----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Lange" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] Recovering supposedly dead batteries
I shut down the charger, installed the conditioner and set it aside to do its stuff. I'll wait to see what > happens. > > Arlid, any idea of how long should it take before some measurable results > can be observed? > Philip REPLY Results are only observed when you discharge and then recharge a battery. Voltage measurements by them selves are not relaible. For that matter neither are Specific Gravity readings on wet cells. with sealed cells the only way is to charge and discharge plus measure with a Link 10 or similar. For example; this past week I treated an AGM battery that had been left siting untouched in the back of a shop for a year or so. Connecting a True Charger to it did not show any charge current going in. Not surprising I connect the desulfator at the same tinme as the charger. Sometimes I note an increase in charging current after a couple of days other times there is no apparent change after almost a week. That was what happened this time. Decided to do a discharge test. I connected the battery to an inverter and plugged in a heat gun set on medium and ran it. The discharge rate was 143 amps on high 87 amp on medium and 37 amps on low setting of the heat gun. After an hour on high the battery voItage was still 12.35 but I decided that was probably too brutal a discharge rate and backed off to a steady 37 amps discharge. It was still running five hours plus later. Voltage was down to around 12.1 and the link 10 told me I had consumed around 97 amp hours. So I recharged the battery overnight using a 40 Amp Truecharge Its currently sitting at 13.8V and holding. And the Desulfator was left connected. I will leave the pulsetech connected and do another discharge / recharge cycle but this time adjust the AC load to only pull 20 amps steadily. This time I will plan on a full discharge or at least to 90% and then try and hit it with a 100 Amp charger to flush out the sulfate. Oh did I mention this battery dates back to year 2000. Arild _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
