Alum battery conversion.

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vtsteam:
ps. Michael Hackelman in his early 70's book Wind and WndSpinners talks about salvaging junkyard batteries by simply rinsing them out with distilled water, and refilling with fresh electroylyte, and putting through monitored charge cycles. This presumably removes the sulfation at the bottom of the batt, etc.

DavidA:
As mentioned above, I changed the battery chargers and connected up the big variable rate machine.

I found that 17 Volt will drive 1.5 Amp through the battery. That will do for the next 24 hours.
Then I will do some kind of discharge test.

VT, The mix you mention, 1 cup to 1 US gallon, is the one I am using. Corrected to give me 2 Litre of electrolyte. This solution dissolves the Alum completely.
I do recall the video where the experimenter finishes up with a supersaturated solution of baking soda. I did think that the measuring was a bit haphazard. Also, I don't recall him rinsing out the battery either before or after the addition of the soda. He appears to be just spooning it into the cells. I must rewatch the video.

I'll have to try get a copy of that Heckelman Book. Just rinsing with distilled water doesn't seem to be capable of removing the sulphate. But if he says it does it is worth a try; I have plenty of old batteries.

Dave.

vtsteam:
Hi Dave -- the supersaturated solution was "ammonium alum" from a deodorant and the guy was using a brand new dry motorcycle battery, so he didn't rinse at all. He did have a discharge tester connected to his laptop with graphing software, but I don't get the point of all the "technical" caution he put into it when he used such slapdash chemistry.

I can't remember if Michael Hackelman actually stated that rinsing and emptying several times with distilled water removed sulphation -- my guess there. He might have, I just don't remember. I'm guessing that book is long out of print. I think I still have it -- will have to look. But anyway, he did re-use junkyard batteries after giving them the clean-out treatment. He also said that some were damaged beyond rejuvenation, but most were not.

russ57:
I've not had a chance to watch the videos, but I have used successfully several times, 'battery boosta' which is/was a selenium based compound, about 20ml per cell if I recall.
I recall someone explaining to me that batteries can fail when loose sulphation (?) falls to the bottom and shorts out the plates. I would expect distilled water flushes would shift this, but I doubt it would actually clean the plates. The other vague recollection I have is that the plates can physically collapse and short - I suspect washing won't help then. 😊
-Russell

DavidA:
Progress so far.

Saturday 14 Feb' 15.

Went in to check the progress of the charge and found the Amp meter at Full scale. 5 Amp +. With 16 Volts across it.

Disconnected the charger. Let the battery stand for half an hour and measured the no load voltage.

13.6 Volt.

Next, a discharge test.

I connected a 12 Volt 50 Watt light bulb in series with the Amp meter. From the nominal figures I expected the Bulb to draw 50/12 = 4.166 Amp.

1315 Hrs now at 10.8 Volt.

Start of test.

13:15 Hrs 9 Volt 4. Amp needle flickering.

13: 20 Hrs 9.2 Volt 4 Amp needle flickering.

13:30 Hrs 11.8 Volt 4.4 Amp needle steady.

13:46 Hrs 11.7 Volt 4.4 Amp ------ " -------

14:00 Hrs 11.7 Volt 4.3 Amp ------ " -------

14:15 HRS 11.8 Volt 4.25 Amp ------ " -------

14:48 Hrs 11.5 Volt 4.25 Amp ------ " ------

15:00 Hrs 11.3 Volt 4.18 Amp ------ " ------

15:15 Hrs 9.7 Volt 3.6 Amp ------ " ------

Disconnected load.

So, this battery that wouldn't take any charge before treatment ran this bulb for nearly two hours.

Now I'll carry on with these charge / discharge cycles and see how it progresses.

Note the sudden change from 9.2 Volt to 11.8 Volt across the battery when it had been supplying a current to the bulb for a while. It then stays around this voltage most of the way through the test.

Dave.

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