been severely shortened if it has not outright been damaged. As already noted most 'automatic' chargers won't charge a deeply discharged battery. Manual charger might be the best option unless you need to use the tractor for several hours then jump it and let the tractor give it a charge. If you can bring it up to around 12v the automatic charger should take it from there. If you can't bring it up to about 12v then most likely it has a dead cell. Sometimes you can 'fake out' the automatic charger by hooking up the charger to the drained battery and then hooking up another good battery in parallel. The charger will see the voltage from the good battery and start the charge cycle, and then you disconnect the good battery. This might not work if the drained battery can't build voltage fast enough as the automatic charger will check the battery voltage every so often and if it is too low it assumes a defective battery and stops charging.

 

[ray66v]

I didn't memtion that the battery in question is two years old, so I doubt it is suphated out yet..

If it went completely dead more than once, and was not being used often enough, it could be.

Unless it has an internal short, or no water in it, I don't know what else could be wrong with it, at 2 years old.

I have a charger with a desulphating cycle on it, and it has brought back batteries I have had sitting around here, that I gave up on years ago.

 

[murphy1244]

Does the battery cost sooo much that you can't just replace it ?? I can't see going to all this trouble and possible dangerous mission your on.

 

[Cat_Driver]

There are plenty of sites and even your tube that tell you how to do it. IT CAN BE DONE, I just brought back 4 batteries that were not used for years and one only had 7 volts on it.

One trick is to use a charged battery connect pos. to pos. neg. to neg. then charge.

Some have used rock salt.

The battery in my Truck was gone and it's now holding 14.7 volts, the CAT battery was gone on the skid steer it's not at 14 volts. I had to drill out the ( maintenance free caps ) on the battery to give me access to put water in it and some battery Equalizer.

Battery Equaliser Doubles Battery Life - for Auto, Boat, Golf Cart, Motorcycle, Solar, Truck, RV, Forklift, Floor Cleaner and all Lead Acid Batteries

I used this stuff on a $4,000 fork lift batter that is now 25 years old.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuZhf2J-NIg]Battery Reconditioning -- All Steps in 1 by Walt Barrett - YouTube[/ame]

 

[greasemonkeyok]

I have had success using the method Charlz suggests on a battery that was down to 0 v.:thumbsup: It was fairly new, so I wasn't about to just dump it.