Sterling battery de-sulphation and maintenance device

[maxi]

Hi,

Does anyone have any first-hand experience of this device please?
If it actually does what it says on the box, then it makes really good economic sense - but does it?

 

[halcyon]

If you do not over discharge your batteries, and recharge them to the correct voltage, you will not get sulphation. Sulphation is the result of over discharge and inadequate charge.

So look after your batteries and save money.

Brian

 

[lw395]

I've played around with the desulphator from Courtiestown Marine. It has improved the condition of an old car battery that I keep in the garage for testing purposes. Measurable improvement in capacity. But then again a winter of float charging doesn't do any harm either!
Have looked at waveforms on the scope over time, there appears to have been a reduction in the high frequency impedance of the battery.
I wouldn't want it connected with any other electronics, it generates pulses of over 50v, depending on the battery.
HTH?

 

[RobBrown]

I bought a basic complete kit desulphator from Courtiestown last year, for about £20. Added my own leads and did use it on an old degraded leisure battery which was brought back to useful life- still in use a year later & OK. I dont keep the device permanently wired, but do attach for a week or so every few months and I think it does help, but anecdotal evidence only I'm afraid.

Link: http://www.courtiestown.co.uk/

No connection etc

 

[pampas]

Curiuos. Are the pulses ac or dc?

 

[narooma]

I use a Sterling Prodigital charger which has a 7day de-sulphation cycle and looks after three banks of batteries.
Excellent piece of kit.

 

[Anonymous]

I have first hand experience of trying to find out what Sterling actually mean by de-sulphation. When I investigated, they did not include pulser technology, instead they finish off the charge cycle with a relatively high finishing voltage before falling back to a float charge level. I know no evidence that that is de-sulphation but rather a technique to reduce sulphation. All batteries sulphate in time under normal use. Pulsers (e.g. Magpulse) claim to actually de-sulphate. I have tested this and batteries do indeed recover.

 

[narooma]

Hi Lermain,
Looking at the Sterling site they actually claim that their weekly de-sulphation cycle removes sulphation. Are you saying this is wrong?

 

[Anonymous]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Lemain,
Looking at the Sterling site they actually claim that their weekly de-sulphation cycle removes sulphation. Are you saying this is wrong?

[/ QUOTE ] A few days ago, in this forum, I made a comment about LED nav lights - a perfectly valid comment, I thought. I said that if you are going to buy nav lights then you ought to check that they meet the requirements or at the very least the manufacturer claims that they do. A company that had been mentioned earlier in the thread complained to IPC; the thread was pulled and I was warned. So you will understand that I am going to be very careful indeed when answering your question.....

Now, you are asking me whether I am saying what is wrong? Are you asking me whether the Sterling site says this? Or are you asking me whether Sterling's "de-sulphation cycle removes sulphation"?

Can you give me a link to the page on that site that makes this claim? Do Sterling tell us how their system actually de-sulphates the batteries? It seems to me that if a manufacturer makes a claim that its product does something then they ought to tell us how it works and/or provide some evidence to support their claim.

Sorry to post what seems to be a pedantic and less than straightforward reply but when manufacturers lurk in hobby forums with large cheque books and then threaten legal action against the forum and posters, we have to watch our Ps and Qs.

 

[narooma]

Yes have to admit it's a bit bad however, not wanting you in the hot water again, This is from their site.
http://www.sterling-power.com/products-chargers-prodigital-techinfo.htm
Automatic 7 day de-sulphation cycle
The good thing about a constant current charger is that it de-sulphates the battery plates ensuring maximum life from the batteries. However, this only works if the charger is switched on/off regularly (i.e. every time you disconnect and reconnect the charger the plates are subjected to a de-sulphation cycle). The problem is some boats or standby equipment may be rarely used, for example: a boat could be moored all year and never leave the pontoon, or a stand-by generator with the charger on all the time. In these cases the de-sulphation cycle would only happen once and the batteries would eventually sulphate causing premature destruction. However the Sterling software has a 7 day timer which in the event of inactivity will automatically run a de-sulphation cycle keeping your plates clean.

Now, I read that as it removes sulphation ( ie de-sulphates ) so that leaves 'does it do what they say' and 'are you wrong'?
I will be checking my own batteries in a couple of days (which were not new when I fitted a prodigital24v ) so it will be interesting to see the state of them. I will report back.
By the way, a google for S's bat chargers will give a link to this thread so they wont have to look far.

 

[Anonymous]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, I read that as it removes sulphation ( ie de-sulphates ) so that leaves 'does it do what they say' and 'are you wrong'?

[/ QUOTE ]They claim that it de-sulphates but they don't tell us how. The two techniques commonly in use are:-

a) End of charge ends on a high voltage of between 14.2 and 15V (or even higher). Often this is called 'equalisation' because one effect is to ensure that all cells in a battery are fully charged; if you only charge to the mid-13V level it is possible for one or two cells to be undercharged and become actually reverse-biased on deep discharge, as well as suffering from sulphation. The idea is that sulphation is removed before it becomes irreversible - i.e. removed each cycle. I don't know of any evidence that such systems remove sulphation previously accumulated, however it is widely believed that a battery charged in this manner is less likely to form irreversible sulphation. So, good for new batteries but questionable on old sulphated batteries, perhaps?

b) Pulsers e.g. Megapulse. These produce a high voltage spike across the battery terminals at a frequency of around 1kHz over long periods of time. There is a huge amount of evidence that these pulsers remove sulphation and recover much performance. I have experienced this myself with Megapulse. There are DIY units and several commercial units. Search YBW for lots of information in other threads.

Sterling don't tell us what their 'desulphator' is or how it works so who knows? If it was a pulser I would expect it to be left on all the time. If it was a high end voltage type, I would expect it to only do something when finishing a cycle. Maybe there is a clue there and maybe there isn't - who knows? I really don't know because there is not enough information available.