Recently I started some small experiments with the batteries in my golf cart.
the batts were only good to go check the mail at the end of my driveway, about a 1200 foot round trip.
before i tried anything on the batts in the cart i found some old car batts to do my experiments.
yes ive tried the pulse charging, over charging, new acid......ect, ect..
and yes i understand the chemical process inside the batts.
and have a battery analyzer to see any improvements in capacity.
long story short, after many ,many trials, destroyed batts, and months of test after test ive come up with an additive that will bring a junk batt back to life!
NO EDTA, NO lye, NO Epsom salts. as these do work to DE sulfate a batt, it destroys them in the long run.
now my cart lasts for nearly 4 hours at top speed! and keeps getting better!
I just wanted to post this to see if anyone else has put any thought into recycling batteries?
and if i need to patent my work?
thanks to all
.
The theme of this site is free to the people sounds like you have something there!! lots of bats out there lotta folks rejuvinating lately see ads all the time on craigs list etc etc if you decide to share here God bless if not same applies Chet
Quote from: redriderno22 on April 02, 2008, 10:06:38 PM
Recently I started some small experiments with the batteries in my golf cart....
I just wanted to post this to see if anyone else has put any thought into recycling batteries?
and if i need to patent my work?
thanks to all
There is a lot on desulfating l(desulphating) lead acid batteries out there. Find out first.
Also, a lot of work on building lead acid batteries that do not deteriorate.
Paul.
over the past few months Ive read just about everything i can get my hands on about batteries
now my head hurts ??? ???
its intresting that most battery manufacturers do not use any additives?
some do but you pay more for the battery, way more
a method of desulfating batteries from years ago was to ad cadmium sulfate :o.
but i would rather not get cancer any sooner!
and yes i would like to share what Ive found but Ive put so much time into it, i hope all of you understand ;D
once i figure out how to get the test results in a format that i can upload ill show my results
thank you all for any input
good luck Chet
@redriderno22
Read the second part of this post I put up a while ago.
http://www.overunity.com/index.php/topic,3599.msg65290.html#msg65290
This just may be right up your alley. I was going to try it but always lack of time time time. If you are into it, please let us know how it goes.
Quote from: redriderno22 on April 04, 2008, 12:36:19 PM
over the past few months Ive read just about everything i can get my hands on about batteries
now my head hurts ??? ???
its intresting that most battery manufacturers do not use any additives?
some do but you pay more for the battery, way more
a method of desulfating batteries from years ago was to ad cadmium sulfate :o.
but i would rather not get cancer any sooner!
and yes i would like to share what Ive found but Ive put so much time into it, i hope all of you understand ;D
once i figure out how to get the test results in a format that i can upload ill show my results
thank you all for any input
Please write it all up as a PDF file or
put all the docs into a ZIP file and upload it over here:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=upload
It must be not bigger than 5 Mbytes.
Of if it is bigger,
just upload it to
www.megaupload.com
and post the link over here.
Many thanks for your hard work.
Regards, Stefan.
Yes it is true
if you add synthetic oil to a battery it keeps in the O2 and H in the electrolyte
helping to keep the SG high!
But its not as easy as it sounds
the oil used needs to let out some of the H and keep the O2
if the O2 stays in the electrolyte it has a better chance of recombining with the positive plate(s) in the battery during a recharge.
so it can help to prolong battery life.
thank you for the info.
Hi
I cant give you details about this , but when i was a young lass my dad would rejuvenate old lead acid batteryies by shooting a high voltage the wrong way through it , the battery was first emptied of acid then filled with cold water from the tap then he had a transformer thing and hed say stand back and shoot a ht thru it . this is all i know and would love to lnow more details myself if anyone knew how it was done ???
love to all
Samantha
Yes Ive herd of this too
its very dangerous
i would not suggest it, ever had a battery explode......not fun :-[ :-[
and not all batteries can be reused!
I tink i figured it out.
hers a test of my camcorder battery.
hi
http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/aol/search?query=how+to+rejuvinate+car+batteries&page=10&userid=5102257845439385101&invocationType=sb_uk&clickstreamid=5102257845439385099
found this seemed interesting
best wishes
serl
I have had mixed results with freezing various batteries some batteries (rechargeable) took numerous freezing unfreezing cycles before they worked a simple thing to do for someone who is single your freezer is never full because you can never afford to fill it...
Anyhow just a little something to add.
A section for battery reconditioning may not be a bad idea at all. As we progress and find ways to generate power untill hydrogen production is more readily available and cost efficiant hydrogen generators exsist most of us will be using batteries
Ive actually had some good results after using a newman motor on one of the batts i reconditioned
I don't know if anyone else has tried it?
I used one batt to run it, and one batt to be recharged.
like a bedini.
seemed to work well.
I couldn't tell exactly what was happening without a scope but it would light a 125 V neon bulb on the charging side!
well heres my experience.Been servicing #10 us hc250's which sat in a uncharged (drained state) for 6 months they would not hold a charge or even reach 12.5 v on a meter even after charging for two days.
I figured by all the loud girgling of large amounts of large blurping bubbles they were shot.Some show signs of plate warping and creep. So I figured what the heck a little epsons salts could not make it worse then it was. One teaspoon of salt to one table spoon of distilled water for each of the 30 cells. Boiled the brew to melt the salt and added a table spoon of hot mix to each cell. Then back on the charger. Manually cycled the charger for two hours in high charge 4 hours in desulfate for 30 hours. It worked.
I had plenty of time to think. I believe it is the O2 content which causes the sulfation. Boiling water removes O2 from removing micro air bubbles which are present. Ive heard of some people equalizing batteries by over charging causing them to boil and off gas which would be one way of getting extra air out of the electrolite but would be very stressful to the plates. I was also watching a food channel show about how to make clear ice cubes that night and they boiled distilled water twice letting it cool in between to remove the tiny air bubbles from the water which confirmed my earlier thoughts. If hydrogen floats up lighter then air then normal use would eventually remove hydrogen leaving more oxygen content which oxidizes the plates with a combination of sulfur and oxygen. The surface tension difference may cause that oxidation layer to prevent water from entering the plate surface. Better quality water with less O2 and heat may be the easy way to resolve it. I have 10 more batteries which are slated to be recycled which have been so completely destroyed the cases have swollen and become egg shaped.
A thought, place the batteries in a boiling vat of water and charge alternating the charge cycle same as above but also removing all the acid and putting back only twice boiled and cooled new water. If the opportunity presents itself in terms of time I may even try to build a vacuum chamber or vacuum device to attach to the battery cells to remove O2 while charging and conditioning.
In any event Im ahead 2 grand already.Being in command of 27,000 $ worth of batteries and growing I think a little investigation using junk batteries is not out of the question.
As time and events permit I will update. Hopefully the distributor I buy from wont have a hissy fit and raise the battery prices and maybe there is way to find out if electroplating techniques use specific bath temperatures to improve the rate at which the process works for electroplating.
E-book from my collected "finds"....
Pese
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5232/desulfator.pdf
How to charge deep cycle lead acid battery in less then 10 minutes ? ???
Thank-you Pese. lots of good info in that !
Quote from: pese on August 31, 2008, 09:42:05 AM
E-book from my collected "finds"....
Pese
http://www.otherpower.com/images/scimages/5232/desulfator.pdf
Thanks pese
Ive seen that book before, nice easy circuit but my charger is a smart charger with a similar functioning pulser. I'm not that patient as to wait a couple months to reclaim a battery. If it turns out that the oxygen content in water/acid is the reason the eventual death of lead acid batteries then why use water at all? There must be other conductive liquids which do not contain oxygen that could be used as a replacement in lead acid batteries. Since the battery industry sells some billions of dollars worth of batteries each year i doubt they will be of much or any assistance in an effort to make even one battery last longer. That would be no more practical then the electric company helping to make energy free.
If batteries are effected in their output by temperature then it should stand to reason it would also effect the charge side either by surface tension or emulsion of the acid.Again the use of water begins to look like the use of a known week point to regulate the life expectancy of the product.
use one two other batteries so you have also strong energy for short time to load unload your "experimental /repairing" battery..
each "cell" of battery have 2volts (2.2 if loaded) . so you can also use fro two batteries 7 cells (14 volts) to unload in your
"repair-experimental cell. (even using the 24 volts to cahrge the 12volt, BUT give attention to the load resistors (lamps) and
stay at your work that the cahrging battery will nor exeed the 14,8 volts, because they will boile end spend a lot of
hydroxy gases that can expole (i seen this 2 times. (If you will not build an watercar , like Dingle) give attention to that
for chargeing current limiting resistors , use OMLY car lamps. (60 watt 12volt lamps take approx. 5 amp.) so unse
some in paralled toi cahard , and discharge the batteries.
Even ... very "week" batteries you will try to charge for dotzend seconds in revers mode (reverse polarity) it will helf that an normal charging can be started.
Pese
PS
This way you can use any small charger (but it need more time).
"Specialists" use als for "Elektrowelding" no "weldingtransformers" . 3 car bateries (36volts) ca be used for mor than 1 hour welding-time! So you need only an small transformer to load this, during 1 day
Riderino,
With all due respect to your work, Groundloop has also posted a very helpful schematic for the same purposes here:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php/topic,4057.msg75477.html#msg75477
The unit does work.
That said, your approach may be quite different but equally useful. All the best to you in your endeavours.
B
Thanks for all the input!
Quotea little epsons salts could not make it worse then it was. One teaspoon of salt to one table spoon of distilled water for each of the 30 cells. Boiled the brew to melt the salt and added a table spoon of hot mix to each cell.
i have put epson salts directly in each cell (no water) 1 month ago, 15 milimiters in all the 6 cells in one battery, no water, and it has work like Neptune said to us in an another topic
cheap, easy, no electronic pulsating device needed
i just do not know why this is not the perfect way, is there a problem with epson salts ? , someone said that it is damaging the battery...will it work for a long time ? i guess so
my old battery was dead, and did not keep a charge at all, 15 milimiters in each cell of the battery and be amaze, easy and cheap
if something go wrong i will report it here
I found this thread over on RC4 about conductive liquids, it's not much help but does offer some suggestions, information and reasoning.
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/7209/Conductive-Liquid
Hi all,
Those who are not very good with electronic circuits can get a ready built desulfating chargers from Bedini research:
http://r-charge.com/ (http://r-charge.com/)
There is also this company that sells some units but I have no info about their quality:
http://www.tecmate.com/optimate3_detail.php (http://www.tecmate.com/optimate3_detail.php)
Take care,
Michel
not Bedini not Radiant.
This "words" are good to earn high prices.-
To find the same reuslts.
Its need only experience amd kmowledge that you find this way...
Nothing NEW
all WELLKNOW.
Find it out yourself
Lot of written knowledge to find in WEB
Pese
Quote from: Michelinho on September 02, 2008, 03:31:41 PM
Hi all,
Those who are not very good with electronic circuits can get a ready built desulfating chargers from Bedini research:
http://r-charge.com/ (http://r-charge.com/)
There is also this company that sells some units but I have no info about their quality:
http://www.tecmate.com/optimate3_detail.php (http://www.tecmate.com/optimate3_detail.php)
Take care,
Michel
Hi all
Here is link to Bedini on batteries. Very educational. At about the half way point, he shows about converting lead acid battery to alkaline battery using alum.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7091246195185928492&hl=en
Here is another link to convert to alkaline. Read the notes at the bottom of the page.
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2007/01/how_to_convert_a_lead_acid_bat.html
tishatang
@tishatang
many thanks for these 2 great links !
This seems really to be an alternative to change
the lead acid battery industry to be more "green".
Now this industry will probaby soon be called:
lead alum industry.
Has anybody tried to roll up
lead plates like John Bedini and built this way his homemade
lead alum batteries for solar charging or other storage needs ?
How good do these homemade batteries work on 12 volts to 120/240 Volts
inverters ?
Many thanks.
Regards, Stefan.
If it needs just to roll up 2 lead plates with some rubber spacers between it and
the just fill it up with a alum-destilled water mix,
how much Ampere-hours capacity will such a battery have,
that John Bedini built this way ?
So it seems, it depends only on the surface of the lead plates or foils.
So it seems you can build yourself really big batteries this way.
The question is, how long they will last and if they are able to be charged
also with such a radiant energy charger or with the Bedini chargers.
Regards, Stefan.
Here are 2 more links to check out:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/batteryconversions/messages
http://www.greensaver.cn/en/product/productlist.aspx
Good afternoon!
I have been following this forum for some time and find some of the ideas interesting. I have been involved in battery reconditining for over 15 years. I have reconditioned ten of thousands of lead and acid batteries. Yes it can be done. Yes there are ways to get good results.
I have never tried Epson salts but have tried many other chemicals. The problem with those is that nobody wants to tell you exactly what those products are made of. A question of industrial secret apparently. One supplier simply told me that if he described his product in detail he would be out of business. I just can't cope with the idea that I would be using and working with products that I can't know anything about. What do you do if you or an employee is exposed to one of those products and finds himself in the hospital. If you can't tell the good doctor what he was exposed to, how can he be treated? It's a huge responsability that I refuse to take
What's more, there are very good and efficient alternative methods that give excellent results.
For those who are concerned about the possibility of explosions, I have had two such events in 15 years. It does not happen that often and as far as I know, it can only happen when you have a spark or flame, to ignite the hydogren gas that charging a battery produces. In a well ventilated area, this cannot happen as the gas is dispersed in the air causing no damage whatsoever. A battery casing can break open when being charged, if the vents are jammed or blocked. But it will not explode unless the gas is ignited. If the vents are functioning, the hydrogen gas will dissipate in the environment and unless the gas is in large concentration and ignited, it cannot explode. Has anyone seen explosions caused in any other way?
regbou
@all
;D
I discovered this last week, but my method only works if the lead bridges between cells are intact, and it also goes without saying the plates should also be intact.
Over the years I have used many methods to recover Gel cell batteries, but last week I tried something completly different to my usual way of charging a Gell Cell.
I had picked up a 12v Henry 12AH Gell Cell battery at the local scrap metal place in Town.
Getting it home I grabbed the DMM and it measured low voltage,
I put a 12v tail light globe accross the Pos and Neg, nothing happened.
I put the GC on charge, about 8volts, I let it sit there for hours.
Retest ,,,, nothing.
Next day I tried to charge it with 13.7volts for hours, again, nothing happened.
Next day, I tried abuse charging it, at up to 28V dc, for a couple of minutes, nothing, zilch.
Then I put 20ml of water in each cell,
I reconnect the charger, the battery began to accept a charge, but would not go any higher.
At the point of dispare, I boiled the billy, for a cupa tea, then I grabbed my big syerange and sucked up the hot water from the jug into it.
I squrted in each cell 50mls of boiling water.
WELL, This battery came to life instantly, I could actually see the voltage coming up, I connected the charger, it accepted a charge and in a couple of hours, it powered up my tail light globe to a nice white glow.
What's going on here?
Do you wash your hands with cold water or warm water or Hot water?
Soap helps, but I think the hot water partly dissolved the glazing on the plates, and when this occurred, everything went back to normal operation.
I have not tried adding additives to hot water, you all can do that ha ha.
Hope this can help you as it did for me. :D
hooroo
jim
I have been working with used/old/discarded lead/acid batteries for about five years with the aim of making them work again.
At the moment I use homemade electronic desulphators built from scrap I find in the dumps at electrical stores.
I use varying amounts of power depending on the battery. Size is the most important indicator of the amount of amps at each pulse it should receive in order to remove the hard sulphate crystals. over 100 A at 50 milliseconds is nothing unusual.
After a year or so messing with various chemical and electrical methods to rejuvenate batteries I was able to get an '''average''' battery back to usable condition in a few weeks to a month.
These days I can have a five year old car battery which sported electrolyte with a SG in the region of 1100 - 1150 ready in two or three days, and using ideas learned from each electronic pulser I've made I've got the desulphating down to 12 hours for a 40 A/h battery fairly reliably.
There is no doubt that electronic desulphating works, but I have tested one store-bought desulphator and found it was about as good as leaving some sulphated battery on a float charge - It was useless as far as I was concerned.
I've made nine or so electronic desulphators. These days I use transistor blocks from old air-conditioner circuit boards for the pulse. I drive them with a two-transistor astable multivibrator. I've rebuilt a couple of them so I've got seven which I can use.
But I'm retiring at least one of them as it isn't much good compared to the newer ones I made which I improved by learning from it.
I'm going to make at least one more. It's going to be the most powerful I've made. The most powerful one I've got uses a transformer from a bench-top arc-welder and has about 30,000 mFds of caps being pulsed into 24 V at over a hundred amps (if I so choose). It will go higher but at some point the transistor blocks are overloaded and they short - But I sometimes test it on a couple of hundred amps before I turn it down.
That powerful charger is currently doing two 155 marine batts in series. They've been pulsed for a week and the cells are now up to max level and the electrolyte measures within the green zone of my hydrometer. (Used to take me at least a month to do batteries that size).
... I've got a pair of Hitachi 210 marine batteries which I could 'do' with that charger, but I'm really itching to make that new one which will easily deliver a couple of hundred amps into those batteries. I've got all the parts but I'd like some more caps. i get my caps from air-conditioner pc boards as well and there are only three largish ones with each board. Perhaps as summer is approaching I'll harvest a few dozen so I can get that big whack I just know does the job.
I thought I should add this:-
Some of you might be shocked, but I use a relay to send the pulse to the gate of the output transistor modules.
I'm not that good with electronics and I'm skint so I have to make do with what I can salvage from old boards and adapt and abuse things so that they work the way I want them to.
Anyway I can't think of anything else which will give me that virtually perfect pulse on the leading edge, and the relays I use are small and not under any appreciable strain and last at least two years at anything up to 40 pulses per sec.
If anyone is interested in following my philosophy of rejuvenating lead/acid batteries then you'll be of the mind that lots of small whacks with Amps achieves less than fewer much-stronger pulses. In fact the pulsers I use will tend to charge as well as desulphate.
As I'm desulphating a battery I'll be watching for when the voltage seems to stabilise. I like the voltage to be between 15.5 & 15.9 Volts. That's just me. Over 16 V and I think the cheaper brands of batteries might fall to bits. (Like Panasonic).
If the V doesn't want to climb much over 14 V then there's a short of some kind ... the V ought to go over 15 V at least.
Anyway ... the circuit I use is literally a two transistor astable multivibrator which I feed into the base of a small power transistor and the relay coil is on a positive and the collector.
I adjust the timing by a few methods but I find that using a potentiometer on the resistor feeding the capacitors is very reliable and satisfactory. One can get surprising speed from a relay by using an IC voltage regulator to get it to click just the right amount. And I get millisecond(s) pulses by the aforementioned adjustment or by varying the base voltage into the relay-driving transistor. ie... What I make certainly isn't state-of-the-art by any means. But it works, and it works well.
I have experimented using solid state drivers but as I have mentioned I am not very good with electronics. The astable multivibrators are fine for the job I need to do.
Really great info everyone!
I'll be trying the alum trick on one of my old batteries.
I was wondering...what do I add to the water solution to keep it from freezing in the wintertime?
I'm sure that water and alum will make a nice battery popsicle. ;D
Anyone try some windshield washer fluid or antifreeze solution, calcium chloride? Any ideas?
Also, do the reconditioned batteries still hold a good charge at below freezing temperatures?
Thanks for any info!
when I was young my dad and me would drain acid out fill with water shake and drain 3 times . Then leave upside down leting it dry for a month or so then mix 4 ounces of red devil lye with quart of boiling water pored it into the battery and covered with old rag and shake for 3 minutes then rinsed it out sevreal times and refilled with same acid that we drained . Then charged it with a un regulated crysler alternator for 5 to 10 minutes till it was boiling . The batterys were like new or wouldn't take charge at all . I dont know the brand lye he used it was brown maby it was home made. I have also attached a bulb to a battery and leave it till its completely dead and recharged it backwards opposite polarity till full charged and they charged with no problem that seems to work on sulfated batterys. I dont know why I discoverd this buy mistake when I conected the charger backwards . Im going to try vinegar to replace the acid and see if that will work . I tryed meratic acid when I first started experiments dont try that it makes chlorine gas . Rusty water with Epsom salt in one can be used as a hydrogen separator or brown gas fuel cell