De sulphator ..any good

Gonzo
Probably not. But I'm retired, so money not expended has more than normal value and my hours valuable only to me. I needed a bunch of cheap batteries to test my motor system and hoped I'd get a higher % of rejuved batteries. Failures increase price of all, as I had to pay $5 to dispose of again. Se la vie!

 

I found the reference that gonzo refered to ....In my experience of 30 years working with batteries if its fooked its fooked ..no comming back to anything like original capacity ....BUT can I lengthen the life of my new batteries on my electric boat by using one that is what I am interested in .can I use smaller batteries and run them down below 50 % and spend less weigh less .probably the answer is yes and those dud batteries run down by mistake and left for say a week yes probably the answer is yes again..
Many batteries are thrown away when they are good due to .sales pressure .bad alternator etc ....I have a source who will let me inspect his battery dump skip..so I shall be looking at type and date codes and doing some tests ....

 

I'm following the thread with interest. Please post results of your experiments with pulse charging.

 

its not pulse charging it only used to reverse the sulphation process and I guess if you have it running from new it should prevent it from happening by reversing it as soon as it happens which is a function of lead acid no matter what you do.
The gist I get is it can also bring back from almost dead to some capacity.
Cant fix shorted cells
On my Ctek charger ( has indicator lights) if you put it on a flat old battery it quite often goes into repair mode first on a working battery it does it after it gets to the float.

 

sounds like something I should do. Buy a ctrk charger when I buy my new batteries

 

Reviving an old battery involves washing the battery upside down with a hose pipe on each cell and shake thoroughly. This will remove dirt crud and bits of plate that may have settled at the bottom and may well be the reason for shorting of the plates in the cell in the first place.

Re-fil with the appropriate mix and charge the crap out of it.

 

Way back in the good old days of low-tech and lower income, my dad kick-started old car batteries that wouldn't hold a charge by pouring a dollop of sulfuric acid into each cell.

I've never tried it myself in the 44 years since I left home; I know little or nothing about the chemistry involved -- and I've had people indignantly tell me it couldn't possibly have worked. But it did....

 

Worked with a russian chief engineer naturalized USA citizen. In russia, make do has been the modus operanda for many years he said. He would try to salvage 8D batteries that wouldn't hold a charge. He'd dump old acid electrolyte and refill with new acid. Sometimes worked for a few weeks more, sometimes didn't.

 

I think for the price of a new battery( about 50 us for a 70 amp here) who would risk being stuck for the sake of 50 dollars. Cars don't have starting handles any more and I doubt American cars ever did apart from the model T.

British stuff had them up until the 60's Morris 1000, Austin A 40 were about the last.

Ide like to see you hand crank a 350 V8 in the snow.

 

Good one, Frosty. Years ago I ran an old single screw tug that the main propulsion diesel and one of the diesel generators, both were hand started. Pulled a rope to crank. Caterpillers!

 

Going off the point as usual ....we are not ..well I am not ..talking about old batteries but recovering new ones that have been over discharged and looking for comments on the use of de sulphator on new batteries from first charge throughout there life. Seems that may chargers have a de sulphator built in certainly those used on fork lifts where the discharge goes below the 50% level

 

Nobody going to challenge my statement of large sized pull start Cat diesels?

Pony start. The diesels had small gasoline engines mounted on them. Pull started the gas engine, then engaged a PTO clutch that cranked the diesel. Then shut down the pony motor. All true!

 

The point has been made Piston and its on the verge of being flogged to death.

I thought 'donkey' engines starting big engines was normal practice.Strange that you call them pony engines. Its a donkey or mule that generally does hard work. You know one of them things Jesus rides about on.

 

well, on US boats and ships, the donkey is usually an auxilary or standby machinery. Like the donkey boiler on steamships. Used to make steam for generators and pumps when main boilers are cold iron in port. We call gasoline starting engines for diesels "Ponies" cause the "horses" is the big diesel engine. But, different locales have different names for same thing. In the US we call a spanner a wrench. and we don't smoke fags.

 

Who is Jesus ?
How the F did donkey engines get into this ...SSDD ...