Battery Experts, Reconditioning vs Equalization??

Open your battery manufacturing company right next to a Prozac factory.

Well back in the day when I was into serious boating I used to use a Delco Voyager Deep Cycle battery. Boy was that one fantastic battery. You could run it down over and over again with the trolling motor and it would always come back to 100%.

But in this world that we live in today of Wal-Mart and other fast paced companies and products, I am quite sure that the current Delco Voyager is no longer of the same quality and endurance.

I also purchased the same charger to be able to add a little 'Pixie' dust to my batteries in an attempt to prolong their life. List of current batteries in my household:

2-Trojan T-105 (6V) for my Lance 1181
1-Wal-Mart group 31 for my bass boat
2-Interstate 12v deep cycle batteries for the trolling motor
1-Interstate 12v battery for my 2005 Honda Goldwing
1-Yuasa 12v battery for my Can-Am 400 ATV
1-12V lawn tractor battery for my portable generator
2-12v AGM batteries in my 2012 Dodge 3500
1-12v Motorcraft battery in DW's 2008 Mustang GT

For a total of: 11 batteries I should open a battery manufacturing company and save my $$$.

"Man what a mess we have. OK I'll get off the soap box now..."

Well Mex, I certainly hope not for too long, you Sir are a repository of fascinating battery wisdom and our consummate Educator!!

Best Regards,

3 tons

Cycle life testing of a battery is a long, expensive, and b-o-r-i-n-g exercise. At least ten specimens have to be chosen at random, not of the same production batch.

I had to manufacture my own equipment from scratch. Nichrome resistance wiring with the durability overkill percentile that would make a book keeper scream in agony. Resistance comparability of ten circuits measured with a four wire milli-ohm meter then verified with a precision power supply and Manganin shunt to be positively assured all ten circuits were ABSOLUTELY identical. Amperage draws were within a HUNDREDTH of an ampere equal all 10 circuits.

OMRON precision interval timers with an accuracy of .001 second. A master power supply 200 amperes for group 24 RV batteries. Silver soldered connections, silver cadmium interface compound to join to battery posts.

10 Precision kWh meters in series with the negative leads. The meters had to be qualified before and after the tests.

42.5 ampere hour discharges at 05 amperes discharge rate. More than 8 hours discharge and 6 hours to recharge. Fourteen hours per cycle. Three hundred cycles.

1. Full conditioning (top charge)

2. kWh discharge to 12.00 volts, establishes available kWh available energy.

3. Hydrometer sampling

4. Drain and extract plates and lid

5. Autopsy positive and negative plates

6. Issue report of findings.

Now someone is going to tell me that some Gyro Gearloose peddling a pulse modulated power supply went through a similar protocol to verify whether or not their gizmo had any effect at all on points (1) through (5) as compared to normal charging and discharging cycling?

I tested batteries for N.A.S.A. and DOD because many fellow engineers understood my protocol and discipline. When I see the free-for-all atmosphere that exists in battery marketing today I cringe and get moody. It just isn't with batteries, we have RV tires that explode, a government of do-nothing drones that cannot put together a testing regimen requirement for manufacturers to meet and prove standards. Man what a mess we have. OK I'll get off the soap box now...

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Sure glad WW II submarines had pulse desulfation technology. Oh wait, they didn't press a button to do that - when Japanese destroyers depth charged them the high frequency vibrations knocked all the sulfate off the plates, and maybe the plates too.

BATTERIES MUST SULFATE THE POSITIVE PLATE OR IT IS NOT A LEAD ACID BATTERY. When electrons flow the sulfur in SULFURic acid gets deposited on the positive plate. Got it? Natural, inevitable, and positively necessary. When sulfur is extracted from H2SO4 H2O is left which is lighter, less dense.

Sulfation coating is not an even wonderful patina on the positive plates. It is uneven, patchy, and nonuniform,the DENSER the sulfate the THICKER the sulfate, and the longer the sulfate remains on the positive plate the easier it is for the sulfur compound molecular structure is to "lattice". Interlock. Bind. Glue. Stick. Harden.

So it is like radiation. Intense short term is hazardous. Less intense long term is just as hazardous. Super deep discharging lays the sulfate on THICK. It also leaves very little REACTIVE COMPONENT left in the electrolyte to dissolve the sulfation and put it back into solution (recharging). When sulfate gets X microns "thick" on a plate it is a real bear to remove. Because in attempting to charge and remove latticed sulfation innocent bare positive plate material gets shedded by process of overheating and acid overprocessing because of high heat. You may see 120F electrolyte temperature while the plate may see 140F. It is insulated.

If the thought of playing a Pied Piper frequency tune to your batteries appeals to you, then you are the person you are trying to satisfy. Never attempt to screw with the tranquility of a satisfied customer.

Mex, yours is the Alpha and the Omega of straight-talking brevity! Complexities vastly reduced, nearly an entire semester of Battery Chemistry 101, distilled to only 5 concise paragraphs...Hear, Hear to the Great Communicator!!

Best Regards,

3 tons

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Sure glad WW II submarines had pulse desulfation technology. Oh wait, they didn't press a button to do that - when Japanese destroyers depth charged them the high frequency vibrations knocked all the sulfate off the plates, and maybe the plates too.

BATTERIES MUST SULFATE THE POSITIVE PLATE OR IT IS NOT A LEAD ACID BATTERY. When electrons flow the sulfur in SULFURic acid gets deposited on the positive plate. Got it? Natural, inevitable, and positively necessary. When sulfur is extracted from H2SO4 H2O is left which is lighter, less dense.

Sulfation coating is not an even wonderful patina on the positive plates. It is uneven, patchy, and nonuniform,the DENSER the sulfate the THICKER the sulfate, and the longer the sulfate remains on the positive plate the easier it is for the sulfur compound molecular structure is to "lattice". Interlock. Bind. Glue. Stick. Harden.

So it is like radiation. Intense short term is hazardous. Less intense long term is just as hazardous. Super deep discharging lays the sulfate on THICK. It also leaves very little REACTIVE COMPONENT left in the electrolyte to dissolve the sulfation and put it back into solution (recharging). When sulfate gets X microns "thick" on a plate it is a real bear to remove. Because in attempting to charge and remove latticed sulfation innocent bare positive plate material gets shedded by process of overheating and acid overprocessing because of high heat. You may see 120F electrolyte temperature while the plate may see 140F. It is insulated.

If the thought of playing a Pied Piper frequency tune to your batteries appeals to you, then you are the person you are trying to satisfy. Never attempt to screw with the tranquility of a satisfied customer.

Good stuff, Mex.
FWIW, in '92 or so a guy showed up at my shop hawking the pulse reconditioning technology. He had a few ways to implement it, from dashboard mounted chips to fleet charging. He claimed to hold a patent on this process and had reams of paper with graphs and studies concluded that showed the process to add a large % to battery life (33%, IIRC). At that time, we were charging more than 800 batteries so longevity was of interest. We gave it some thought and concluded the price, even if it worked, was not worth it.

I am still at a loss as how a higher voltage delivered at low amperage in any sequence can make any material difference other than adding charge to the cells. The materials involved, lead, antimony, H2SO4, all have their electrons at a certain potential, interacting with each other in the presence of a charge voltage. How can the introduction of a small charge current, even if sequenced, significantly alter the state of the materials? I don't believe it can.

Roy Ken..if you can't find the Vector/Blk & Decker this one is rated as good if not better. I have the Blk/Decker but neighbor has this one and it works great and gets good reviews.
Battery charger

RoyB wrote:
Just curious where you got the Black and Decker VEC1093DBD Portable 40AMP Charger from. Mine came from AMAZON and I notice they are listed as NOT AVAILABLE any more. I checked with another source that carried them in the past with the same results...

Hoping these chargers are NOT going out of production now... There is a bunch of us RV'ers that have them...

Roy Ken

Got mine here, took awhile as they were on back order.

http://www.boatandrvaccessories.com/black--decker-vec1093dbd-12-volt-40-amp-battery-charger.html

Best regards,

3 tons

Sure glad WW II submarines had pulse desulfation technology. Oh wait, they didn't press a button to do that - when Japanese destroyers depth charged them the high frequency vibrations knocked all the sulfate off the plates, and maybe the plates too.

BATTERIES MUST SULFATE THE POSITIVE PLATE OR IT IS NOT A LEAD ACID BATTERY. When electrons flow the sulfur in SULFURic acid gets deposited on the positive plate. Got it? Natural, inevitable, and positively necessary. When sulfur is extracted from H2SO4 H2O is left which is lighter, less dense.

Sulfation coating is not an even wonderful patina on the positive plates. It is uneven, patchy, and nonuniform,the DENSER the sulfate the THICKER the sulfate, and the longer the sulfate remains on the positive plate the easier it is for the sulfur compound molecular structure is to "lattice". Interlock. Bind. Glue. Stick. Harden.

So it is like radiation. Intense short term is hazardous. Less intense long term is just as hazardous. Super deep discharging lays the sulfate on THICK. It also leaves very little REACTIVE COMPONENT left in the electrolyte to dissolve the sulfation and put it back into solution (recharging). When sulfate gets X microns "thick" on a plate it is a real bear to remove. Because in attempting to charge and remove latticed sulfation innocent bare positive plate material gets shedded by process of overheating and acid overprocessing because of high heat. You may see 120F electrolyte temperature while the plate may see 140F. It is insulated.

If the thought of playing a Pied Piper frequency tune to your batteries appeals to you, then you are the person you are trying to satisfy. Never attempt to screw with the tranquility of a satisfied customer.

Each mode will have an effect on the other. Equalization will do some reconditioning. Reconditioning will do some equalization.

The science is beyond me but I understand if the charge is done at a certain frequency it will tend to knock the hardened sulfate from the plates and restore capacity to some extent. Battery Minder has a similar patented process.

Equalization is more of an over charge to make sure all cells are at 100% charge. This condition can be verified with a hydrometer.