Has anyone restored 12 volt batteries?

[Coaldust]

John, it’s fun to look back on all those crazy things we did.

 

[Delmer]

For an electric fencer, which is a very small load, you don't have to take the cover off the bad cell, you can usually short a few plates through the cap hole, with some pieces of lead or whatever. If you want to take the cover off, a large soldering iron to melt the plastic works, then drain the acid out of that cell and bypass it by connecting the big lead bars. This will give you 10v instead of 8V you'd have with the dead cell dragging the others. Even with a fencer, you'd still want to try to recharge them at 50% or less discharge. Solar is incredible for this use.

 

[Coaldust]

Speaking of battery cases, I’ve had good luck fixing leaks & cracks with a polypropylene welding stick & a propane torch.

 

[doublewide]

“Engage safety squints”. That’s the best. I’ve been repeating that all morning!

 

[John C.]

Speaking of battery cases, I’ve had good luck fixing leaks & cracks with a polypropylene welding stick & a propane torch.

I've used a pocket comb and a soldering iron a couple of times when the bottom corner of a battery got worn through and it leaked. Took an old battery and goobered the vent plugs to seal tight, put them in the damaged battery and turn it up so the corner was high. Goobered the comb in and put the battery back in the machine. Worked for quite awhile.

 

[d9gdon]

Speaking of burned out, lead battery posts: I still have a pair of post molds.

I've melted posts twice before and both just happened to be nearly new 8D batteries.

I drilled a vertical 3/8 hole in the old terminal as far down as I dared, then a horizontal hole in one side of the terminal so that the new melted lead I poured in would lock into the existing.

I cut some 18 gauge metal and made a sleeve to place over the burnt nub...then melted some fishing weights in a cast iron skillet with a torch and poured it into my sleeve to make a new terminal.

It worked good both times. I think the new melted lead stayed hot enough to melt into the existing.

 

[John C.]

I used an acetylene torch. Before I melted in the lead I would take a really course file and clean off and flatten out the top of what was left of the terminal. After clearing the cells of any gas I would put the mold on the post and start by melting the top and then dip and puddle lead into the mold until it was a little higher that the top. The lead would contract some as it was cooling down. I think any method that works is just fine. Nice work d9gdon.

 

[Cody114]

I’ve had a pretty good success rate with the old baking soda distilled water and new sulfuric battery acid! If you want to try it I’ll give you the procedure

 

[James Sorochan]

Cody114. Sure, sounds good, thanks.

 

[oarwhat]

I’ve had a pretty good success rate with the old baking soda distilled water and new sulfuric battery acid! If you want to try it I’ll give you the procedure

what's the procedure?

 

[OzDozer]

John C has nailed the problems very well in post #9. There's a major design difference between regular starter batteries and deep cycle batteries. Regular starter batteries have thin plates because they're designed to produce short sharp bursts of high electrical energy output.
Deep cycle batteries have thick plates because they're designed to produce steady levels of far lower electrical energy, over a much longer period of time.

I tried the epsom salts trick maybe 50 years ago with dubious results. Shake up the battery, empty the electrolyte out into a bucket, treat the empty battery with epsom salts solution. Empty the epsom salts solution, flush the battery out with clean water (twice). Let the electrolyte settle, then pour the clean electrolyte back into the battery and top up with fresh electrolyte. Some batteries would recover for a while, most didn't improve a great deal. I think totally degraded plates were likely the common problem.

Dead cells are usually the result of broken-off plates caused by vibration, or by buildup in the bottom of the cell reaching the plates and shorting them out. Good design batteries have plenty of clearance from the bottom of the plates to the bottom of the cell and they also have the bottom of the plates secured. Plates that just "hang" in the cell, attached by the top only are very prone to vibration breakage.

Today, I use a battery desulfator. A unit called "Infinitum". I use it as a stand-alone desulfator, with a simple 4 amp trickle charger. The U.S. military use these, so they must have shown some benefits.
I usually never try to recondition a battery that is under about 11V. They're generally well and truly past saving if showing under 11V. But above that voltage, I simply hook up the Infinitum desulfator and leave the battery on charge for a day or two.

The dead batteries generally recover well using this unit. At this point I've achieved a battery life of 10 yrs and 4 mths from one battery, and 10 yrs and 9 mths from another. Both were Yuasa batteries and I consider Yuasa batteries to be premium grade batteries. I've got another battery in my tractor crane that I don't know the age of, because it came with the crane, but I'm sure its around 10 yrs old. It still goes well, and I give it the Infinitum "treatment" regularly.

There's a guy with a YouTube video who is slamming the Infinitum desulfator. I believe he's probably got other electrical problems that have caused his desulfator to fail. My Infinitum unit works just fine, and has done for around 8 years. The green light on the desulfator only comes on once the battery voltage reaches a satisfactory level.

You'll find a lot of websites booming up desulfators. Watch out for the Amazon shill websites who post glowing reviews of desulfators, where the site promptly redirects you to Amazon, to buy one.

 

[Truck Shop]

Biggest problem I find is the constant parasitic draw. If we get three years out of a set {4} HD31's
that's good-normally by that time one will internal short-killing the others. Our trucks just setting
two weeks pulls the batteries down from parasitic draw-not to mention all the stuff it's operating
like micro waves, tv's, refrigerators and the like. The batteries are raining inside.

 

[92U 3406]

John C has nailed the problems very well in post #9. There's a major design difference between regular starter batteries and deep cycle batteries. Regular starter batteries have thin plates because they're designed to produce short sharp bursts of high electrical energy output.
Deep cycle batteries have thick plates because they're designed to produce steady levels of far lower electrical energy, over a much longer period of time.

I tried the epsom salts trick maybe 50 years ago with dubious results. Shake up the battery, empty the electrolyte out into a bucket, treat, treat the empty battery with epsom salts solution. Empty the epsom salts solution, flush the battery out with clean water (twice). Let the electrolyte settle, then pour the clean electrolyte back into the battery and top up with fresh electrolyte. Some batteries would recover for a while, most didn't improve a great deal. I think totally degraded plates were likely the common problem.

Dead cells are usually the result of broken-off plates caused by vibration, or by buildup in the bottom of the cell reaching the plates and shorting them out. Good design batteries have plenty of clearance from the bottom of the plates to the bottom of the cell and they also have the bottom of the plates secured. Plates that just "hang" in the cell, attached by the top only are very prone to vibration breakage.

Today, I use a battery desulfator. A unit called "Infinitum". I use it as a stand-alone desulfator, with a simple 4 amp trickle charger. The U.S. military use these, so they must have shown some benefits.
I usually never try to recondition a battery that is under about 11V. They're generally well and truly past saving if showing under 11V. But above that voltage, I simply hook up the Infinitum desulfator and leave the battery on charge for a day or two.

The dead batteries generally recover well using this unit. At this point I've achieved a battery life of 10 yrs and 4 mths from one battery, and 10 yrs and 9 mths from another. Both were Yuasa batteries and I consider Yuasa batteries to be premium grade batteries. I've got another battery in my tractor crane that I don't know the age of, because it came with the crane, but I'm sure its around 10 yrs old. It still goes well, and I give it the Infinitum "treatment" regularly.

There's a guy with a YouTube video who is slamming the Infinitum desulfator. I believe he's probably got other electrical problems that have caused his desulfator to fail. My Infinitum unit works just fine, and has done for around 8 years. The green light on the desulfator only comes on once the battery voltage reaches a satisfactory level.

You'll find a lot of websites booming up desulfators. Watch out for the Amazon shill websites who post glowing reviews of desulfators, where the site promptly redirects you to Amazon, to buy one.

For the effort, time and risk I think I'd much rather pull some cash out of my wallet and buy a new battery.

 

[OzDozer]

For the effort, time and risk I think I'd much rather pull some cash out of my wallet and buy a new battery.

My Infinitum desulfator cost me AU$44 about 2014. I think it was a pretty good investment, it's paid for itself well and truly. I always have about 6 or 8 spare batteries laying around the shop, and I keep them "tuned up" with the desulfator.

 

[Welder Dave]

Have had great success with the Battery Doctor in Edmonton for reconditioned batteries. Liked the original owners better but still saved a lot of money. They sell new batteries for the lowest price anywhere too. Shortest life I ever got from a reconditioned from there is 7+ years. Others have gone over 10 years and that's with sitting over the winters for the most part.

 

[John C.]

For a couple of years I got four solar battery chargers that claimed to de-sulfate batteries. I put them on loader backhoes and skid steers. They worked great enough that they walked away.

 

[mitch504]

Y'all are gonna laugh at me, but I have had GREAT luck with the battery tenders from Harbor Freight, both the $15 solar ones, and the $5.99 plug-in ones. I leave one of the solar ones on each battery on my 24 volt trackhoe that I don't use much anymore and it always starts right up even though the alternator is bad. I keep two more to use as needed.

Anytime a battery seems bad, I plug it into one of the little .4 amp chargers in the shop and leave it for a week or two. Most batteries eventually recover at least some usefulness. Almost everything I and my biggest customers own has been converted to use series 31 post type, so I just keep a few in rotation. I keep 6 of the little chargers on batteries at all times.

 

[doublewide]

 

[Truck Shop]

have 372 batteries to take care of, at $115.92 each that's $43,122.24.
refer starters 108 comes to $38,664.00
tractor starters 65 comes to $24,100.00
so roughly $105,000 just in those parts, expensive to operate these days.

 

[hosspuller]

have 372 batteries to take care of, at $115.92 each that's $43,122.24.
refer starters 108 comes to $38,664.00
tractor starters 65 comes to $24,100.00
so roughly $105,000 just in those parts, expensive to operate these days.

Years ago, Life magazine had a photo of an oil rig in some desert. Strewn around the rig were many used drill bits. At $10,000 to $150,000 each, oil exploration and production is an expensive endeavor. (Trivia .. Oil Drill bits is what made Howard Hugh's daddy rich.. see Hughes Tool) Yet the small minded folks keep harping on oil company profits.
In reality, their profit margins fall far behind soft drink companies.

Further: ..."At the gas tank integrated oil companies make about 7 cents per gallon. Meanwhile, the government extracts more than 48 cents, on average, per gallon. That's right: Uncle Sam takes nearly seven times more out of drivers' wallets via taxation than "Big Oil."... (from Forbes website)