Thanks Drewboo!

That's great! I much enjoy situations where people use what they have on hand to accomplish things that ordinarily wouldn't be possible without some knowledgeable creativity. Sometimes the best hammer you have on hand is a wrench, and sometimes the best pry bar you have on hand is a screwdriver. It works.

Great point!

the reason "smart" chargers don't touch dead batteries is because they don't see a load and they have short circuit protection built in because dumb people like to shock themselves or start fires. you can trick them into seeing a load by putting a high-wattage resistor or incandescent light bulb in parallel w the battery.

I agree. Most UPS units are designed for battery changes every couple of years and they 'boil' them dry fairly quickly by floating them at a high enough voltage to recharge them relatively quickly after use but low enough to avoid the cost of a multi stage charger. The old ubiquitous APC Smart UPS units float them at around 14V from what I've seen.

All batteries can dry out which is a point that all battery manufacturers are aware of but never disclose to their customers. So when they say Gel and AGM are maintenance free, it's like saying transmission fluid is 'lifetime' fluid...yeah, for the lifetime of the vehicle which is a relative term. I think there needs to be more testing done by flooding AGM and Gel batteries to see how many if any are recoverable by adding water. AGM should have the best luck as I spoke with one manufacturer that told me they flood their AGM batteries with a typical water and sulfuric acid solution then dump out the excess in order for the battery to be classified as "AGM".

@@imzjustplayin Agree with your facts.

Can't believe you made it through all of my boring monologues! I fear my love of lead acid batteries may become obsolete in time as lithium batteries get less expensive. :( I do expect insurance companies to ban lithium battery banks in houses in the near future though unless very onerous and expensive 'certified and inspected' government approved pre-built units are used. Unfortunately the law will likely blanket all types of batteries because government is lazy. Thanks lithium! ...

@@knurlgnar24 Haha, I thoroughly enjoyed them, a good mix of detailed infomation with your impressions thrown in, not long and boring but also not just edited highlights I only came across you a few years back when I started getting some free laptop batteries, so it was your inverter tests that attracted me Think I ended watching everything you'd published, so great to see new content Agree with your thoughts on lead acids future, they've served us very well with little change over the years and are definitely far safer than lithium Appreciate your reply, take care and wish you all the best

@@knurlgnar24 The 2017 National Electric Code has a new section 480.3 which reads as follows: "Storage batteries and battery management equipment shall be listed. This requirement shall not apply to lead-acid batteries." Based on this, I would expect insurance companies to ban homemade lithium banks, but allow lead-acid. At the very least lead acid banks will almost assuredly remain legal. I really don't know what sore of wording insurance companies would use to ban lithium banks, maybe capacity would be a factor.

I remember your comment but can't seem to find it - youTube mysteriously deletes things at will for unstated reasons. In any case those sound like very nice batteries and I hope you are able to restore them to useful condition and make use of them! I'd take those for my battery bank if I had the chance. :)

Part2 will have some, but not all, of that info. The video got long so I cut it short. Typically if a battery recovers it will have a higher internal resistance than when new and a lower capacity - the two are usually about the same percentage of new though it varies. Self-discharge is a wildcard in my experience. Most of the time you'll have no issues with it but it will almost certainly be higher by some amount than a new battery.

Lithium batteries cannot be overcharged and are quite fragile. To be honest they scare me a little due to their horrific failure modes so I don't have much interest in working with damaged lithium batteries.

Thanks! You truck drivers are underappreciated in my opinion!

NEVER! The chaos is what makes me feel ALIVE!!!

@@knurlgnar24 i agree when I clean my shop I can't find anything

I actually have a video planned on converting an industrial power supply to a battery charger. I won't be comparing to an alternator setup but you can draw your own conclusions. In all honesty I'd personally recommend the dc/dc charger approach for most people. The alternator/engine approach is better for a prepper type as it's so simple, parts are easy to find, and it will last reliably for thousands of hours. On the other hand you never know when electronics will fail you.

@@knurlgnar24 Yes , agreed, the heavy duty ,upgraded alternators or dedicated secondary alternator like the #humbleroad van builder George, uses does simplify the charging system.I use a simple 150 amp breaker switch like you demonstrated ,manual off and on close to the driver's seat and a couple deep cycle batts. seem to work fine for me.After engine/ alternator is turned off the batts seem to drop from 14 to around 12.8 volts. But they power a low grade, 1000 watt so called "pure sine wave" inverter to run a cpap breathing machine all night. The voltage drops to only about 12 volts. I was surprised it worked! With the "Vandweller RV" craze still strong, your channel could help a lot of "do it yourselfers." Thanks for all your knowledge and tips and testing! Cheers from Vancouver BC.

Unless the acid actually spilled only a trace amount of acid should have been lost. Distilled water should be the way to go.

@Thomas Chrombly But some of the newer "smart" chargers won't work if the battery is dead. The old "dumb" chargers which are nothing more than a trasnformer and rectifier will try to charge anything connected to it.

@@MRCNC1967 I have found that attaching a smart charger AND an extra voltage source will trick the smart charge to begin charging. Once it sees a base voltage, then remove the alternate voltage source and let the smart charger continue to charge. JwgK

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a battery. I think that's how the saying goes.

Since reaction rate doubles about every 10c once the battery becomes 'hot' to the touch it is beginning to be too hot. 110F or 120F is generally the cutoff point for when a person needs to stop or risk damaging the battery or spilling acid. Different batteries have different specs so without looking up any specific battery that would be my general recommendation.

Thank you for the comment. I'm mostly inactive at this time but am considering reviving the channel in the future.

Your power supply is working properly from what I can surmise from your comment. The current limit and the voltage limit are independent. If the voltage limit is reached current is lowered to prevent voltage from going higher, and if the current limit is reached voltage is lowered to prevent the current from going higher. It sounds to me that your batteries are not severely sulfated and are charging like typical batteries instead of charging like damaged batteries as shown in this video.

Thanks for the comment! So many useful batteries are destroyed every year which could be used instead to reduce waste, increase overall wealth, and help the environment.

I never release part x until the full series is uploaded. Will be posted within the next week.

The discharge current matters little. The overcharge amount will determine the water lost.

Not good to be honest but may be worth a try if they're somewhat valuable batteries. If they're dried out you may need to add water. Sulfated batteries do lose voltage fairly quickly after charging but they shouldn't drain down to 1V unless there are other issues.

​@@knurlgnar24 I thought this type of batteries as you have reconditioned here is totally sealed and there's no way of refilling anything there. But can I refill the water and seal everything as it was? It is really important due to the application of those batteries I am going to recondition, which is e-vehicle. I guess they do those batteries for e-vehicles sealed, i.e. with no obvious way to get to the cells, for a reason of high mobility, but on the other hand, there are car batteries with rather easy way to refill the water, so there may very well be no reason for sealing other than forcing users to buy more. What do you think? Will there be any difference in my chances of resealing the sealed batteries after refilling? Isn't that the only difference between the sealed batteries and non-sealed ones is the plastic cover topping the otherwise exact same caps of cells (same as in those car batteries I mentioned where I guess the very manufacturer allows the user to refill its battery from time to time)?

@@allegrofallegrof I think if you're talking e-vehicle battery banks there is hectic danger due to high voltage, compared to a 12V battery. If you keep in mind that electrolyte is "live", the hazard/chance of electrocution sounds too high to be worth doing, or is there a safe way to break the battery bank into 6-cell blocks before fiddling with acid levels? I'm just worried...

Those adapters have a hiccup overcurrent protection mode, so you would have to add resistance between the battery and adapter to limit current to less than 2A. Be careful and be safe if you decide to try it!

I intend to make a video in the future on this subject. Thank you for the suggestion.

@@knurlgnar24 That's a video I'd like to see too!

No

I am using a 12v/10a charger that has a brief 12v/50a engine start mode. I just keep switching between the 2. It's just interesting because at first only chamber 1 would bubble. Now it's the only one that doesn't.

This video ONLY applies to lead acid. Lithium is very different.

I didn't either, but I made a place.

@@knurlgnar24 unfortunately the back of my truck is now my car of ten years got lost at a parking lot where the police came and my cat jumped out and I couldn't find her.

I don't support adding any foreign agents into a lead acid battery as I see no evidence that it actually is effective overall considering all variables, but if you want to try it it's your property and I'm not offended. That cell is likely the primary sulfated cell and it's possible its just too far gone. You can always try to continue the overcharge and cycle approach but it doesn't work for all batteries. Sulfation causes non-reversible damage unfortunately. You clearly reversed a good portion of it already. The industrial approach would be to empty the single bad cell, wash, refill with distilled water, charge the single bad cell to remove sulfation, then refill with acid and charge that single cell to reform. Then rebalance all cells. I doubt that's practical for your battery.

Interesting timing on this comment as I am currently doing some practical experimentation on reverse charging. There are whitepapers out there on the subject and it is absolutely legit if used properly in the right circumstances, but it has to be the RIGHT circumstances. Most UPS units overcharge the batteries and positive plate corrosion or water loss is the precipitator of failure and desulfation or reverse charging will not help. Reverse charging can improve plate activation or help the desulfation process though. It is more aggressive than the methods I typically use but I think I may have found a common use case for it hence my current testing. I think you're on to something here... BTW the 'hiss' you hear is likely due to the battery outgassing excessively. This could be due to a multitude of reasons but there likely isn't much to do about it other than add water as necessary. Sometimes an old battery is just an old battery. None of these methods are magic as you're well aware, they just allow us to make maximum use of otherwise discarded batteries.

@@knurlgnar24 Thanks for your reply! Then, can we soon expect a new reverse charging based video? 😁

I'd say most batteries 'die' due to misuse which comes in many forms from undercharging to storage conditions to simply 'it won't hold a charge' core returns where it simply needs to be equalized and the battery is still like new condition. As for forcing large currents through I think this can be done without much harm (not sure what 'tremendous' means but it sounds a bit above my comfort level) I don't see an advantage. High currents will cause significant heating meaning fewer amp*hours per unit time. This would actually slow down the desulfation process. Whitepapers from reputable sources (US DOE, etc) always state a steady current is to be used, and in my non-scientific testing the process seems almost directly related to AH of overcharge and is rate independent. Solid reputable data is difficult to find on this sort of topic for some reason but I too keep coming back to thinking "A higher voltage should speed up the process right? Even if for short periods of time?" Seems like it should but I haven't been able to show an effect beyond the process being current dependent. High battery temps seem to speed the process too vs a cold battery.

@@knurlgnar24 Thanks!

The charging step is what does the desulfating. Cycling the battery primarily does two basic things: 1: It allows you to judge your progress. 2: It physically stresses the plates causing shedding which exposes new active lead to the charging process, and helps to create stress cracks which allow conversion of additional sulfate into useful active material. Shedding isn't desirable but is an inevitable part of the process.

The initial voltage is independent of the current you would use to desulfate. If it is a 12V battery of, for example, 100Ah instead of 7 as shown in this video then 2-5A would probably be an optimal current limit depending on a host of variables.

I have not personally tested one of the Noco Genius products so go ahead. Maybe it's a decent charger. :) Even if it would not desulphate a battery like this one that doesn't mean it isn't useful to you. I find RV power supplies/chargers to be the best all around units and they cost $150 or so.

That particular charger doesn't allow overcharging for extended periods of time (I know because I have one) so you will have to use a different charger if your batteries are sulfated from storage at low SOC. The best option today in my opinion is to purchase a power supply as shown in this video - it doesn't have to be this particular one, just one that can do 60+ volts to charge the full battery bank. Let it overcharge for a time and then drive the cart until it dies and repeat. If your range increases the issue was sulfation. If it doesn't your battery issue was something else this video isn't covering.

@@knurlgnar24 Hi, and thanks for your thoughtful reply. I was thinking about refurbishing them one at a time - my concern was that if I did them all, I would get them to "good enough" as a group, and one or more would still be needing work. Doing them one at a time would let me pay each one its needed attention. And I know I can use your 30v charger for them, but was wondering how to give the batteries an 8v load. My thought after I sent the original message was to get some 12v incandescent RV light bulbs and use those for a load (they would work as a load but just be dimmer than at 12v). Do you think this would be the most comprehensive approach, or am I overthinking it and that "good enough" is fine for this application? I don't think I can stomach that nice programmable load unit price for my few batteries. And driving the cart until it dies is a little problematic since I'd have to push it back to its corral... ;-) Unless there's a way to create a 48v load???

@@knurlgnar24 I had a thought about how to load only ONE of the 8v batteries. Could I just hook up one 12v car headlamp? They are 55 watt max and at 8v that would be 7 amps if they draw that much. What do you think?

@@knurlgnar24 I purchased this power supply, so I can deal with the batteries one at a time. I hesitate on the price of the load generator you use although I'd love to have that. How can I cobble together a recommended load for one 8v battery? How many car headlamps, for instance? And in series, or parallel?

Still my favorite beer. It's like drinking a loaf of bread. Yum!

Most likely if they have been in continuous use and always charged after use (or each night) they are not sulfated. Depending on the charger used they may have 'dried out'. If you wanted to try desulfating just to experiment with them you could do the same basic thing I showed here where you set the current limit on the power supply to an amp or two, set the voltage to something fairly high (I wouldn't go much above 16V except for batteries that refuse to take a charge) and see if they improve after a half day or day of controlled overcharge. If that doesn't work there are other videos showing how to cut them open and add water - then you would need to do the process shown in this video again as the dried portions of the battery will be severely sulfated. I haven't tried adding water to AGM batteries as I don't think it's very practical or safe but others have reported success.

@@knurlgnar24 Thanks for your suggestions. I indeed never left them off the charger in backyard shed when not in use, however, I often would ride for hours until batteries were discharging down to 10 to 20% capacity or 11.5 to 12 volts which I only read recently will create some sulfation or as you alluded to anytime their not being charged. You are right, their actually quite easy to open up with razor sharp knife all around the seam of cover and with screw driver and some surgery will pop it off... FYI, their not dry and liquid is still above the plates in all 4. Hydrometer readings are not great as expected since sulfates were not liquified back to rebalance chemically. Your method peeked my interest as if its only a matter of melting the sulfation between plates back in with some higher amperage, it would be a no brainer, and perhaps would bring them back quite a bit... Where I lack knowledge is the current especially the amperage to use during the process but I think you made it clear and found you to be quite conservative on how I should procede, and sounds much safer and now confident I can do this in the basement. With loose cover, and under no pressure, they can bubble all they want... I do have a temp gun to monitor cells like yours if in doubt... I only need to get a cheap lab power supply like yours on Amazon and some 10 amp diodes so that batteries don't ever backfeed into the Power supply such as a power loss and destroy it. I have all winter to play with them on my workbench in my basement as in Canada, you can't really ride through the snow at minus 30 degrees...

I can pretty much guarantee that you can restore those batteries to near 100% without much trouble. If it's only been a few months of damage due to undercharging it will be almost completely reversible. I'd need a specific model number to give specific advice, but whether these are AGM, flooded lead antimony, flooded lead calcium, or pure lead makes a difference in the details. (I will assume flooded of some chemistry) The short of it is I would recommend disconnecting or turning off the solar and inverters and doing an extra long equalization charge. Crown likely recommends something like 5 hours for maintenance purposes but since yours are damaged they will need more than that - maybe a full day. Keep an eye on temperatures and electrolyte level during this time. If you have a hydrometer keep charging until sg stops rising in all cells. After that do a deep discharge, log the result, and do a normal full recharge followed by the crown recommended equalization charge. Repeat. Once your capacity result during the discharge tests stops rising you are done and given your situation it will probably take only 1 or 2 cycles. Obviously the most important thing is to not let them get damaged in the first place but life isn't ideal and these things happen - fortunately it's not a big deal as long as the situation is rectified in a reasonable amount of time.

@@knurlgnar24 thanks so much .... I am completely off grid so I can't charge them externally I can set my charge controllers To equalization voltage for a few hours at a time a few days per week...will this eventually do it? If not since I am switching to Chinese prismatic 3.2v x16 for 48v sometime this winter and run an external charger then. (BTW they are a pair of crown CR-430 6v in series.) and these big fla are to expensive and too heavy to junk... Awesome info ...hope you get back to it Thanks again for the reply.

That definitely *shouldn't* happen, but yes I also have that fear because power supplies are usually not tested against unanticipated events like AC power outages. I did try unplugging the supply while on the battery as a test and it didn't do anything bad but that only means so much.

@@knurlgnar24 You got away with it :-) I'd still like a diode. I always do now, once bitten...

I agree with you completely here. A 'smart charger' which in reality is super stupid will give up on charging a sulfated battery much too early. If you repeatedly use it to attempt to charge a sulfated battery it will slowly desulfate it in many cases. It's not an ideal solution to the problem but sometimes after a few cycles the charger will finally decide "OK, I guess this battery is worth charging so I'll give it an honest shot".

​@@knurlgnar24 And what if a sulfated battery does not desulfurate slowly but deteriorates slowly with time despite such a periodic charging with the smart charger in a "non-charging" state? Does it make a difference to keep charging them periodically in this way? Unfortunately, I can't say if it deteriorates (in terms of open-circuit voltage) slower or not with this kind of "charging." And even if it deteriorates slower, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is beneficial to the battery, does it?

Any lead acid battery has some risk of catastrophic failure, so charging should be done in a location where a boil-over or battery explosion won't cause a severe problem if it happens when unattended. That said the main risk is acid burns and that isn't really an issue for unattended applications. I personally like the cheap lab power supply as shown here, but I can see value in automatic setups too. A long time ago I used a Arduino type device to automatically cycle a relay to discharge-cycle a battery for cycle testing. The charger was simply left connected continuously. It works fine and you could set something like that up for well under $50 if you wanted to invest the time. A purpose made device like what you're talking would be better though if you're not on a poor student budget like I was.

​@@knurlgnar24 Should I worry about fire in unattended handling of lead-acid batteries - be it charging, discharging, or storing? You seem to have said that only the acid burn (of body and objects) or contamination might be a problem with this type of batteries, not a fire.

@@allegrofallegrof Lead-acid battery can produce hydrogen gas, especially when overcharged. Hydrogen gas is highly flammable, as Hindenburg accident told us. So, locate the battery in well-ventilated area, and yes, put away fires and sparks.

I'd disconnect the alarm and force charge the battery for an extended period of time. Lead Calcium batteries (which are the standard for North America) refuse to accept a charge after complete discharge for a time until they slowly start accepting charge again. After that point you will still need to desulfate the battery.

Sounds normal. Be sure to keep the water topped up. Batteries can't always be saved so you'll have to see if yours can.