waking the dead

[aln]

So I at first put a 2 amp load but it appeared that I may have had a surface charge on the battery as it went down fast, so I put a half amp load and ran it until 06:30 this morning, 10 hours. The battery was sitting at 9.59 volts and the light was drawing less than 200 mA. Not so wonderfully successful as I claimed above, so I am charging again.

[bigmotherwhale]

drain the battery to zero, tie the end with wire leave overnight, and using a constant current charger back charge the battery at a very low ma level you will see the battery resistance drop, dont do it for to long, like is shown on bedini youtube video, then charge it back up using constant current do it quite slowly, i have had good sucess bringing dead batteries back like this, however if you can avoid doing it then don't, i imagine all sorts of debris being taken off the plates.
i use a high performance Ni cad / Ni mh charger for this purpose it has V and A on the display.
if you've got a stubborn battery or even an internal short or a cell that refuses to charge, this does work.

[aln]

charged it up slow to 15.54v and then discharged it at 2 amps to 7.87v. Took about 8 hours. It was a 160 cca I think, so roughly an 8 ah, it will do that just fine. Aln

[Patrikas]

Hi Alan, BMW
just found this thread tonight , tho i have followed many of your other threads on diffrent things , i built my ssg wheel a few months ago and began the looking and learning curve on trying to restore batterys , so far all i have just been running in mode 1 , setup is teslagenx 8 trans board with coil .

I couldnt even get my wheel to run for 3 weeks or so because of beginner mistakes and lack of understanding and finally in desperation went to you tube and built a single trans board with a to 35 tran from an old tv and finally got it to run workin out where i went wrong with the 8 tranny board setup

I started with 5 Gill g-35 aircraft batterys and 3 garden batterys and have had some success restoring 3 of the aircraft batts to good standing voltages, the other 2 are still in progress.....i have a garden batt that started out around 3 volts that had been sitting in the shed for 3 or 4 years that i have been able push to 15.2-15.4 volts on the wheel after many cycles but it really just seems like a surface charge it stands around 12.57 but will not turn over a garden tractor...i noticed in 1 cell the acid is dirty looking kinda murky "bubbles more when shorted as well ", i guess from contamination interior of the battery and perhaps from exterior as well ......i drained the cell and replaced it with electrolite from other batterys that was clear and tried it again and still seems just to have a surface charge ..no cranking amps it seems .

i was wondering if there is any way that the acid in the electrolite could go bad or get weak from the constant topping through cycling .if you have any thoughts on this please share them........

i have a few batts that are shorted and i think i will try aln,s method and just convert them to alum.........cheers

[aln]

Patrikas,
Hello, Does it freeze where you live? If so are your batteries bulged out on the ends? If so you may have a short that can not be fixed. Also, I put a lot of effort in the grey interstate battery in the video above with no success, it would charge up to 15 volts but internally had a short as it would drain itself. Some can not be fixed is what I am trying to say. As BMW has mentioned trying to completely discharge it can sometimes work. As far as you question about the electrolyte getting weak; that is anther way of saying there is hard sulfate on the plates or that it has been charged many times with high current and little pieces of lead sulfate fell to the bottom of cells and changed the chemical balance. Excessive bubbles in a cell indicate that cell is shorted internally. If it is just little pieces of lead sulfate a few thorough rinsing's will fix it. If plates are touching you will not fix the cell unless you cut the battery apart and manually fix it. To me, that would just go to the scrap yard. 2 excellent video resources are "Battery Secrets" and "Battery Rejuvenation" by Peter L. and Aaron M. Where safety glasses and old clothes Aln

You could put a 12 car bulb on the batt and watch the voltage for an hour. If it drops to 10v you have a bad cell. Also, alum batteries aren't good in the cold. They are not good starting batteries as their voltages are lower per cell. that red and black one in the video above is mixed with H2SO4 and Alum, it has a standing voltage of 12.24, which would be considered a dead battery if it were just a lead acid.

[Patrikas]

Aln , thanx for the reply and info ,
yep it freezez here ....."canada".lol.......ive read and watched most of what jb has shared on batts both LA and Alum......didnt find out till a short while ago that Alum isnt great in the cold ...but it got me thinking .....if you had you bank of Alum Batts out in the workshop or where there is no constant heat perhaps an enclosed shelf which was insulated well and could be closed with a couple of led globes in it might keep it a reasonable temp for tha batts.....if they were lead acid im sure it would have to be vented in some way for safety.;cheers

[Billy]

Here is my question about the lead alum battery's. Ok since we remove the acid, rinse, and dry the battery. Then refill with distilled water and alum. The battery should be none toxic except fir the lead. But we will never touch the lead so that is fine. Now that being said. With cold weather wouldn't We be able to move the battery's inside because now there shouldn't be any toxic off gassing since the acid is gone. Just a thought could be wrong but it smokes spence to me.

[aln]

...With cold weather wouldn't We be able to move the battery's inside...

That's what I did