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Bub73

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Joined: 10/12/2009
Location: United States
Posts: 116

Posted: 06:20am 09 Mar 2015

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It's a good idea to tin and overlay the high current traces on strip board when finished also.

Bob

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 01:38pm 09 Mar 2015

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Hi BobD

I have tried the Jaycar desulphators and found them fragile and not very effective of the four I purchased two didn't work one died in the first month and the only one still working is in my car, in all fairness it did get 5 years from the battery but when I tried it to desulphate a battery from the tractor it didn't have enough puff to do any good.

George

The components in the circuit are relatively cheap so if you make a mistake it wont break the bank, and as humans we learn better by making mistakes. The inductors are the most expensive and reverse polarity wont kill them. Bubs layout on the strip board is easy to follow and would be easier to follow than the circuit diagram on its own.

All the best

BobEdited by VK4AYQ 2015-03-10

Foolin Around

BobD

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Joined: 07/12/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 935

Posted: 02:00pm 09 Mar 2015

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Hey Bob
It was Altronics Desulfators that I referred to. They were in Silicon Chip in March 2015 issue.
Bob

I just noticed you have same day month DoB as me. I never found anyone before with that.

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 02:27pm 09 Mar 2015

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Hi Bob

Sorry about the mistake, I haven't tried the altronics desulphators so my mistake.

We are a rare pair it seems, when I was in the states I found I had a distant cousin in Alaska same name but with different middle name born same month and year one day different to me, he came from a branch of the family that went gold prospecting in the 1800 hundreds and stayed on in Alaska. We exchanged photos and other bits and pieces for a while but lost contact.

All the best

Bob

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Georgen
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Joined: 13/09/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 462

Posted: 06:25pm 09 Mar 2015

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Much appreciate your help.

I am pretty sure that trace is removed behind R2 an R3

Looks that will have to ask regarding L1 and L2 parts

Pretty sure that DC capacitors are polarity sensitive, but this one I will work out going back from -12V and +12V

As to price, yes it will be easy to swallow, pride will hurt much longer

George

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 04:26am 11 Mar 2015

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Desulphator information and circuit 12 and 24 volt.

2015-03-11_142512_desulfator.pdf

All the best

Bob

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Georgen
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Joined: 13/09/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 462

Posted: 01:43pm 11 Mar 2015

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Great timing Bob with web-page reminder.

Looks that LM555 number 1 pin is marked with little dot on reverse side.

George

Georgen
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Joined: 13/09/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 462

Posted: 07:54pm 13 Mar 2015

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Found answer here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC

George

rustyrod

Senior Member

Joined: 08/11/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 121

Posted: 12:47am 02 Apr 2015

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Happy Easter VK4bob

Happy Easter everyone!

Always Thinking

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 03:49am 02 Apr 2015

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Hi Rustyrod

You have a good weekend too

All the best

Bob

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Georgen
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Joined: 13/09/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 462

Posted: 06:17pm 02 Apr 2015

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Happy Easter all !

By the way, my 2 batteries accidentally got pushed up to 15V by my solar panels for half an our or so.

Surprised that neither was gassing, maybe time to check water level on the AGM one, as Lead Acid one has liquid level OK (can see it through opaque white plastic body.

George

VK4AYQ
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Joined: 02/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 2539

Posted: 03:25am 03 Apr 2015

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Hi George

That will do then good as equalization charge, to get my batteries working I held them at 15 volts for three months, needed the voltage and water to get them going again after the dehydration they suffered. On the lead acid the older method of desulphation was to hold them at 16 volts for 4 hours.

All the best

Bob

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rustyrod

Senior Member

Joined: 08/11/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 121

Posted: 05:28am 18 Jun 2015

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My little desulphators are still singing away.

Some batteries have improved. Some have not. I'm thinking these little units are great for preventing the build up in the first place but struggle to remove bad sulphation

I have five units now and I have made two voltage doubler units as well.

I don't know what power they are putting out but the 4mm wire leads gets warm and on a bad battery the diodes get hot enough to sizzle spit.

If I carefully separate the lead I can draw a bright arc nearly 2mm long.

These have only 4 caps each.

Recently, I got a new battery that had been left for 3 months in a car and is seriously flat.
A battery charger gasses the hell out of two cells and the other 4 seem dead.

I had to disconnect 2 caps or the doubler would fry itself.
I charge the battery without the doubler for a while then disconnect the charger and reconnect the doubler.
Man it heats up.
Each time the desulphation cycle lasts longer until it stops singing.

When I find my camera I will post the story.

The next one I am making has it's own power transformer and 20 caps.

Then Experimenting,

I got a little 6 volt battery given to me by Dad when I was four (long time ago) it came from my uncle's motor bike so it was 10 or more years old even then.

It has a black case with lead bridges on top. It would be 7 inches tall 6 inches wide and 3 inches thick. Real cute.

Strange, it was flat, however it powered numerous electrical things I tied together, like controls for space ships and my pedal car.

Months ago it was dry, very dry and I had to top it up a few times before the level stabilized.
It had no voltage as read by an analogue multi-meter.
I connected it to Granpa's 6 volt charger and watched it, nothing.

There is no desulphator connected.

Then I forgot about it.

A month ago I noticed the corrosion around a terminal, The battery was dry again????

Oops, I left that charging all this time.

I added water, and watched again, after a week I could see the top was wet.
The cell caps are off.
Sure enough it was gassing. The liquid was down to the tops of the plates.
I added water and left it for a couple of hours.
I grabbed the hygrometer and the float nearly went out the top.

A battery load tester read just over 6 volts and dropped to the top of weak under test.

I have left it sitting for a few days and the tester shows right on the bottom edge of "weak" but it holds well.

It gasses gently, the acid is off the chart.

Could uncle have put more acid in it to get a little more out of it during the depression?

I'm thinking, drain that lot out (save it) and fill with new water and charge again, with a desulphator, this time.

Who would have thought it would have charged.

Always Thinking

isaiah

Guru

Joined: 25/12/2009
Location: United States
Posts: 303

Posted: 08:29pm 03 Aug 2015

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Bob,
I just came by a old 36 volt golf cart and found some used batteries for it and we are wondering if we can make up a desulfator to take care of all 6 batteries at one time? it has 6, 6 volt golf cart batteries. really 4 cart and two man lift batteries which are smaller batteries but Im still looking for two more cart sized batteries.
Im not a golfer but want to use the cart to get around the farm here in my older year's
Isaiah

URL=http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1973-11- 01/The-Plowboy-Interview.aspx>The Plowboy Interview[/URL>

domwild
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Joined: 16/12/2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 873

Posted: 12:54pm 04 Aug 2015

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isaiah,

Not wishing to take the thunder away from Bob, I remember an entire desulphation website existed similar to this discussion and one with the same schematics and all I remember is getting hints with one schematic which components to change for 24V, but not 36V.

Different second hand 6V batteries may not be at the same level of storage capacity and could present a problem doing them in combination.

Taxation as a means of achieving prosperity is like a man standing inside a bucket trying to lift himself up.

Winston Churchill

greybeard
Senior Member

Joined: 04/01/2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 157

Posted: 11:57pm 18 Aug 2015

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Saw this thread regarding using phosphoric acid to try and rejuvenate sulphated lead acid batteries. Haven't tried it but it may be of interest to some.
Phospheric acid use

CybJaffe
Newbie

Joined: 22/09/2015
Location: Spain
Posts: 2

Posted: 12:39am 25 Sep 2015

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First of all thanks for sharing this power bank with us. I want to know how is the dud battery doing now?Do you have any knowledge on the old Tunger battery chargers that uses two bulbs?We are having troubles getting one side to have any out put and it looks like it might have a wire missing.We did get that old one bulb Tunger working with an updated rectifier.Can you please clarify me the things?

assembly board

rustyrod

Senior Member

Joined: 08/11/2014
Location: Australia
Posts: 121

Posted: 01:21am 25 Sep 2015

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FoundThis
I particularly like the helpful hint of sticking your finger in the socket to see if it is clean

Always Thinking

CybJaffe
Newbie

Joined: 22/09/2015
Location: Spain
Posts: 2

Posted: 11:23pm 28 Sep 2015

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VK4AYQ said Hi All

I thought I would document this project as there has been a lot of interest in the recovery of batteries over the last few months.

Background:
The battery bank was located near Gladstone North Queensland at a camp site on a farm belonging to a friend of mine, we installed a little independence solar, windmill and backup diesel generator for the workmen on the farm as it is to far from power to be economical for an installation.

There is a pair of 80 watt solar panels with a 500 watt Chinese windmill and a 5 KVA auto start diesel generator as a backup. The batteries are 5 150 amp hour batteries powering a 12 volt Inverter 3500 watts.

All was going well for 12 months until the workers where pulled off that job onto another one for three months, on return the batteries where flat. As nothing was running off the batteries as consumption was turned of all should have been OK but Murphy stepped in. That was 12 months ago when my friend told me what happened, so I suggested we try and salvage the batteries.

Having heard nothing more about it from him I assumed he wasn't going to worry about it, and just get new batteries, how wrong can you be. He turned up at my place this week with the batteries in his 4x4 and said can you do anything with the batteries, after checking them not one of them would give a voltage reading, 0 volts not good.

For the interest of it I said I would try to get them going as much out of interest as hope of succeeding, so here we go.

Step one: check electrolyte levels, water level OK but wouldn't move the hydrometer as expected on any cell.

Step 2: hook the battery charger to each battery on 12 and 24 volt setting no current at all totally dead.

Step 3: King hit, connected my DC inverter welder with output voltage of 60 volts across the batteries one at a time 5 minuets on and 5 minuets off for an hour this started them absorbing a bit of current.

Step 4: hooked up the 24 volt charger to the battery with a desulphator for several hours, started absorbing 5 amps at 30 volts terminal voltage after 2 hours went up to 20 amps at 15 volts terminal voltage, at this point the charger cut out on overload so I went to 12 volt setting with a terminal voltage of 14 volts with a 12 volt desulphator 5 amps after an hour it was up to 15 amps.

This process was repeated on all batteries over the week and now 4 out of 5 have responded to the point that after sitting for 12 hours they maintain a terminal voltage of 13.1 volts on all four. The fifth battery has a dead cell and only reads 10.5 volts after sitting, so this I suspect was the cause of the batteries discharging in the first place, I have given it several king hits with the welder and am starting to get some cell activity on the dead cell, so will fool around with that later on.

Step 5: has been to rotate the chargers and desulphators on the batteries for 24 hours each, and there has been a noticeable decrease in the sulphate visible through the caps. I haven't given them a capacity test as yet to see how much capacity has recovered but would suspect around 30% at this time.

Step 6: next week connect in series parallel with my main battery bank with a charger connected to the 4 and a desulphator connected directly to them with an ammeter in series to monitor their interaction with the main bank with a 5 amp fuse for protection of the main bank should another cell go down, on past experience it may take several months to get them back to usable capacity.

Safety Considerations:

This process can be hazardous, so is conducted out doors with good ventilation wearing a safety face mask and protective clothing and be sure to turn off chargers before connecting to the battery terminals to avoid sparking.
If using the king hit method I use, be sure to time the on and off periods so as not to heat the battery beyond 40 degrees C. and observe the cell activity for an even reaction over all cells, do not leave on long enough to cause violent bubbling as the next step from that is a internal flash over and an explosion, better to take longer than blow the lot up. Do not go away and leave it on as you may forget the time and have a disaster as I did once. If the phone ring turn it all off.

This is the motley collection outside my workshop.

This is the chargers testing for the ability to absorb current No Luck.

This is my little Inverter welder which has a open circuit voltage of 40 to 60 volts depending on the amp setting, it is handy for the king hit process described here and also for a battery charger on the main bank as required with an ammeter in series to monitor feed in current, it is rated at 160 amps 30% duty cycle and 80 amps 100% duty cycle. And its a good welder too, a real bonus.

Here is the desulphator connected to the battery for 24 hours, as I have only one spare unit it has been a slow process to bring them up so far, when they are connected to the main bank they will have a dedicated 24 volt unit for a month or two.

This is the dud battery, you will note that it is a different make and model and I suspect old stock from the seller hence the dud cell, maybe if a desulphator had been fitted from day one it would have prevented this expensive debacle, who knows.

The original power input was working OK solar at 10 amps regulated and wind turbine at 30 amps regulated, as the property is right on the coast the wind is very good with sea breezes nearly all the time around 8 ms, the unit was running a small fridge at 130 watts, four CFL lights 15 watts each and a TV at 100 watts, along with a radio and 2 way radio for comm's on the farm.

The generator had a cut in device should the batteries become discharged below 12 volts but that was turned off while the workers where away.

I hope the experience with the attempt to revive these batteries will be of interest.

All the best

Bob

Thanks for sharing this project with us. It looks very helpful. I want to know about its total power. Also what is its efficiency? Do you have faced any problem till now? And also upto what level i can implement it?

assembly board

Georgen
Guru

Joined: 13/09/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 462

Posted: 01:36am 29 Sep 2015

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Making batteries last longer is very interesting subject.

Few things that I would like to test one day is to cut battery open, close to the top edge and see if all the plates can be taken out with top cover.

Then I would like to take liquid out and remove all the sediment from the bottom.

It was mentioned a number of times that sediment can short out the cell, so it would be in my opinion very good method to remove this problem.

Cutting top off creates another problem how to seal the battery again, but here one can improvise

George

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