Battery Desulfation - Mopar Action

Maybe this will be helpful, maybe not, but thought I'd post about my experiment anyway:
I have a restoration battery that's weak - prior owner let it run low on water, plates exposed - and after it sits, reads just over 11 V.
Figured I'd see if that desulfation gizmo in the MA article would work.
Charged it back up from 11.3 - 12.6 is as good as it gets - and then connected the gizmo per instructions.
Back & forth between the gizmo and the charger, seems to be gaining .1 - .2 V per day when I test it after it's sat for a while.
After it sits overnight, it'll read 11.6 with the voltage tester, which is accurate on other batteries & charging systems.
So far, I'm 5 days into this; maybe the battery's too damaged, but I'll play the game for another week or so.
Between the gizmo instructions and the article, seems it could take a couple days to a month.

Kinda hoping to avoid the mess of gutting the battery for the hidden-upgrade deal, but we'll see how it plays out.

Tony's Garage on UTube had an episode which showed how to rejuvinate a weak battery with an Arc (stick) Welder, it seemed to work, have not tried it myself. Do a search.

Sister in law had a dead battery in her car. Would jump start the car and show charging, but wouldn't hold a charge after the car shut off. Battery test under load was not good. Can't recall exact numbers, but was junk. I have a Battery Minder 1510 that I tried to use to desulfate on. Battery was too weak for it to work. I charged the battery with a standard charger and got the voltage up, but would slip over night. I put the battery on the charger and when it hit enough volts per the Battery Minder manual (10.5V), I hooked that up and let it do it's thing. After a few days on it, I pulled the Minder off and let it sit for a few days. Seemed to hold a charge around 12 Volts. We put in a new battery anyway, but used the dead one to experiment with.

Can you give some help on the search? I’m a little slow on how to search. Thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CxFpIoKwy0&ab_channel=UncleTony%27sGarage

EDIT: ^^^ Copy and paste that into your browser.

Direct link --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CxFpIoKwy0 Battery Desulphated with stick welder <--

I can think of potentially less painful ways to kill yourself.
Ever see the result of a battery explosion?

I have used several different battery chargers that claimed they had the ability to clean the plates and restore an old battery. I tried them on more than a dozen batteries and never got a single one back to working condition.


As far as the arc welder idea goes, I have seen a couple batteries explode. Not worth the risk to say the least.

Question about the "desulfator gizmo":

This devise supposedly works by periodically zapping the sulfated plates with "high-frequency AC"...so I'm wondering if this will damage the electronics in modern cars. The articles/videos I've seen don't mention if the battery has to be disconnected from the car (thereby losing all the presets and computer memory) during the zapping process.

Here is the best comment under that video.

I disconnect the battery on any car with an ECU if I am going to use a charger at more than 20 amps for this very reason.

I read somewhere that a bat should be charged a min of 17-18 volts for the first few minutes, like a shock thing, knocks the sulfate off.?

Free technical information on lead acid battery charging

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-403-charging-lead-acid

sample quote

Much has been said about pulse charging of lead acid batteries to reduce sulfation. The results are inconclusive and manufacturers as well as service technicians are divided on the benefit. If sulfation could be measured and the right amount of pulsing applied, then the remedy could be beneficial; however giving a cure without knowing the underlying side effects can be harmful to the battery.

end quote

I am 60% confident this Pulsetech brand name charger has extended the life of my 12 volt lead acid batteries

https://www.amazon.com/Pulsetech-Xt...8-1&keywords=desulfating+charger#Ask

I know it is using high frequency current because I can hear it using my “DC to daylight” wide coverage radios.

It makes some of the WORST buzzing on radios I have ever encountered.

I monitor the watts of power it uses with a Kill-O-Watt meter.

sample quote from the
Questions &. Answers at Amazon
on the Pulsetech charger

Most of these 'smart' chargers use the same integrated circuits from Texas Instruments.
Those ICs have safety features to stop the charger from pouring amperage into a bad battery (or worse) and creating a safety problem. If the charger is hooked up to the battery with reverse polarity it will not charge (i.e. backwards, negative connected to positive, etc). If the battery voltage is too low it will not charge. Many people use a 'dumb' constant current charger to bump the battery voltage up to minimum then connect the smart charger. Also, there is at least one timer that will disconnect power if the charge takes too long, usually after about a day or so, then it displays the 'bad battery' light. Unplugging the unit from the AC then reconnecting should reset this timer and allow another charging cycle. After the battery is fully charged and being maintained, this charger periodically checks to see if the battery will accept amperage, I.E. need more charging time. This check and any subsequent charging will bring on the charging light for the time that the charging circuit is active for this purpose.

end quote

One of the things I was told after I bought my airplane was to take the battery out every year and hook up a small 12 V light to it and kill the battery completely and then use a low amp (2 to no more than 6 amp) battery charger to charge the battery from 2 to 5 days. Stop charging after it reach a voltage above 13.3 V. disconnect from the charger for two to five minutes
That worked for me for many years, those battery are very small and have to start a 540 C.I. low compression flat 6 cylinder in the airplane with a 4 to 6 ft. long cable to the starter solenoid from the battery
The battery was mounted behind the baggage compartment for weight and balancing it to get the center of gravity in a safe position no matter how the aircraft was loaded: up:
I did need to do weights and balance checks when I first got the airplane to learn how to load it safely

1st off, I have no business doing anything with a stick welder

I'm just doing this as an experiment, and the battery is not in the car.
My typical charging deal is limited to a 2A maintainer, though that's not enough for this battery - it needs the 10A setting on an actual charger.
The charger's 2A setting only results in a "bad battery" light coming on, and no improvement in V reading.
Checking battery voltage, it never shows better than 13.6V (charging), drops to 12.6V when charger's disconnected, then decreases from there, but never worse than 11.5 now.
It'll sit at 11.5 for 10 hours or so now, whether the desulfator is connected or not.

Interestingly, this resto battery never vents vapor through its caps; my other one does when on the maintainer.
The other one also had insufficient level inside it when I got the car.
It "runs" 12.6V (charged) down to 12.0V if left to sit a couple weeks, Ground cable disconnected.

12.6v is about 80% charged

https://pveducation.com/solar-concepts/battery-state-of-charge-vs-open-circuit-battery-voltage/

Yup, and that one hasn't been a problem starting the car it's in, even at 12.1V.
The weaker one will start a car, but I'd rather it never drops below 12V.

Just watched Tony fix his battery, I have a few to try this on. If you’re scared of not wearing a seat belt, lead in paint, muratic acid rust remover, loud noises, grinding stuff, by all means don’t try this!
BTW a battery charger is a smaller version of an arc welder anyway

This old (25+ years) battery charger I have has a start boost setting, a 10 amp setting, and a 2 amp setting. The meter reads plus to minus to 30 amps. If you put it on start boost, it will peg the 30 amp meter, but will also reduce down to 10 amps down after about 45 seconds to a minute on boos (unless you are actually boosting the battery and have a big draw). Its brought back about 1/2 of the questionable batteries I've connected to it by using the boost before it switches to the 10 amp charging.
I'm going to miss it when it finally dies.

Truth.

Before taking the risk of doing something that might cause an explosion
it is a good idea to acquire the knowledge humans have gathered about explosions
.... since some of that knowledge came “the hard way.”

On lead acid batteries it is good to learn about:

the tool “battery hydrometer”
specific gravity range of cells
finding “weak” cells
finding shorted cells
when to drain a cell and refill with distilled water
what chemicals can help remove sulfation deposits

in the old days miners and submariners needed to know lead acid battery science

Today a small group of solar panel owners own lead acid battery banks and end up learning the science

Tony does not seem to be
an old submariner,
old industrial battery field representative, or
modern day solar power enthusiast.

I think you mean sulfuric acid, not water

No, I mean refill with distill water, apply a charging current, and measure how the specific gravity increases as chemical compounds dissolve off the plates, then... when to stop, remove fluid from cell and refill with appropriate s.g. electrolyte.

As E-booger noted, voltage is not necessarily the sign of a good battery; only a quality load tester can determine if a battery is "good".

The reason I bought one when I go to junk yard to get $25 batteries (used in my golf cart) haven’t bought a ‘new’ battery since the cost went thru the roof.

100% correct and did I chase my tail for about 5-6 hours a couple of weeks back on this. And I should know better
What tripped me up was I was mowing, jumped off to move a branch and didn't shut the PTO off so it stopped the engine. I jump back on turn the PTO off hit the key and NADA, zip zero. Thought it blew the main fuse. NOPE. Got my other unit towed it up to the shop. VOLTAGE was OK and having just started the unit 30 minutes earlier I NEVER EVEN considered the battery itself. I proceeded to chase my tail thinking something was shorted or one of the safety interlocks was causing the issue.
Chased it from the battery all the way to the solenoid/ starter. Every time i checked the V it was right at 12.5 or 6. I finally got lucky by leaving the meter hooked up and watching it drop to 2.4 volts with a decent load and then recover within about 30 seconds.
In over 50 years I have never had a battery just fail like this one did. As they say you learn something new everyday. i can guarantee you i won't get burnt by this one again

Unneeded, any decent load will suffice. Put your meter on the battery, read the voltage, try to start the engine and read the voltage. That will suffice. Most times just turning on the headlight is sufficient.

I believe in high amp load testing,
and use a 130 amp Mac model number B17300 that has been durable.

PulseTech company says the computer program inside their charger
tests for “Charge Acceptance” to rate battery capacity in a superior way to just voltage.

They list USA Patents
7834592B2
8269465B2
8269466B2

I wonder personally if measuring the
“internal impedance” of a lead acid battery
is of “real world” value.
This can be hand calculated by measuring voltage at two (or more) different amp loads.

Where can you buy sulfuric acid for a battery ?

Most auto parts stores should be able to get it for you. 5 gallon box or 1 1/2 gallon box. Buying locally will save all the pain of paying for shipping.