Trying to restore an old failed car battery using equalisation. I've connected my 80W solar panel to the battery without a charge controller and I'm looking down inside the cells to see which ones are producing Hydrogen and Oxygen.
By Julian
Youtuber, shed dweller, solar charge controller aficionado
I realize that this video is 6 years old, but for the sake of future viewers, the OP seems to confuse equalization with desulphating. Normal charging of dead batteries is desulphating. You actually want to do it at lower voltage than 2.5V per cell, specifically to avoid electrolysis. AFTER the battery has been mostly desulphated and a 2.5V per cell voltage only draws very small current, say 0.5A or so, then you want to run the battery at 2.6V/cell to let electrolysis knock off the left over sulphates and equalize the cells to equal internal resistance. If you do that to a sulphated cell you will knock off lead sulphates to the bottom of the battery and they will never participate is charging/discharging cycle again. You can replace sulphate by adding more acid, but replacing lead that never plated back onto lead plate is going to be a problem.
I looked down in cell 5 & I thought, "DID THIS GUY BUMP HIS HEAD"? Add some damn distilled to it !!! Its DRY dude !!! Iknow your not supposed to add a buncha water at first but HEY !! PUT SOME MOISTURE IN THAT CELL IDIOT.OF COURSE ITS NOT GONNA CHARGE !!
Respect Julian may i share a simple experience with you in bringing back a automobile battery I found. It registered between 3-5v when I first put a meter on it. I had build one of them ac capacitor charger desulfator I saw on Youtube when I first put it on the battery the sides of the battery was hot but after about 4 hours it started to hold at 11.5v a few hours more and it sits @ 12.4v then I but it on a 1amp solar panel for about 4 days now it sits @ 12.7v even use it to start a car.
How is this battery today? Do you still have it or has it been chucked? Vintage Julian…those were the days… 🙂
You could tip out all the acid from every cell mix up then pour back in, this would make the specific gravity all the same in each cell, then recharge and test, if no good then the cell is most likely short circuit.
Two years old huh? Sorry to comment on such an old video. You should build yourself a charge controller that features battery recovery features. PWM is a sort of battery recovery that can help break up sulfation. The other thing that can be done is frequency, amperage, and voltage pulsing, and some will even reverse polarity for very short bursts. Typically a good recovery charger will output current even if no battery is detected, meaning shorting will produce some pretty drastic sparks.
desulfators are bullshit ! is no difference between constant current charge and pulse charge….
I've got the MQ-2 and I never succeeded to make it work. There is a pot on the PCB but it doesn't do anything, it's not a TTL level output (it's an analog) and it doesn't seem to discriminate between gases.
If you succeed PLEASE make a video 🙂
Hello Julian
I have found out from your images that you are using an automotive battery for your solar bank. From my study over time; solar panel storage are to be deep draw type.
Charging voltage for the ford battery is;
Silver calcium batteries generally require more charging voltage (14.4 to 14.8 V) and may not be functional in older vehicles because their power generating systems (alternators) give lower voltages than those of modern vehicles.
Try to find some better jumper cables; yours are made of steel not a good conductor and are rusting. Enough Said. Good Luck.
I agree with you, its good to blast the battery once in a while to ensure all cells get a good charge, of course with no sensitive loads on them
THIS BATTERY NEEDS WATER, AND IT WILL PROBABLY BE FINE!
You cannot get them to work like that, they need filling to the ring mark inside.
If they're are exposed, and some are, those cells will act "dead"….
Use distilled water only.
Would a battery which can't hold a charge anymore work with a solution of aluminium sulphate instead of sulphuric acid? I saw few videos on Youtube and I just want to know if someone tried it:) Cheers!
Cycle the battery. Take it down to under 12 volts then give it a full charge again. This works the plates and build some heat. You might be able to break down the sulfation.
The electrolyte levels in that battery look pretty low, those flat bits in the middle of each cell are the level indicators which should be covered up, stick some deionised/distilled water in there until each cell is just covering the indicator. Charging with low electrolyte levels will make your wonky battery even worse.
Very well done Julian ! This confirms the latest free Ebook from Teslachargers ( Lindemann/Bedini), that you really need these high voltages to get all the sulfates again into the sulfuric acid. Also it confirms, that it would be best to just have big 2 Volts cells only, so if one cell is going bad, you don´t have to get rid of all 6 cells ( the whole battery)…
So I am thinking of modifying normal car batteries by removing the bottom plate, so all 6 cells are shorted out via the acid or Alum electrolyte and so you end up just having a 2 Volts battery instead of a 12 Volts battery, but now with 6 times the capacity ! ALso this way no more lead sludge can short out the cells anymore, as these would sink out of the battery to the other container you have to place the battery in…So I would suggest you get the acid out of this battery, remove the bottom platic plate from all 6 cells and clean it up with NaHCO3 water and then
put it into a little bigger platic container and then pour Alum-water into it, so you will have a strong 2 Volts Battery.
Regards, Stefan.
Oh noes! You've succumbed to the Youtube anti-shake-algorithm…. i'm getting sea sick!
Don't you think that keeping the battery at 14.4v for a few days would be gentler on the battery while still equalizing it? That's what I did with a 55wh battery. Left it for 5 days at 14.4v and it did equalize it.