Dead Batteries

[Rettax3]

When you have a collection of cars, like I do, maintaining batteries can not only waste a lot of time, but also a lot of money. I've explored alternative options to conventional lead-acid starting batteries before, and know maybe a little more about batteries and their construction than the average key-turner, but am by no means an expert.

Yesterday, I did a little research on reviving long-dead batteries, and watched an interesting video on using a stick-welder to force-charge and de-sulfate an old, long-dead and unchargeable battery... Reading through some of the feedback responses got me thinking about my old 200-Amp jump-starter cart. Nothing fancy, and not too expensive, I believe Harbor Freight still sells similar battery chargers/jump-starters around the $100 range... I rarely use mine because the higher the Amp setting, the higher the voltage output runs, up to (and beyond!) 20 volts on the highest setting -clearly that is NOT acceptable to use to jump-start a computer-controlled car.

Last night, I ran a test, and took a Wal-Mart 800-CCA battery that has been door-nail-dead for a year or two, snowed-on and rained-on sitting on concrete in front of my garage-door, the battery is about 10 years old. I force-charged the battery (cell-caps off) in a well-ventilated area for about 1/2 hour (it is cold here now), until the acid in the cells had been bubbling for about 10 minutes. I disconnected the charger for about five minutes, hooked it back up again for about 10, and repeated this two more times. The battery was holding a steady 12.5 Volts, even with a 55-Watt headlight hooked up to it. This morning, I put it in one of my old Plymouths, and it cranked and fired right up. Hmm... So, I repeated the test on two more batteries today, one NAPA battery from my mini-van that will no longer take a charge strong enough to crank the engine, and an Autozone Duralast battery so old the date-sticker has worn off of it and the red plastic top is sun-faded to pink. Same procedure, same results, though I have yet to drop them into a car, they light up the 55-watt headlight very nicely. I also force-charged a Blue-Top Optima battery that I bought ~five years ago that never would hold a charge, even with my very good trickle-charger/maintainer and numerous tries over the years. After the high-Amp setting, I also ran this one on a 2-Amp charge overnight, and it too seems to be holding a charge now and cranked-over my mini-van's V-6 very well.

Finally, I am starting an experiment with Super Capacitors that may provide a solution to eliminate car-batteries altogether, or as a minimum may provide a huge boost in cranking-power that can alleviate the worst stresses put onto a starting-battery, and potentially extend the life of a conventional lead-acid battery by years. Once I start in on that testing, I'll update that here.

[woody90gtz]

My old man was telling me about this same thing. He tried it with his Schumacher 100A jump starter/charger but it's pretty new and has some sort of logic that prevents you from doing this successfully - just reads "defective battery or poles reversed". I wonder if the key word in your post is "old" or "nothing fancy"...

[Rettax3]

I would say that 'old' is indeed the key. Most newer chargers have gone digital control everything, and are 'idiot-proof' or 'baby-safe'... Pisses me off to no end when making a tool 'safe for all users of any experience' (or I.Q. level) essentially removes a part of its' function.

That said, even my old charger has been 'safety' shutting-off during this process on a couple of the batteries I've been playing with, but I am fine with that as I believe the machine is protecting itself from damage. I am up to about half a dozen batteries charged this way so far, all are now holding at least a charge strong enough to light-up a 55-watt Halogen for 30 seconds without dimming, even the ancient AutoZone door-stop I mentioned. I'll be picking up a carbon-stack load-tester shortly here for better evaluation of my results thoug). I think the charger is 'checking out' when it hits a certain Wattage... An O'Reilly's AGM I was charging up last night shut the charger off after a few minutes at its' peak of 400 Watts. This was after it settled from 28 (!) volts and 15 Amps at the end of the first 'blast-charge' to 20V/20A at the peak of the second-round. I am not convinced this battery doesn't have a damaged cell though, so my hopes for it are not super-high, it is only four years old too, just a year out of warranty technically, but it is a replacement for one that died two years through its' three-year warranty, so they wouldn't touch it two years ago when it died -fair enough.

I have not tried this 'function' with this charger before (it isn't intended to be used this way as far as I can tell, as this is the 'Engine Start' mode), because I believed running this high of a voltage would damage the cells. Even on old batteries going for recycling, I didn't bother. Oh well. Until this process dumps enough crud off the plates to start shorting them, I may have found a way to gain extra years of service-life from these blocks...

One 'old-schooler' had mentioned draining the battery of acid, then refilling it with hot/boiling water to help break-up the sulfate layers, that is a little more than I want to mess with though. I still want to play with the Super-Caps...

[Rettax3]

I am tormented by this question

I am tormented by 'bots and spammers.

Nevertheless, an update may be in order... I would say this technique has had about a 50/50 success rate, maybe just under that for me. I have a couple of now-good revived batteries, and a couple that are still junk waiting to be recycled. AGM batteries have had a 0% success-rate with this, and just leaked (keep the baking-soda or soda-ash handy!), but I only had two to try, so not a large sampling. I am fighting with one conventional battery that held good for a few months, but now while it still cranks great, it loses its' charge over-night. Not a rousing success, but with batteries now costing upwards of $150 for basic units, the experiment has paid for itself so far.
I still haven't played with the Super-Caps I have, but I will get around to it eventually. I am trying to finish a couple of older projects, and of course, got another new one.
I'll start a new thread on that too (later), but this is I think my oldest 'bucket-list' motorcycle (not by age, but by how long I've wanted one), the one that really started the itch for me... '80s Honda Interceptor VF1000. First bike to dethrone the famous Vincent Black Shadow that was the fastest production motorcycle since the early 1950's, which held that title for over three decades. The Interceptor is (sadly) also my SLOWEST open-class bike at this time (I sold-off my Kawasaki Z-1 some years ago, which while very quick in it's day with enough torque to snap its' chain on my one serious attempt to wheelie the beast, was NOT a top-speed king), but while the complaints about it in the day were its' weight and top-heavy feel, it feels like a MUCH smaller bike than my Katana 1100, which just a few years later, had piled-on and soundly beaten the Interceptor's top-speed. Anyway, more on that one later...

[snowblindburd]

Can't blame ya for trying. It was quite upsetting to pay $140 for a new battery for my 2007 Civic (and that was discounted and after my core). The old one had just had it though.

I do recall seeing this dude on YouTube talk about how one of the models of NOCO chargers (Genius 10) was able to revive some of his old batteries with a "repair" function. Can't say how much truth there is to that and I really didn't research it further, but it was intriguing nonetheless.