Refueler
Well-Known Member
Couple of years ago - a forum member on one of the RC Forums I frequent - mentioned a Desulfator they'd bought to resurrect a car battery. Now most of us understand that a battery once toast is gonna stay toast ! But they used it on a number of batterys and managed to get 2 batterys to work again.
Digital Auto Pulse Car Battery Desulfator Desulphator Lead Acid Batteries 400ah | eBay
The Desulfator was cheap and I thought - OK I have a load of old batterys in the barn ... worth a try. I did all the recc'd and not one battery recovered.
Lets move on to a few days ago ... pal of mine had a spare battery unused tucked away on his B31 boat ... he already had two good batterys and this one just sat in the locker. He metered it and it showed just over 7V. Its a 45 A/hr sealed Volvo brand starter battery. I offered to take it of his hands and see what I could do with it.
Tried charging it and it blew fuses in my charger ...
mmmmmmm so I connected my Allburn Charger that has better default protection shut down and a 'Rejuvenation' option. First I tried with the Desulfator - but the charger just shut down with Error. No matter with or without Desulfator - it shut off with display showing Error.
So just out of interest - I switched to 'Rejuvenation' and display just showed dashes - meaning something was happening. It did not shut down or error. I added Desulfator and that started to show it was pulsing and indicated chargers varying voltage as Desulfator worked.
Battery within a few hours showed 11.5V ... and then I decided to remove the Desulfator and leave battery on Rejuvenation rest of day and overnight.
Next day battery showed 13V ..... so I reconnected Desulfator and left it for a further 24hrs with charger on charge ... it was now quite happy to charge.
Final - battery showed 13.8V with charger connected ... disconnected all and left to stand .... she settled out to 12.9V after half a day.
I have a Load Tester and it showed full Green lights.
As a real test (I know it is not a time to discharge test) but at least it would show if the battery can provide burst power ..... I connected in my boat and hit start button on my Perkins 4-107 ..... she started, it was noticeable that the starter wasn't spinning it over quite as fast as the 90 A/Hr other battery does ... but it was still a good start and IMHO a good result.
I'm still out on Desulfators .... and anyone reading the above can as I think - imagine that trying different ways may have kicktstarted the battery giving impression of Desulfator or Rejuvenation working ...
But an interesting result.
Final : Because I was looking to finally change my #2 battery on board after its years of service (2nd hand when I got it) ... I decided to put the 45 in its place. As the boat is being swapped over to LED's and usually I have my BOTH option on the 3-way ... 45 A/hr should be OK. #2 battery is usually my domestic ... with #1 as my main starter.
My pal said "Keep it ... make use of it".
Digital Auto Pulse Car Battery Desulfator Desulphator Lead Acid Batteries 400ah | eBay
The Desulfator was cheap and I thought - OK I have a load of old batterys in the barn ... worth a try. I did all the recc'd and not one battery recovered.
Lets move on to a few days ago ... pal of mine had a spare battery unused tucked away on his B31 boat ... he already had two good batterys and this one just sat in the locker. He metered it and it showed just over 7V. Its a 45 A/hr sealed Volvo brand starter battery. I offered to take it of his hands and see what I could do with it.
Tried charging it and it blew fuses in my charger ...
mmmmmmm so I connected my Allburn Charger that has better default protection shut down and a 'Rejuvenation' option. First I tried with the Desulfator - but the charger just shut down with Error. No matter with or without Desulfator - it shut off with display showing Error.
So just out of interest - I switched to 'Rejuvenation' and display just showed dashes - meaning something was happening. It did not shut down or error. I added Desulfator and that started to show it was pulsing and indicated chargers varying voltage as Desulfator worked.
Battery within a few hours showed 11.5V ... and then I decided to remove the Desulfator and leave battery on Rejuvenation rest of day and overnight.
Next day battery showed 13V ..... so I reconnected Desulfator and left it for a further 24hrs with charger on charge ... it was now quite happy to charge.
Final - battery showed 13.8V with charger connected ... disconnected all and left to stand .... she settled out to 12.9V after half a day.
I have a Load Tester and it showed full Green lights.
As a real test (I know it is not a time to discharge test) but at least it would show if the battery can provide burst power ..... I connected in my boat and hit start button on my Perkins 4-107 ..... she started, it was noticeable that the starter wasn't spinning it over quite as fast as the 90 A/Hr other battery does ... but it was still a good start and IMHO a good result.
I'm still out on Desulfators .... and anyone reading the above can as I think - imagine that trying different ways may have kicktstarted the battery giving impression of Desulfator or Rejuvenation working ...
But an interesting result.
Final : Because I was looking to finally change my #2 battery on board after its years of service (2nd hand when I got it) ... I decided to put the 45 in its place. As the boat is being swapped over to LED's and usually I have my BOTH option on the 3-way ... 45 A/hr should be OK. #2 battery is usually my domestic ... with #1 as my main starter.
My pal said "Keep it ... make use of it".
