Imhotep's Lab Interactive FAQ

I have been working with several old batteries and only 1 new one

New battery Yuasa 12v 12ah Lead acid not sealed
I have charged this battery six times using the Bedini fan and it performs very well, but i have been unable to bring the voltage, under charge with the fan above 13.41v

Damaged Battery Dayang 12v 7ah lead acid not sealed
this battery would not charge above 11.2v normally. I have cycled it 22 times on the Bedini fan I have been able to drive it under charge to 14.32v, It now holds 12.5v and now will accept a conventional charge and took 10 cycles to achieve this. It is still low on its amp-hour rating at approximately 4-5 amp-hours.

Slightly damaged GS 12v 9ah lead acid not sealed
This battery would not go above 12.1v normally. I have cycled it 9 times on the Bedini fan I have been able to drive it under charge to 13.9v, It now holds 12.5v and now will accept a conventional charge and will hold 12.9v. the amphour rating is as expected for this battery.

Badly damaged AC delco 12v 100ah lead acid sealed type
this battery would not charge above 4.16v normally. I have attempted to charge it 6 times and been able to drive it under charge to 5.77v, It now holds 4.26v. this battery is slightly swollen and may be unrecoverable but i will persist for a while.

Damaged Ronway 12v 7.5ah gel type sealed
this battery would not charge above 6.2v normally. I have cycled it 12 times on the Bedini fan I have been able to drive it under charge to 15.2v, It now holds 11.2v. it has little capacity abd behaves strangely under charge. the voltage will rise slowly at first but when the voltage reaches 11.5v the charge accelerates and in only half an hour rises to 15v

Damaged Konnoc 12v 12ah gel type sealed
his battery would not charge above 9.98v normally. I have cycled it 9 times on the Bedini fan I have been able to drive it under charge to 14.48v, It now holds 12.53v. Unfortunately on the capacity test i have over discharged the cells and now is worse than when i started and is behaving like the above battery. i believe it was up to about 7 ah.

What i have learned during this process.
the easiest type to work with because they are not so easily damaged is the ordinary lead acid type. usually there is a way to view the cells for damage you can test the electrolyte.

I have noticed that when charging with the Bedini fan the charge rate can be accelerated by using a greater input but after a couple of charges at this input it then starts to charge slower as if the cells adapt to the charge input and will only charge at there own pace, then when put on a smaller output unit they take up the charge slowly and will improve on subsequent charges. This is an observation and not scientific but has anyone else experienced this?

Shiva told me to try an occasional trickle charge (thanks for that). this as helped with the recovery because after the slow conventional charge the battery would dive to a higher voltage on the next radiant charge.

Patience seems to be the rule of the day.

Mick

Excellent observations! it seems that you have been able to make great progress with most of the batteries. We have also noticed that there are some batteries that are just too "damaged" to be repaired.

We also found that good batteries, if they are going to be in storage for awhile you can use the fans to keep them from sulfating. Which they would normally do.

On the batteries that you are having difficulty with, we just released the single relay oscillator circuit. it seems to create better spikes than the other circuits you may want to test that circuit on the other batteries to see if it helps the ones that are make slow progress. Its super simple to make.

GREAT PROGRESS!!

Good work Mr Brown. You are testing and discovering the subtleties of LAB's. A great PDF on batteries recommended by JB can be found here http://tinyurl.com/4xb8pl

You've noted that second hand batteries cant be compared side by side, because you just cant be sure of how much abuse they have taken over the years. Generally, each cell should hold 2.00-2.25v, so in a 12v battery where there are 6 cells in series you can usually get some idea from the resting voltage on just how damaged they are. I have seen what your are reffering to when you say that pushing more current on the front end doesnt always pay off for a better charge in the long run. Stick with the c20 rate on the front end unless you are using an external source/mains power.

@ Shiva regarding the single relay Imhotep has built. It is my opinion that a mechanical unit such as a relay will out perform all but the best circuits due to its fast on and off time and low losses. Its either on or off, and that is exactly what you want to get the highest spike possible. The only draw backs are cycling speeds and eventual failure due to mechanical wear, though this can be minimised somewhat. If you want to play around with different coils then the relay is very easy to do this with. You could have the diode coming off the relays coil (as it will have a inductive spike as well) and another coil which is wired up in the main circuit to switch off the NO/NC contacts.

Thanks for the replies, its good to know i have similar results to other people.

I set up a relay in self oscillation mode some months ago, it was better output than my 3" fans but not as good as when i connected an ignition coil in parallel with the fan coil. when used with an ignition coil it was even better but the noise was driving me crazy. I did go one stage further and used a small 180 amp arc welding machine, pulsing the output coil. after a few seconds the contacts of the relay welded together hehehe, huge output but maybe dangerous to use on small lead acid cells. Before i try that again i need to build some sort of commutator and a bigger input bank of batteries.

By the way. the voltage spikes on the input side of the welder were huge and too big for me to measure with my scope, on the output they were 160v and very strong. The coils were 6mm x 1.6mm flat cross section aluminum on the secondary. It is a 220 volt input welder.

I would like to here about others that have tried this.

My battery charging experience is with Jumper-Cables and the battery never left the car .. !!

So, I'm lacking some knowledge here.
My relay charge circuit appears to be working.

I understand the need to cycle the battery.
When do I stop, give up charging and discharge the battery to then retry?
Shouldn't I wait a bit of time to allow the battery to settle out to a lower charge first
to know where it is before the discharge?

Source: 12v 5ah
Charge: 12v car battery, cranking amp 675

Before charge was below 4 volts.

Do I stop charging if the volt reading during charge starts dropping?
After about 1.5 hours charge the reading is dropping slowly, now at 6.89 volts.
I'm going to, for grins, wait and see where it stops at.
Besides I could use some quite time.

Oh, Oh ... how low should I allow my Source battery to get to before
I run out and buy another battery to recharge it.. LOL ?
no I don't have a normal charger.
Toe in the water, nope .. I'm head first ...

My experience with lead acid batteries is DO NOT OVER DISCHARGE you will kill it.

if you take a good battery off a car and let it rest it will be in the range of 12.4 to 12.7v this is the fully charged voltage. if you then slowly drain the battery down 2.5% (when you put a load on the battery it may fall a little in voltage, say a few tenths of a volt) so if the voltage is 12.5v drain it down to no lower than 12.1875 volts.

if you take more than this it risks damage the battery.

then charge it with a Bedini fan as high as it will go (this may take days or even weeks depending upon the output) typically this will be 13.5 to 15v. then let it rest and measure the voltage. the voltage will probably drop very close to the original voltage.

This is what we call a cycle.

Some people say draw up to 5% from the battery but i have damaged a couple of batteries at this amount of drain.

the amount to draw is 1/20th of the amp hour rating, so if the battery is 100 amp hours then draw no more than 5 amps. it will take many hours to drain the battery and is a slow process.

A 100 Ah battery will give 500+ cranking amps for a few seconds but if you drain the battery down this way you will kill it

If you cycle the battery many times the charged voltage may rise, i have one battery that now holds 13.6v at rest.

Every time you cycle the battery it actually improves its performance, it gets a little higher in voltage and the capacity increases up to a point, but each battery is a little different.

This is the same rule i use to recover batteries, never drain more than 2.5% of the charged voltage and cycle the batteries slowly

I am not an expert but this has worked for me.

Would not a lot of this "recovery" work/effort go towards batteries that
have been over-discharged? Therefore this statement would make someone
think a battery with a voltage less than %5 of it's normal full charge
voltage is hopeless, dead, killed.

I know that isn't what you meant, is it?
I'm taking it out of context, right? You meant a Good
not a Bad battery right?

There are maybe 3 categories that need to be identified during
postings: enhanced, conversion and/or recovery.
Enhance would include charging by anything other than a conventional charger.
(there should be a better word for this, what? and a shorter word for conventional, what?)
Conversion would include a replacement of the solution with something other than battery acid.
Recovery would include a battery that does not charge using a conventional charger.

One can Enhance a good or Recovery battery.
One can mix charging methods also.

If during Recovery, a battery's charging voltage stops raising,
I thought this is when you would discharge the battery
and start a new cycle.

Conventional battery info states:
"Low electrolyte level - battery plates exposed to air will immediately sulfate."

The battery I'm working now was bone dry for over a month.
IKE kinda messed up my schedule. It's been a long road.

This is a Conversion (alum) and Recovery (relay only charging).
Target: Car Battery 12v, 500 CCA, resting voltage below 4.0 (don't remember)
Source: battery at 12.77 v, 5ah
Started charging and remembered there wasn't any solution in the battery.
Put in solution. Resting at 6.5 volts started charging, Again?!

Voltages with time and dates where taken while being charged.
start 10/16 3:53pm stop 10/16 5:34pm Mins: 101
start 10/16 7:25pm stop 10/18 10:40 am Mins: 2355, 9.02 v
start 10/18 12:41 pm stop 10/18 4:52 pm Mins: 251, 9.12 v, Min/mv 25

Min/mv: 25 (means it took 25 mins to raise 0.01 volt between readings)

resume 10/18 5:41 pm
10/19 6:56 am, 9.39 v, 795 mins, Min/mv: 29.4 (wrong value?)
10/19 9:52 am, 9.46 v, 170 mins, Min/mv: 24.3
10/19 11:57 am 9.46 v, STOPPED charging.

10/19 12:15 pm
I used a 4.8v 0.5 amp light bulb to discharge
from 8.99 v to 5 v in about 30 seconds, it bouced back to 8.45
and I hit it again until it dropped to 4.5 v in about 15 seconds.
bounced back to 8.61v and started charging again.

10/19 12:31 pm, 8.91 v
10/19 3:33 pm 9.40 v, 182 mins, Min/mv : 3.7
10/19 5:29 pm 9.44 v, Min/mv 29
10/19 9:30 pm 9.44 v, stopped charging

Remembered I never rinsed this battery, IKE hit.
Dumped / saved solution.
Rinsed battery out, tap water in the tub
until fingers were like purnes (a long time)
Didn't get all the crap out, I just quit.
Coffee filtered solution back into battery
Resting at 8.43 v
1 tablespoon of each Epson Salt and water,
microwave 20 seconds, added 1 ml in each cell

10/19 10:02 pm, 8.80 v
10/20 1:20 am, 9.21 v, Min/mv 4.8
10/20 2:56 am, 9.29 v, Min/mv 12
10/20 1:15 pm, 9.59 v, Min/mv 20.3
10/20 8:16 pm, 9.60 v, Min/mv ZERO stopped charging
at 10/20 11:23 pm resting at 8.85 volts

------------------------------------------------------------
New charge configuration:
Source: 12.59 v, 7 ah
Target : 12.44 v, 5 ah
10/20 8:24 pm, 12.44 v
Source 12.53 v, 10/20 11:18 pm, 12.54 v, Min/mv 17.4

Took transformer 12 v (non dc) 300 mA, soldered connections
and diode to positive lead and I'm off charging via AC/Relay!!
(I'm learning ...)
I did observe the voltage is smoother with the AC/Relay (
single diode) than a DC (battery) metered at the neon in
the relay circuit.
So, a smooth DC source creates bouncing voltage
at the neon, but a half smoothed AC/DC source creates a smoother
voltage at the neon? This is confusing.
Would a bridge rectifier, which smooths
out the AC/DC conversion, make the voltage at the neon
jump around like the DC source does?

AVG rebooted my computer all by itself. lost some data.

Started charging via AC/Relay.
10/21 5:20 am, 12.60 v, Min/mv 60
Stopped 1st Enhance charging of 12v 5ah.
------------------------------------------------------------


Seems the battery voltage dropped, looking back at
10/20 11:23 pm until restarting .. but I don't see a comment in my notes
and I did loose some data during the reboot.

Car batt resting at 8.58 v started charging via AC/Relay.
10/21 5:30 am, 8.94 v
10/21 3:31 pm, 9.81 v, Min/mv 6.9
10/21 6:16 pm, 9.81 v STOPPED charging

Discharge with 4.8 v 0.5 amp light bulb.
Discharged to 5.00 v in about 1 min.
after bounced back to 8.87 v in about 1 min.
discharged to 4.00 v in about 1 1/2 min. Time 6.28 pm
at 6:32 pm it bounced back to 8.64 v and climbing.

Started charging again AC/Relay.
10/21 6:35 pm, 8.92 v
10/21 7:55 pm, 9.63 v, Min/mv 1.12
10/21 9:00 pm, 9.73 v, Min/mv 6.5
10/21 9:32 pm, 9.75 v, Min/mv 16

I might of discharged too much that last
time. Seems slower getting back to where is was.
I have smaller 2.5 v 0.5 a light bulb but I think that is
the smallest thing I have to discharge with.

The discharge should not be this quick, right?
The battery seems to be improving, is this hopeless?

Very interesting what you are doing.

The battery you chose to recover was in poor condition, it was damaged, the black sludge you rinsed out is in fact part of the plates. you will not be able to bring this battery to 100% in capacity, but its good for learning what method works to bring it back to life.

I do not know enough to tell you if what you are doing is right or wrong. If the voltage increases on each cycle you are going in the right direction.

Once you reach the stage where the battery will no longer increase in voltage or capacity, despite continued cycling, check the specific gravity (SG) of the acid in each cell. It should be about 1300 + or - 25

if it is low add more acid if it is high add pure water.

if the acid's SG is too high you will get a higher voltage but the plates will be prone to sulphation and corrosive attack from the acid, if its too low you are loosing voltage.

Measure the voltage on each cell (it is best to do this before starting work on a battery), to do this i drain some of the acid from the cell so that when i tilt the battery the plates are exposed and then put my meter probes in two adjacent plates. if that cell has no volts then the cell is shorted and will not recover. if there is a voltage then it cannot be shorted and it has a potential to recover. if one cell is shorted you have a 10v battery, if two are shorted you have an eight volt battery and so on. It is not good to work on batteries with shorted cells because there is a potential for explosion when charging and discharging. Sealed batteries are not ideal because you cannot see the plates and you cannot check the acid. A swollen battery has badly damaged plates. A battery with lots of sediment has badly damaged plates.

washing the battery with tap water is not a good idea because it can introduce dissolved metals into the cells. always use distilled water.

Ideally the discharge rate is better kept lower than a c20 rate. this means you discharge 5% of the voltage over a period of 20 hours or greater. This prevents overheating, blistering and warping of the plates. A c10 discharge rate is 10 hours (Higher rate), a c30 rate is 30 hours to discharge (lower Rate).

Plot your results on a graph, look for trends. when you find a method that is more successful then that is a step forward.

Is it hopeless? No you may not be able to bring the battery back to 100% but all the time you are making improvements to the performance you are learning. Use what you learn to identify good batteries to recover, that's what i am doing.

mbrownn,


Maybe not this one, but I don't believe that sludge or loss of some
plate equates to not being able to bring the battery back to 100%
because a Radiant charge could make new batt be 110%.

Do you have a copy of Battery Bible? see link below.
No I have not read the 472 pages yet.


I'm using Alum solution, it's unknown what the SG should be,
within what range. Nobody gave me the manual, did you get one?
Did the SG thing and got no readings on any cells.
The bob/float or whatever it's called, did not even begin to float.

Cell volt readings
---------------------------------------------------
+ 1 1,2 2,3 3,4 4,5 5,6 6 -
---------------------------------------------------
1.25 3.10 1.5 2.38 1.92 2.92 1.25

Yes I know I have 7 readings and 6 cells
How does this single cell reading suppose to be done?
I did it the only way I could think of.

The meter was jumping all over the place, I was
thinking to myself, "who you going to call", Ghost Busters!
Even if I was not moving the probes.


I got zero, negative and positive all in the same cell
... I had to go fish around.
I watched it go -40v for 5 seconds before moved the
probe again. It took me over 10 mins to get these 7 readings
because I was looking for something Higher than I was
seeing or something that wasn't bouncing up and down.
I'd probe over 2v, then 0.5, then 1.??, then -10v , then zero
Had I been a nurse with a needle the patient would have not survived.

Can the total of cells of 14.32 v and terminal to terminal
of 9.18 v both be correct readings?
I'm so clueless ..


Yes I know what has been said .. but I'm just rinsing.
Good battery, new battery, just now gone bad battery, yes, I'd agree.

This battery read under 4 volts before I started.
I gave up rinsing it out with tap water with prune
fingers. It would have taken more than 8 gallons
of distilled water .. These batteries I'm working are all
over 10 years old *after* being taken out of service.
I believe rinsing with tap water is fine with the batteries
I'm working on. See the B.Bible, page 253 last paragraph and
page 255 middle of page.

I'm willing to risk losing 5% of the plates with tap
water to recovery the battery than gamble $8 on
distilled water to keep it. If the battery
recovers it could gain 10% over all, I'm still good.

B.Bible: "a) Impurities in the cells, due to the use of impure water in the electrolyte, or in the separators. Some impurities (see page 76) do not attack the plates, but merely cause self-discharge."

Self-discharge .. that doesn't sound good.
I'm looking forward to cutting into one of these batteries, pulling
the plates out to apply the information in the B.Bible hard-core like.


If I don't know how to follow those rules.
This batt is at 9.5 volt and goes to 5.5v on a discharge using a 2.5v 0.5 amp
bulb in less than a minute. I'd have to use LEDs to discharge as slow c20?

I have 2 good batts: 12v 5ah, 12v 7ah
Is there a lookup table for discharge somewhere?
What would I use to discharge one of these good batts with at c20?

I thought overheating, etc was caused by charging, not by discharging .. Is it both?

Some helpful links:
Directory:Bedini SG:Battery Characteristics
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Bedini_SG:Battery_Characteristics

Recommended by Bedini, (the B.Bible)
The "Battery Bible" -- DOWNLOAD (PDF 9.8 Mb)
http://www.pureenergysystems.com/PESWiki/Directory/Bedini_SG/files/Bedini-The_Battery_Bible.pdf

Hi vortex,

Please understand i am not an expert on these things but just trying to help.

I cannot comment on alkaline conversions as i haven't tried that yet.

The sludge in a battery is from the plates and battery capacity is a function of surface area of the plates. I believe, but could be wrong, that at least one of the plates becomes spongy and porous. if that is the case then loss of material is going to cause loss of capacity. The increased capacity effect of our charging method is because of the grain structure formed which I believe effects the other plate, I could be wrong here. I am just giving my interpretation of what John Bedini said in one of his video's. I do have a copy of the Battery Bible but like you I haven't read it all yet.

Did you read the voltage of the cells while charging? this would explain the voltage jumping around. I always do it with a rested battery. I cannot explain why this would happen otherwise, sometimes it can be hard to get a good contact on the plates so patience is required. The total voltage of all the cells should be the same as the full battery reading, if its not then i don't understand what is happening.

On tap water we all know it is not ideal but i agree that it probably wont make a huge difference on your battery. Where i live it is very hard water and sometimes a little salty, it is piped through galvanized iron pipes, I'm sure it does damage a lot of batteries here as people don't think about the water they pour into their batteries. I collect the water dripping from my aircon, i know its not perfect but I'm too lazy to distill the water my self.

The c20 discharge rate is a guide to give maximum life for a battery. I have wondered if when recovering a battery I should base my discharge rate on the real measured capacity rather than the stated capacity. This would make sense to prevent localized overheating. Both on charging and discharging a c20 rate is better for maximum life. Heating up of the battery occurs when a lot of power is going through them on either charge or discharge, it is partially to do with chemistry but also think of this; if you put 100 amps through a wire it will heat up, it does not matter which way you put the power through the wire it still gets hot. Excessive heat damages batteries. A moder car batterie is designed to give huge amp ratings for a very short period only If you continue to drain it at a high rate it will heat up and damage the plates.

T0 find the c20 rate for a good battery all you have to do is take its amp hour rating and divide by 20