Battery desulfator science part 1 - Introduction

[@stclairstclair]

When I was a young GM mechanic we were replacing batteries in new cars that sat on the lot, Soon after GM published a service bulletin telling us to stop replacing new batteries and to start charging them with very high amperage to get them to wake up and except a charge.

[@ahtoh1]

Can you do updated video? Perhaps in 3 years your knowledge has been updated

[@BasementBen]

This must be the most scientific approach I've seen yet, excellent job! I was able to follow your whole project with good understanding, I'm looking forward to see the results of your customized circuit!

[@FFcossag]

+BasementBen I'm glad to hear it, I hope the findings of the experiment are going to be as easy to follow, once all seven groups are tested.

[@MrKaruva]

I have spent months studying fixing a car battery and found an awesome resource at Magic Mender Wizard (check it out on google)

[@gabrielamarquezmoreno3037]

I agree very good job

[@electroumit]

Desulfator? Realy? Sulfation can be avoided if the battery is fully recharged immediately after a discharge cycle. There are no known independently verified ways to reverse sulfation. *There are commercial products claiming to achieve desulfation through various techniques such as pulse charging, but there are no peer-reviewed publications verifying their claims.* Sulfation prevention remains the best course of action, by periodically fully charging the lead-acid batteries. Source: Wikipedia

[@WebbedPete]

NOTE that "peer reviewed publications" can never prove something WORKS. Science can ONLY falsify! (Or, presented with inability to falsify at present, we tend to accept the possibility that the effect is useful ;) )

[@habeebullah6297]

can you share the desulfator design

[@brettschacher8644]

I have 4 x 95 a/h deep cycle flooded batteries in my RV that are connected recently to a new MPPT controller running 4x 100 w panels, 24v in 12v out. There are another 2 x 100 w panels arriving in a day or so to put in. So my question is if my batteries are still accepting as much charge current as my system can supply right now, adding another 200w nominal, obviously there will be a slight reduction in charge, ( have seen 380 watts so far, with this new MPPT, PWM never gave me more than 275 w so another 200 should get me to around 550 to 570 ? then get up as close as I can to 800 total watts with the next 2 panels, until I switch voltages to 24 with a voltage reducer to run the in place 12v systems) I intend to add in another 200 next month. My system will read upwards of 14v during the day under production but quickly drops to under 12v in the evening so I know my batteries are suffering. IYHOP would a good functional desulfator bring these batteries around? And if so, do you have a recommendation for a unit? I've been looking at schematics for me to build and kits that I can find online. I found one version that uses a pair of 6.8kuf caps and a pair of rather small coils but the seller claims they are good quality pieces. I have a couple of rather large coils I purchased for building my own units, I think I would need at least 2 for all the batteries I have around. My plan was to disconnect 1 battery, connect a blocking diode between that battery and the others to keep the desulfator from diverting power to the other 3 and switch batteries once I see improvement if possible in it. I need to get this done pretty quickly before cold weather sets in this fall and I start having issues with freeze ups. As I'm attempting to live off grid, I need to get my system up over 1.5k to possibly 2kw asap. I have installed heavy enough wire to run up to 60 amps of charge and intend to include some LiFEPo4 cells and a BMS also asap. If I can get my flooded batteries to go to a full 14.8v and hold 12.6 or up, this should work. Once I switch to the 24v system I will have a wider safety margine before I deal with inverter overvoltage shut down as I sometimes have now with the current 12v system. I'm not an EE but I have spent time in tech school for electronics but that was 40 yrs ago and I've forgotten too much and to much advancement has happened for me to start over again. I don't deal well with computer codes and microprocessors and I've been trying, just not getting anywhere with it. So it's all analog for me.

[@viscache1]

The first rule of battery desulfators is “There is NO SUCH THING as a ‘Battery Desulfator’!” I use a 2 Ohm/100W resistor and a phase timed charge so that the amperage goes from .2Amp to 4Amp over the period of a month.

[@LaithBSoul]

looking forward to part 2!

[@DrCassette]

Interesting video! I had some success reviving old (at least 15 years) SLA batteries by filling them up with purified water. But that can not have been the best solution because they are now gassing even at their normal charge voltage (only about 12 V).

[@FFcossag]

+DrCassette I'm not surprised; an SLA that'll improve with added water is going to have been overcharged, and probably has pretty mangled plates inside, so that the cell consists of a more or less held together heap of plate fragments.

[@DrCassette]

That explains that. I took apart one of the batteries (same batch, they must have had a similar fate), and the inside was similar to what you'd get if you were going to dry the dirt out of your garden. No trace of acid in that thing...

[@FFcossag]

DrCassette Yep, I did the same thing some time back, except I at least got little square plate fragments out of it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZqPRdX5nerR8iq8&feature=player_detailpage#t=735

[@MrBobWareham]

Try a FOXSUR Charger it worked for me my Hobby 12 volt lead acid battery was showing only 6 volts after a long storage, After one day on the repair pulse setting it is now reading 12.47 volts on my meter, so I will give it more time as the voltage keeps rising today it is 13.6 volts, good video very interesting. Thanks

[@patrickmulholland1840]

thank you for your effort very interesting would make a very good teacher hanks again

[@thedavesofourlives1]

so you didn't check/add any distilled water to any of the cells?

[@zokonjazokonja]

Yea, I wonder a same, shouldn't this be a first step? By mine experience almost all UPS batteries become dry as hell.

[@kiskiller3]

very interesting video loocking fprward for the results

[@peteryoung5791]

Which other battery desulfator's have you tested to round out your experiment or where you first comments just personal opinion. I would like to know as the battery life in any system can be extended, if any are true to their claims. Like BLS seems to have a good reputation. Have you tried any of these items.

[@FFcossag]

No, I've just tried a couple of other topologies.

[@peteryoung5791]

Schematics don't really give a hands on experience which may effect your experiment. Never mind I have access to other items like the BLS fore-mentioned. I am really interested in Chemical desulfation as well but apparently the jury is still out on that as well. Cheers and thanks for the reply. Pete

[@donaldbadeaux5455]

Solar panels are good since they charge at over 16 volts, at low amperage...

[@virgodave61]

Do you have a schematic of your pulse circuit?

[@FFcossag]

No, it's built out of my head.

[@FrustratedBaboon]

Can you share what is in your head with us please ?

[@craignehring]

Any & all & FF? I have come upon literally 200+ 7 Ah AGM /VRLA batteries that all have a date code of about one year old. Trying to manage the charge of all is nearly impossible. My goal is to connect these cells into packs of ten in parallel configuration. The issue I keep going over is how to do this? They have the flag style terminals and I could create a wire harness to do this. I would rather not use wire. None the less I am going to need to go the wire route. I could of course create any of a number of voltages but my inverters are all 12 volt and are of the low frequency pure sine wave type. So the question is... wire gauge for each 7Ah battery factoring in worst case Max Amp draw, what would be "safe"? This would be commoned to one bus with a full rack containing 10 packs of 10. Thanks for any input you all may have. C

[@FFcossag]

You need to estimate and test the current for your application. I'd probably just solder spade connectors onto copper installation wire and go from there. You can use MiscEl (google it) to calculate wire stuff quite handily.

[@craignehring]

Thanks for the reply. I assume the max output of a 7Ah 12 volt battery if shorted could be quite high I would need AWG 12 Ga wire. But with ten batteries run to a common bus would be 70 Amps. Ratings for chassis wiring verses power transmission differ quite a lot. I am thinking of going big as in power transmission. While the batteries were free the terminals and wire are going to be a bit of an expenditure. At least the terminal voltages are all still above 12.75vdc I'll have two banks of 700Ah for a total of 1400 Ah. woo hoo

[@FFcossag]

Craig Nehring There's really no point in sizing the individual battery string wiring to handle anything like short-circuit current. I'd design it so that each of the 10 strings of 10 batteries can handle 1/10th of the total load (2,5 mm^2 installation wire comes to mind). The wires connecting those 10 strings together of course have to handle the full load, though.

[@craignehring]

Got it, it looks as 2.5mm^2 = about American Wire Gauge 14, that would allow 39 amps for chassis wiring or about 6 amps for so called power transmission. It is somewhat dodgy to do this properly trying to factor worst case in the event of a serious failure.

[@richardnanis]

Very interesting project! - I am about doing a test like this but unfortunatly with fewer sample batteries and only few testing equipment. I am trying to test several electronic pulsing schemes and commercial pulsers. When can we expect to see final results? Thanks!

[@FFcossag]

+richardnanis Relatively soon - I've got data from 5 or 6 groups of batteries now. It's been slow keeping the project going since I keep needing my lab power supply for other stuff all the time.

[@richardnanis]

+FFcossag thanks for your fast answer - i know exactly what you mean :-) Do you do your pulsing test all with the same pulsing schema, or do you also vary parameters like frequency, duty cycles, voltage of pulses e.g. ? Some claim that the frequency is important cause if you meet the resonance frequency of the lead sulphate crystals you will succeed more quickly in the desuphation process - but honestly i doubt that. Imho there is no reasonable resonance frequency for all the different shaped sulphate crystals, and there is no mechanical vibration recognizable, when you pulse with electric impulses of any kHz or even MHz. Do you cover these aspects in your test as well?

[@FFcossag]

richardnanis No, it's all done with identical parameters. There's too much variance already in the small sample size.

[@ganpuerh]

thank you very much very very good approch.

[@toshicrowley3038]

Interesting, would it kill anything like a Nickel battery?

[@FFcossag]

+Toshi Crowley I'm not read up on how nickel batteries work, but I can imagine a device like this being able to revive a nickel battery that's shorted out internally, but not anything more than that; I don't think you can in any way "restore" a nickel battery, but I am no expert.

[@tonybaines3332]

was you in the thunderbirds ?

[@Kalumbatsch]

What is an eight bit filter? Oh, you mean output. :P

[@alltheboost5363]

Awesome

[@metou3072]

If u want to use Common sense and spend seconds on learning how to desulpher lead in batteries then I am ur guy... Everyone else proceed to waste 21min with this video.... You learned in school that there are acids and alkaline substances... Things that give or take electrons... Common sense will tell you how to get back to the starting point the lead was in when it was new by doing the reverse of what made it that way...take all electrolyte out and rinse out thoroughly with water. Then make a solution using baking soda and water so that it's as dissolved as possible... Pour this solution into the battery and let it sit for a couple of days ...shake battery for a little while after the couple of days.. Pour out the solution and rinse out thoroughly with water... Add the electrolyte and enjoy your brand new battery...

[@JahRidley]

Question for you METO U: is "Add the electrolyte" comprised of distilled water, or aluminum sulfate, or cadmium sulfate or the 35% sulfuric acid/65% distilled water solution sold at auto parts stores? Please help clarify what is the electrolyte. Thank you!

[@rocktech7144]

Hey Dipstick these are AGM GEL BATTERIES......DUH

[@נוחיחזקאל]

@@rocktech7144 AGM aren't gel. These are gel.

[@kirkbrode]

If METO were half as smart as he thought he was he'd have known these are sealed batteries.

[@firstmkb]

It would be nice if it was so simple. I don’t understand all of it, but one issue is that large lead sulfate crystals slowly grow on the plates. The crystals act as insulators, shielding part of the plates from use. The point of pulsing or using higher voltages is to break down the crystals without screwing up the plates too. The crystals are known as “hard sulfation”, and are more difficult to remove than “soft sulfation” deposits of lead sulfate. The same compound in small crystals is easier to remove than in large crystals. Your suggestion might help recover some capacity if the electrolyte has been lost due to overcharging, but it won’t remove the hard sulfation.