Reconditioning batteries

For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
Bart

"Piccolo Pete" wrote in message

For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.

In general, I think that every "battery repair" gizmo I have ever tried was snake oil. I gave up on the idea of rescuing bad batteries years ago, so there may be something out there I don't know about.
Try it. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, they are worth money as scrap.
Vaughn

"Vaughn Simon" wrote in message

"Piccolo Pete" wrote in message For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
In general, I think that every "battery repair" gizmo I have ever tried was snake oil. I gave up on the idea of rescuing bad batteries years ago, so there may be something out there I don't know about.
Try it. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, they are worth money as scrap.
Vaughn

Ouch... You don't make me feel warm and fuzzy here, Vaughn. Actually, I've heard of people in another group (photovoltaics?) say they have a schedule in which they overcharge their batteries to about 17 volts for a few hours on regular basis every few months. They say they have "happy batteries".
Yeah, I'll give it a try on the next good looking battery I find. Of course there could also be other things wrong with the batteries too. Big problem is, it would definately over tax my system to do such a thing so I would need to drag these 30-50 lb things to my sister's for grid power.
Bart

Piccolo Pete wrote:

"Vaughn Simon" wrote in message
"Piccolo Pete" wrote in message
For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
In general, I think that every "battery repair" gizmo I have ever tried was snake oil. I gave up on the idea of rescuing bad batteries years ago, so there may be something out there I don't know about.
Try it. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, they are worth money as scrap.
Vaughn
Ouch... You don't make me feel warm and fuzzy here, Vaughn. Actually, I've heard of people in another group (photovoltaics?) say they have a schedule in which they overcharge their batteries to about 17 volts for a few hours on regular basis every few months. They say they have "happy batteries".
Yeah, I'll give it a try on the next good looking battery I find. Of course there could also be other things wrong with the batteries too. Big problem is, it would definately over tax my system to do such a thing so I would need to drag these 30-50 lb things to my sister's for grid power.
Bart

I knew a guy who used to sell " reconditioned batteries", he used to swear that reversing the polarity when charging them was his secret ;`) I bought one off him and it lasted over a year before it died.

"Balanced View" wrote in message

Piccolo Pete wrote: "Vaughn Simon" wrote in message
"Piccolo Pete" wrote in message
For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
In general, I think that every "battery repair" gizmo I have ever tried was snake oil. I gave up on the idea of rescuing bad batteries years ago, so there may be something out there I don't know about.
Try it. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, they are worth money as scrap.
Vaughn
Ouch... You don't make me feel warm and fuzzy here, Vaughn. Actually, I've heard of people in another group (photovoltaics?) say they have a schedule in which they overcharge their batteries to about 17 volts for a few hours on regular basis every few months. They say they have "happy batteries".
Yeah, I'll give it a try on the next good looking battery I find. Of course there could also be other things wrong with the batteries too. Big problem is, it would definately over tax my system to do such a thing so I would need to drag these 30-50 lb things to my sister's for grid power.
Bart

I knew a guy who used to sell " reconditioned batteries", he used to swear that reversing the polarity when charging them was his secret ;`) I bought one off him and it lasted over a year before it died.

I'm not sure I would like to try that. But, I suppose free batteries are something to experiment with. Seems like it would make them explode, though.
Bart

The message from "Piccolo Pete" contains these words:

"Balanced View" wrote in message Piccolo Pete wrote:

====snip====

I knew a guy who used to sell " reconditioned batteries", he used to swear that reversing the polarity when charging them was his secret ;`) I bought one off him and it lasted over a year before it died.
I'm not sure I would like to try that. But, I suppose free batteries are something to experiment with. Seems like it would make them explode, though.

That's exactly the process used to form the plates on the very first commercially made lead acid rechargable wet cells. Pure lead plates were used for both electrodes only becoming an anode and a cathode by applying a charging current to form a porous red lead coating on the plate connected to the positive side of the charger with the negative remaining as pure lead.
The initial capacity was quite low due to the negative allowing only a small part of the lead plate to interact with the electrolyte. By discharging and then reverse charging to convert the sulphated positive plate back to pure lead whilst forming a porous red lead coating on what was originally the negative plate, more of the lead was able to interact with the electrolyte and the capacity increased.
The process was repeated several times until pretty well both plates had become sufficiently porous enough to approach a maximum practical capacity.
Nowadays, the cathodes are manufactured in a seperate process which effectively creates a "dry charged" cell which, when filled with electrolyte, is in an already charged state. Unfortunately, the mechanical robustness of preformed anodes and cathodes is no match for the older electrically converted 'Plante' formed lead acid cell.
-- Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying. The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:10:30 -0400, "Piccolo Pete" wrote:

For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
Bart

Depending on what shape they are in, you might be able to improve them by a controlled overcharge, or possibly with a desulfator. Just be careful to monitor the water level and the temperatures during this process. If there is no mfg recommendation, my advice would be to make sure the cell temperatures stay below about 110°F or so.
Some have found that several weeks of "equalization" might be required though.
But, if you are going to just add these batteries to your existing system, you should be aware that mixing batteries is not generally recommended. You'll probably wind up with a bank that reflects the worst cell condition.
--ron

"Johnny B Good" wrote in message

The message <seGdneYEgcojf_PVnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d@comcast.com from "Piccolo Pete" contains these words:
"Balanced View" wrote in message Piccolo Pete wrote:
====snip====
I knew a guy who used to sell " reconditioned batteries", he used to swear that reversing the polarity when charging them was his secret ;`) I bought one off him and it lasted over a year before it died.
I'm not sure I would like to try that. But, I suppose free batteries are something to experiment with. Seems like it would make them explode, though.
That's exactly the process used to form the plates on the very first commercially made lead acid rechargable wet cells. Pure lead plates were used for both electrodes only becoming an anode and a cathode by applying a charging current to form a porous red lead coating on the plate connected to the positive side of the charger with the negative remaining as pure lead.
The initial capacity was quite low due to the negative allowing only a small part of the lead plate to interact with the electrolyte. By discharging and then reverse charging to convert the sulphated positive plate back to pure lead whilst forming a porous red lead coating on what was originally the negative plate, more of the lead was able to interact with the electrolyte and the capacity increased.
The process was repeated several times until pretty well both plates had become sufficiently porous enough to approach a maximum practical capacity.
Nowadays, the cathodes are manufactured in a seperate process which effectively creates a "dry charged" cell which, when filled with electrolyte, is in an already charged state. Unfortunately, the mechanical robustness of preformed anodes and cathodes is no match for the older electrically converted 'Plante' formed lead acid cell.
-- Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying. The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

So I'm not sure what you're saying here. Sounds like the really old batteries could deal with their polarities being reversed but the new ones can't. By the way, I already blew up one charger by accidently reversing polarity. I don't want to blow another one.
Bart

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:10:30 -0400, "Piccolo Pete" wrote:
But, if you are going to just add these batteries to your existing system, you should be aware that mixing batteries is not generally recommended. You'll probably wind up with a bank that reflects the worst cell condition.
--ron

Certainly not. I would switch the line when one bank is low.
Bart

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 14:10:30 -0400, "Piccolo Pete" wrote:
For some reason, most likely laziness, I find a lot of used deep cycle batteries in parking lots and such. My charger has a "desulfate" setting on it to recondition wet cells. If I find a wet cell that doesn't look like it's been through the wringer, do you think it is possible I might be able to recondition it and get some use out of it? When my system is running at peak, I have more power than my regular house batteries can handle and I was just wondering if this might be a cheap way to get more back up power.
Bart
Depending on what shape they are in, you might be able to improve them by a controlled overcharge, or possibly with a desulfator. Just be careful to monitor the water level and the temperatures during this process. If there is no mfg recommendation, my advice would be to make sure the cell temperatures stay below about 110°F or so.
Some have found that several weeks of "equalization" might be required though.
But, if you are going to just add these batteries to your existing system, you should be aware that mixing batteries is not generally recommended. You'll probably wind up with a bank that reflects the worst cell condition.
--ron

I have had *some* luck with the Desulfate setting on my charger, but it's not a miracle worker or anything. I suggest running the Desulfate four or five times before trying the Equalize setting. The Desuflate uses little power so it won't overtax your system (probably). 17 volts was mentioned--I think that is way too high. It should probaly be more like 15.5 volts for equalization. If your battery continues to draw high current after being charged for a long period of time and it feels too warm my experience says it's wasted and you would just be wasting a lot of power trying to restore it. Ron says 110F. Maybe stick a thermometer in the cells?
I think the Desuflate setting can be helpful if used occasionally on batteries that otheriwise are in good condition. Equalization should be done as routine maintenance on good batteries every four-six weeks or so.
Another trick I have used with a battery with a couple of weak cells is to remove and save the electrolyte from the good cells, remove some electrolyte from bad cells, put the good electrolyte in the bad cells and distilled water in the good cells in an attempt to get the cells more even. It works sometimes. You don't end up with a good battery but you might end up with one that is still usable to some extent.

The message from "Piccolo Pete" contains these words:
====snip====

So I'm not sure what you're saying here. Sounds like the really old batteries could deal with their polarities being reversed but the new ones can't. By the way, I already blew up one charger by accidently reversing polarity. I don't want to blow another one.

The preformed plates type of battery can be reverse charged but you need to totally flatten them first and use some sort of current limiting at the start of the reverse charge cycle since you can't totally flatten a battery within the 24 hour grace time allowed before the lead sulphate starts to crystalise into a form that no amount of charging will be able to completely reverse.
This sort of treatment should only be resorted to when all else fails.
In practce, a lead acid battery can tolerate having one or more of its cells reverse charged provided the whole battery isn't left in the resultant 'flattened' state for very long (usual advice is to put it on charge within 24 hours of being fully discharged to avoid significant permanent damage).
Batteries assembled with other forms of secondary cell such as NiCads and NiMH types cannot tolerate such abuse where any such reverse charging would permanently reduce their AH capacity.
Equipment designed to be powered by such batteries have battery voltage monitoring circuitry to disconnect/switch off once the per cell voltage gets down to around 1 volt in order to avoid this harmful condition (lowest capacity cell being reverse charged by the discharge current from the rest of the battery pack).
The problem of reverse charge protection increases as more and more cells are used to create higher battery voltages. Equipment powered from a 2 cell battery pack (eg. a digital camera) often use the battery voltage monitoring primarily to trigger a controlled shutdown to protect the equipment rather than for the sake of the battery pack's health. It just so happens (rather neatly) that such equipment protection happens to save the battery pack as well.
The ideal "battery" would consist of just one cell since this avoids the problem altogether. The problem with this ideal is that very little equipment can be directly powered from 1.2v and the losses in even the most optimised of switching converters required to generate the higher voltages required become unacceptable when more than a watt or two is required.
The problem is eased somewhat when a 2 cell pack can be used. At a 2 volt end point, it's virtually impossible to reverse charge a cell and the two cell battery pack represents an optimum battery cell count size for a lot of portable equipment which can be designed to work off a 2.4 volt supply.
Considering the reverse charge issue with NiCad and NiMH batteries, there's a lot to be said for the good old fashioned lead acid battery, especially when 12 or more volts at high power levels are required. You just have to make sure you're using the right type of lead acid battery for the type of service they need to provide (and the appropriate care and attention).
HTH
-- Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying. The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

Piccolo Pete wrote:

"Johnny B Good" wrote in message
The message <seGdneYEgcojf_PVnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d@comcast.com from "Piccolo Pete" contains these words:

"Balanced View" wrote in message
Piccolo Pete wrote:
====snip====
I knew a guy who used to sell " reconditioned batteries", he used to swear that reversing the polarity when charging them was his secret ;`) I bought one off him and it lasted over a year before it died.
I'm not sure I would like to try that. But, I suppose free batteries are something to experiment with. Seems like it would make them explode, though.
That's exactly the process used to form the plates on the very first commercially made lead acid rechargable wet cells. Pure lead plates were used for both electrodes only becoming an anode and a cathode by applying a charging current to form a porous red lead coating on the plate connected to the positive side of the charger with the negative remaining as pure lead.
The initial capacity was quite low due to the negative allowing only a small part of the lead plate to interact with the electrolyte. By discharging and then reverse charging to convert the sulphated positive plate back to pure lead whilst forming a porous red lead coating on what was originally the negative plate, more of the lead was able to interact with the electrolyte and the capacity increased.
The process was repeated several times until pretty well both plates had become sufficiently porous enough to approach a maximum practical capacity.
Nowadays, the cathodes are manufactured in a seperate process which effectively creates a "dry charged" cell which, when filled with electrolyte, is in an already charged state. Unfortunately, the mechanical robustness of preformed anodes and cathodes is no match for the older electrically converted 'Plante' formed lead acid cell.
-- Regards, John.
Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying. The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here. Sounds like the really old batteries could deal with their polarities being reversed but the new ones can't. By the way, I already blew up one charger by accidently reversing polarity. I don't want to blow another one.
Bart

If the battery is "dead", as in no charge, how can it blow up?

On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 09:32:43 -0700, "Ulysses" wrote:

Ron says 110F. Maybe stick a thermometer in the cells?

I use one of those thermometers that you "aim" at the target. Some have a built-in laser for aiming. So I'm really reading the outside of the case and not the electrolyte itself.
Absent a mfg recommendation, I'm recommending 110°F because Surrette, which used to recommend 125°F is now recommending 115°F. --ron

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote in message

On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 09:32:43 -0700, "Ulysses" <eatmyspam@spamola.com/ wrote:
Ron says 110F. Maybe stick a thermometer in the cells?
I use one of those thermometers that you "aim" at the target. Some have a built-in laser for aiming. So I'm really reading the outside of the case and not the electrolyte itself.
Absent a mfg recommendation, I'm recommending 110°F because Surrette, which used to recommend 125°F is now recommending 115°F. --ron

Yeah, those laser thermometers are pretty neat. I gotta get one of them some day.

In article , "Piccolo Pete" wrote:

By the way, I already blew up one charger by accidently reversing polarity. I don't want to blow another one.

Put a headlight bulb in series until the current drops off ;)
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