Lead Acid Battery Desulfator Project

[Thunderbird]

Very interesting results there.

Try an old car head light bulb as a load for the batteries, if you don't have one remind me to give you one, I keep a couple lying around that have the low beam buggered just as load testers etc.

Bugger about the big battery.

Ill have to scratch around in my shed I think I've got a couple of old UPS's lying in there with SLA batteries in them to play with.

[cOOter]

Yeah pull those UPS's apart  

There's a dude in Southport that sells the same 20ah battery's for $40 new, but playing with old dead ones is more fun.  

I left one of those LED (about 300mah) lights on last night and got over
12 hours before turning it off at about 5am this morning. (was up all night bit pissed)

Started at 12.3v and finished about 11.6v

My charge control turns off at 11.4v

It's not going to start a car, but works well enough to run the shed lights

It's all up to the desulfator (been on all day) now if any increase is going to happen.

When the sun goes out tonight I'm fingers crosses a float a bit higher than 12.3 happens.

dang hang over dot com

[cOOter]

I ran a better load test last night...

1 amp draw (from 3 LED lights) ran the lights for 3 hours 30 minutes on the dot.

Starting voltage: 12.3v
End voltage       : 11.4v (charge controller cut off)

3.5 amp hours from an otherwise rooted 18 amp hour,
or 1/5 the original capacity, is about the same ratio
as my other 'recovered' SLA's

So I have to conceded, using 'recovered' in the same sentence as old SLA's,
is still a tall stretch until the desulfator comes to the party as well.

[Thunderbird]

Sounds good to me.

But often is not quite that easy to calculate a battery's performance as most amp hour ratings are based on the 20 hour amp hour.

http://all-about-lead-acid-batteries.cap...amp-hours/

Still ANY amp hours out of an otherwise cactus battery is good stuff.

[cOOter]

http://all-about-lead-acid-batteries.cap...amp-hours/

Ow, I see now the standard testing discharge minimum is 10.5v - that's better news.

On such a test, the subject would run much longer than 3.5 hours without
my over concerned control charger kicking early.

At a guess the 3.5 hours @ 1 amp draw cut off at 11.5v will now do about 6 or 7 hours of 1 amp draw when cut off at 10.5v

I'll put my theory to the test.

[Thunderbird]

Got a new Altronics catalog at the Brisbane Hamfest.

Look what's inside, there's 3 models of them.

http://www.altronics.com.au/p/m8540-12v-...esulfator/

[Thunderbird]

Got a new Altronics catalog at the Brisbane Hamfest.

Look what's inside, there's 3 models of them.

http://www.altronics.com.au/p/m8540-12v-...esulfator/

[cOOter]

For about the same price I was thinking about one of these chargers with a desulfator built in..

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/6V-12v-batter...456663247?

or..

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/181634255830

Your one I've been borrowing seems to be working on an old puffy ended car battery I found in the shed and am using for the lights at night.

Trouble is it only works during the day when the solar panel keeps the charge over the required 12.8v to get it to turn on 

Your home made ones would be better than those ones online?

The SLA has been sitting on the shelf for a few weeks but still holding up around 12v

[cOOter]

For about the same price I was thinking about one of these chargers with a desulfator built in..

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/6V-12v-batter...456663247?

or..

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/181634255830

Your one I've been borrowing seems to be working on an old puffy ended car battery I found in the shed and am using for the lights at night.

Trouble is it only works during the day when the solar panel keeps the charge over the required 12.8v to get it to turn on 

Your home made ones would be better than those ones online?

The SLA has been sitting on the shelf for a few weeks but still holding up around 12v

[cOOter]

Finally took delivery of the "Infinitum battery desulfator" yesterday. (bloody eBay tricked me on the US vs AU price)

First test bunny is a sealed lead acid with bugger all amps, but will happily sit at 12.4v for weeks, but won't fully charge.

The inbuilt battery indicator is green which supposedly means it's OK - no bulging ends from sulfuration.

Starting charge voltage is 13.08v



If / when the red goes green on the charger, I'll stop bitching about the $40 price.