Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

You know better than I. I don't know not how to do conventional charging or
experience with normal / acid batteries.


This was probably my 1st mistake. I don't know anything about "normal" and
I'm doing alum .. I know not the ph of my solution. I thought what I put
into the battery was month old alum solution.


Searching the B.Bible: 52 spongy and 20 porous
Lots of B.Bible information requires eye-ball and hands-on inspection of a disassembled battery.
B.Bible: "Active Material. The active portion of the battery plates; peroxide of lead on the positives
and spongy metallic lead on the negatives."
B.Bible: "If the spongy lead of the negatives is firm, they may be reassembled in the battery as soon as they have been pressed. If, however, the spongy lead is soft and mushy, keep the negatives covered with water for 12 to 24 hours. This will make them hard and firm.
Then remove them from the water and dry them in the air. In drying, the plates will
become heated and will steam. As soon as you notice any steaming, dip the plates in water until
they are cool. Then remove them from the water and continue the drying process. Each time the
negatives begin to steam as they dry in the air, dip them in the water until they are cool.
Soft spongy bad, firm spongy good.... hmmm.
This is labor intensive stuff!!


No, the readings were at rest. .. I'm getting ready to cut this puppy open.
I grow tired of these mysteries.


That's perfect, well dang good enough and a good Tip. My brother has 5 gallon buckets
of AC "drip" water, come to think about, it at his shop.
Yep, IRON is a bad thing for Batts. !!
[/quote]

Looking for a slower discharge rate I tried a wall clock which requires a single AA battery.
Yes, I know I should not have done it. BUT
The Car Batt was at 9.40 v and the clock was
at first running backwards and that seem very strange. I connected it on/off a few
times, double checked the -/+ .. I thought about it for a while.
I thought, I don't care if it runs backwards. I want a slower discharge rate.
It ran forwards, then backwards then forward and backward and danced a jig
and even oscillated now and then.
All this is at a very fast clip.. about 8 seconds to rotate one minute around.
This is kinda cool ... a randomized movement ?!!?
I just now looked at it and it's running just backwards and the reading is 8.84 volts.

I'll let that discharge for awhile. There are more questions than answers about this
battery. I do have to determine what the PH is before I do surgery.
I know the SG is non-existent, thus ? low amps ?
I'm going to see what I can find about cutting it open and disassembling it.

A single cell would be easier to mess around with using different solutions on.
Knowing the SG of a solution before putting it into the battery has to be a known
to make a correlation between "normal" solution SG and "non-normal" solution SG.

For starting out with an old battery PH is a factor. I checked my "next" battery and
it seems the PH is about the same as WATER!!? Tried baking soda, Zip. Tried turmeric, Zip.
The old battery solution had no reaction with either.
The all-in-one freeware for pH and acid-base equilibrium calculations and for simulation and analysis of Potentiometric Titration Curves http://www2.iq.usp.br/docente/gutz/Curtipot_.html

I tried connecting that "PH like water" battery to the relay circuit and the neon remained lit.
Would one then be able to say, this battery has a shorted cell without having to meter each cell?

UPDATE

This is an update on my work with recovering batteries.

New battery Yuasa 12v 12ah Lead acid not sealed
this battery will now charge to 14.25 volts and holds 13.24 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is in excess of 14ah. it has been cycled 9 times. SG is in the normal good range. It measures 10v at 250 cranking amps.

Damaged Battery Dayang 12v 7ah lead acid not sealed
this battery will now charge to 14.38 volts and holds 12.6 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is 7ah. it has been cycled 27 times. SG is in the normal good range. It measures 8v at 100 cranking amps. This is weak (according to my meter)

Slightly damaged GS 12v 9ah lead acid not sealed
this battery will now charge to 15.19 volts and holds 12.87 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is 11ah. it has been cycled 11 times. SG is in the normal good range. It measures 9.6v at 150 cranking amps.

Badly damaged AC delco 12v 100ah lead acid sealed type
this battery will now charge to 5.39 volts and holds 4.28 volts at rest. it has been cycled 18 times. SG is not measurable. No progress made.

Damaged Ronway 12v 7.5ah gel type sealed
this battery will now charge to 60 volts and holds 11.48 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is very poor and variable. it has been cycled 16 times. More info about this below.

Damaged Konnoc 12v 12ah gel type sealed
this battery will now charge to 16.25 volts and holds 11.43 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is variable. it has been cycled 19 times. More info about this below.

Damaged ac delco 12v 55ah lead acid sealed type. New addition to program
This battery measured 12.71v at rest before being charged. and when connected to a cranking amp meter the volts dropped to 2v and the amps were too small to measure. it would not accept a conventional charge. it had been troublesome on the vehicle and kept going flat for no apparent reason. this battery will now charge to 15.57 volts and holds 13.1 volts at rest, its amp hour rating is 51ah. it has been cycled 8 times. Now on cranking amps it holds 10.2v at 330amps. A success story, i will cycle it 2 more times and put it back int service.

Note
The cranking amp tester is a cheap, Chinese tool and cannot be considered in any way accurate. It is, however a useful tool to determine how the battery will respond to heavy loads and determine if the charge is a "fluffy" charge. Its internal resistance is 0.2 ohms

The amp hour rating is calculated by putting a load on the battery as close to the c20 discharge rate as i can achieve (volts x amps x time)

The gel type batteries are not responding well to my charger. their behavior is getting worse, when under a c20 load the voltage increases for a while (the resting voltage is static) then starts to fluctuate and go down.

The Ronway battery then quickly falls to around 8v and then fluctuates but generally moves in a slow downward direction, on heavy load it rises to around 11.2v and then rapidly falls to 2.6v. this takes seconds, little amps are available. While standing voltage remains the same the charging voltage rises slowly at first and then begins to accelerate upwards putting no more real charge in the battery. if i charge really slowly it does get a little more real charge in the battery.

The konnoc battery responded well at first, then after an accidental over discharge, went back to its original damaged state. further cycling has not helped its condition, it is showing signs of deteriorating like the Ronway battery has. It still has some capacity but now the voltage under charge or discharge fluctuates.

I suspect one or all of the following things are happening
The plates may be breaking up
the gel may be forming gas pockets although there is no sign of swelling
the pulse charging may be too much for the gel and it is breaking down

Has anyone had a similar experience?

I over discharged a 12v 7ah battery, took it down to 4v under load, when it was rested it recovered to 8.8v. I then radiant charged it for 3 days and the voltage was 11.2v at rest. I cycled it 8 more times, discharging it when the voltage stopped noticeably rising. The voltage was then 11.34v at rest. I tried a conventional trickle charge with no further improvement so put it on radiant charge for two weeks, the voltage now was 12.1v at rest so without discharging i gave it another radiant charge for another 2 weeks. The battery recovered and is now back up to 12.7v at rest and has full capacity back.

Batteries that are destroyed by my radiant charger

These batteries are normally found in emergency lighting and UPS computer back ups. They are a lead acid battery and are fully sealed, they can be recognized by the battery terminals which are of the spade type connectors.

I have never successfully recovered a battery of this type.

I bought a new battery of this type and my charger destroyed it, as it did the used ones.

I do not know the reason for this and would like to hear about any successes or failures with this type of battery.

I have a old dead UPS I can pull apart to get access to the batteries and try charging.. I don't know when I'll get to that though. I should build a second IRO, I've been thinking I need to.

I don't recall the post right now, but Aaron on energeticforum made a statement that radiant charging can make a battery only good for certain types of use, limiting the battery's application. That was a "What'd you Say????" heads up for me, it was an alarming statement. It was stated as in passing and was made as if it was unknown why this happens, but known to be a possibility.
So this "could happen" case of a battery radiantly charged would indicated good voltage but be unable to run a motor say, but ok for lights.

If , say, the battery is designed for low voltage charge and HV breaks down the insulation inside or something along that line .. it would kill the battery.
Oh also, internal gas pressure could build up higher in one cell than another and bust into the other cell shorting those two together.

These destroyed batteries can be disassembled for inspection and the metals could be recycled / rebuilt possibly using a different configuration than originally used.

I should open these cells for inspection to see what went on, even buy a new one, open it and watch what happens.

I think what you refer to about a battery being unsuitable for a particular application and not another is a misunderstanding.

In some cases it has been possible to take the charged battery and use it ti charge multiple batteries of the same size. this has only been possible when all the batteries have been conditioned by radiant charge.

Conditioned batteries have increased capacity and accept a radiant charge faster, hence the over unity effect. They are slower to charge conventionally but when you do you reverse the conditioning process. So if you are using the setup for generating "free" electricity you cannot charge the batteries any other way.

I have been receiving emails from a member called franzink

I thought we should share the discussion.

franzink said

Hello, i recently constructed a Bedini Imhotep Fan and i have questions:
1. Carbon Batteries A, AA, AAA, C, D
2. Alkaline Batteries A, AA, AAA, C, D
3. Lead Type Batteries of diffrent capacties
Do you connect the Multitester on the + and - terminals of the Charging batteries to monitor until it is fully charged?

I tired to charge a AA battery until it reaches slightly above 1.5Volts after 3 minutes and used it and it simply discharges very fast when i used it unlike new AA Battery

How do you know when a BATTERY is almost 80 to 90% Fully Charged? By measuring the AMPS and VOLTAGE on the CHARGING BATTERY and remove it? can i go extended periods in charging it? might explode?

What is the best input voltage for the fan? 12V or 24V how many AMPS input ?
thanks

Welcome to the forum

Don't be afraid to ask these questions openly on the forum. Many others would be able to contribute answers to your questions.

Connect your meter to the + and - of the charging battery.

I find it easier to tell when lead acid batteries are fully charged, when a 12v battery has reached 14.4 to 14.8v it is fully charged just the same as on your car. You will see a little off-gassing too.

With 1.5v zinc carbon batteries, I use 12v on the input and charge them till they reach about 1.6 to 1.65 volts. They charge to 1.55 almost instantly but there is no capacity. These types of battery do not recover most of their charge, I find 15 to 20% of their capacity is the best i can do.

When charging these batteries take notice of the temperature of the cells, if they are getting warm they are charged, as far as I can tell. Do not risk letting them get hot or you risk explosion.

I charge 4 cells in parallel because if i charge 1 at a time they get too hot too fast

Measuring amps on the input to the charging battery is meaningless as the radiant charge does not give a measurable reading of amps. Any amps you read is only a transformer effect in your coils. This will contribute to your charge but is minimal.

The input amps to the motor depends upon the size of the windings in your coils. Generally speaking, using a fan, you adjust the pot till the motor makes an audible chirp using as little amps as possible. When this happens you have the maximum radiant energy for the minimum input power. Sometimes the motor will stop, if it continues to produce the sound it is still charging and is in a state of resonance. If the sound stops then you will need to increase the amps input to keep the motor running.

There is good info on battery charging here

working-with-batteries-t55.html

If you want a bigger output from your fan and are not too worried about efficiency then read this too

how-to-increase-the-output-of-a-bedini-fan-t51.html

franzink said

Hello Mr Brown,
thank you very much for your comments regarding the Bedini Imhotep Fan. You mean to say that this machine is useless for the Carbon, Alkaline, Li On Batteries and only works with Lead acid type batteries and rechargable batteries that cannot be charged anymore with conventional chargers?

I need to ask you what is the meaning of cycle, you mentioned that you cycled 10 x on some batteries to have it working again??

thanks

when charging zinc carbon batteries it is cheaper to charge them five or six times than to buy a new battery so there is a cost and environmental saving there but it is a pain that they have reduced capacity.

all kinds of batteries can be charged but there are drawbacks. Li ion can be charged but you have to disconnect the internal electronics and there is a greater explosion risk. With chemical batteries (ie batteries that make new chemicals when they discharge not just ions) some of the materials in the battery are used up on discharge. With lead acid the process is reversible so this is why they are good for repeated cycling.

A cycle is a discharge then a recharge to bring it back to its original state. The first ten cycles bring the lead acid batteries to a point where the charge occurs faster and the capacity increases with a radiant charger. if you then use a conventional charger these gains will be lost

Using these chargers gives you many advantages

1 old batteries can often be brought back to serviceable condition

2 If you use only this type of charger on your lead acid battery it will increase in capacity. Some have reported very big increases in capacity.

3 If you use only this type of charger the lead acid. batteries do start to accept the charge faster.

4 ecological and cost savings

5 longer service life

if you make your charger as efficient as possible and combining the effects of 1 ad 2 it is possible to get a COP (Coefficient Of Performance) greater than 1. If you put 100w of power in and get 50w out your COP is 0.5. if you put 100w in and get 100w out you have a COP of 1. if you put 100w in and get 200w out you have a COP of 2

This is the hard one to grasp. That means you get more out than you put in. It is not free energy, you have to put something in to get it out. It does not break the laws of physics, the extra energy is being drawn from the environment.

Its like if you pour water into a barrel and it starts to rain every time you do it. you will end up with more water in the barrel than you put in and the extra came from the environment.

The best COP was achieved by John Bedini at greater than 12. I have achieved close to 2

There are 2 goals here

Make it self powering and make it practical