Technical The Great Battery Rejuvenation Experiment

We used to get it at the autoparts store. I am not sure how easy it is to get thses days.

Its called battery acid. LOL it is sulfuric acid HsSO4 I don't know what dilution it is. Probably you could google battery acid and find the dilution.

 

Batteries when filled with acid, conventional ones, are considered HAZMAT.

Lots of manufacturers used to sell "dry charged" batteries to get around this. The purchaser buys his own acid, fills them up, and lets the plates soak it up, and then charge it up thoroughly. If the dry charged battery is well sealed they can keep this way for many years.

Hot weather or high temperature (and vibration) is what kills batteries more than anything. They sulfate very quickly. What happens is just that the cold weather is what exposes them, because as the temperature goes down the internal resistance of a battery goes way up, the ability for the battery supply current goes way down.

At the same the time, the current required to turn over a cold engine, with thick sludgy crankcase oil goes way up. It's a double whammy. This is why there is often a line of people waiting at the auto parts store to buy a new battery that first morning of a sub zero cold snap of the season.

"Batteries die in July, they just don't fall over till December."

 

H2S04





Bones

 

Also the cycle rate of a battery has a factor in on battery life. That’s why a well tuned engine, that starts fast will make a battery life longer that a car that you grind on to start.






Bones

 

LOL I actually thought I had typed in H2So4. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

We stock battery acid at my store (O'Reilly) and the other parts stores probably stock it too. Always kind of makes me wonder what they're using it for when somebody buys the six gallon container.
There used to be place a few miles from here that reconditioned batteries. Turned out they were just taking the old batteries out back and turning them upside down on the ground to drain them. Lots of lead contamination. It's now a superfund cleanup site.

 

We used to get bike batteries this way. Even the ones that you bought in person. They would often come dry charged and have a package of acid in the proper amount to fill the battery.

I had several dozen batteries shipped to me at the shop in the '70s. They came with collapsed boxes to package them (which I never used) and a separate shipment of acid pre-packaged (not in bulk like I assumed it would be). To this day I am not sure why they came that way (separate shipments). I have to guess it had to do with cost on shipping as well as liability.

 

Batteries start aging when they are filled with acid. Shipping them empty is a way to keep the battery fresh until it's time to use, or at least time to move it from the storage shelf to the shop shelf.

 

I still get them new from my local bike shop without the acid. The last one I got this spring from them came to the counter dry, and the guy put the acid in right there at the counter. Then told me to not use it for at least 12 hours until it would be ready.

 

Riddle me this, if new batteries are made with thinner plates, how come they feel heavier than they were 40 years ago?

 

Update: Brought one of the batteries to my property yesterday. After sitting overnight it showed 12.3 this morning. Disappointing but I stuck it in a tractor anyway and surprisingly it started. Not a fast crank but good enough. I'll play with it and the other potential one. Definitely no miracle cure..

 

Shipping batteries is funny up here.

electric forklift with battery installed , nothing special for shipping.

battery on a skid strapped down ! Oh shit !
Placards required ,paper work required , transport driver needs to be licensensed in shipping hazardous goods, company needs insurance yadda yadda.



what’s the difference?

the European batteries we would get from the dealerships would come dry and we would fill them with acid.

 

Back when I worked at Wards in the Auto Center in the mid 90's the powers that be wanted to push the top of the line higher amp batteries with more plates (Exide Batteries) in was not unusual for many to fail within the first year here in Phoenix since it is very hot here and the cases showed signs of swelling so the failure may have been plates no longer have any space and shorting out internally. The cheaper batteries would last much longer and seldom needed to be "adjusted" and pro-rated under warranty.

 

Only time I was ever around a battery explosion was when I was working at the EXXON on 24th and Buckeye, right near the freeway. A lady went to start her car after gassing it up and a big “pop” Opened the hood and what a mess.

Anyways, I wonder if that station is still there, I still have the keys to the Coke machine. Lol

 

I bought some battery acid at the local O'Reilly's for my electroplating experiment.
The only battery that I have seen explode was in High School auto shop when one of the students was demonstrating how to check a battery's charge by shorting the terminals. Great lesson, just not the one that he intended.

 

From what I have learned over the years is that when there is more electrolyte vs. plates (large housing with lots of acid), the batteries lasted longer. I have tried to buy the largest physical size that will fit , with enough capacity to crank the engine, but it's getting harder as they have small batteries now, with incredible capacity, but they're buggered after a couple of years. It would be interesting to see how the ratio of acid vs plate size has changed over the years, as it was not uncommon to get 8 years or more from a battery.

 

The reason that batteries explode, is because of hydrogen building up inside the battery during the charge cycle, that isn't getting vented out. Back in the 50s and 60s, there was normally a warning sign where the batteries were charged, to remove, or at least loosen the caps.
Because the modern batteries are rated differently, it is not possible to make an apples to apples comparison. As for weight, the cases of the batteries from the 50s, were made with a black plastic that was much weaker than the plastics used to make the cases today. This has allowed the manufacturers to make the cases much thinner and thus reduce the size and weight of the battery.
The manufacturers wanted to increase the cranking power of the batteries by increasing surface area of the plates by adding more holes in the plates. They also added more plates by making them thinner and reducing the spacing between the plates. According to what I was told, this change was not made to all batteries, but it was made for batteries rated at 100 amp/hour or higher.
I was advised by the battery shop where I always bought 1000 cca batteries, that I was likely to get a longer battery life by using the 850 cca batteries, This has turned out to be the case for me.
Keeping the battery fully charged by trickle charging them, increases the life of the battery significantly.
There is so much more to batteries, and so I have included a link.
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/can_the_lead_acid_battery_compete_in_modern_times
Bob

 

@j-jock Here I thought it was because I was getting older

 

Getting older, is one thing we can't change.
Bob

 

Battery rebuilding

 

One of those times when rebuilding/restoring old items is bad for the environment, and the health of the person doing it.

 

Kind a like the same reason my 30 year old leather bike jacket keeps shrinking

 

If thinner, More of em?

 

I buy only Optima red tops. Lippy

 

We used to use Epsom Salt in the batteries of the back row clunkers on the car lot.
All 6 volts. A teaspoon of salts in each cell and a heavy dose of charging (about 80 amps) to boil all the crap off the plates. They would usually last a couple of months, or until they were off the lot.

 

Bigger and heavier is better, but within a given group size, the way I understand it beyond a certain number of CCAs the only way they can do that is to stuff the battery with thinner plates. This is how they can provide the heavy burst of current for short duration. These are more prone to physical damage due to shock or vibration. They also cost more, if you live somewhere like North Dakota then the high CCA batteries make sense. If not, not.

Years ago the rule of thumb was 1 CCA per cu inch of engine size. 2 for Diesel iirc. That might he a little light depending on the climate, but these days everybody wants 950 CCA batts, and they may be wasting their money, and as someone mentioned they don't last as nearly long as a battery with thicker, heavier plates.

 

Anymore I can't stand to hear anyone cranking over an engine for any length of time. If the SOB doesn't start right away ... it's like strangling a puppy. Who would do that? Gahhhh!!!! Stop it! (Fix yer shit, I mean) Roasted starters, relays, cables, batteries, flooded out engine, what's not to like?

 

I’ve had two batteries explode. One was in the battery box under the door on a semi. Had the door open, hit the starter, battery exploded about the same time. I heard the explosion, then heard the acid running out on the ground.

The other exploded in my face. Wife’s car, she had been having problems with it starting. She thought the cable clamp was loose, so she had been hitting it with a hammer or rock or something to get it to make connection. I was on the road a week at a time, so when I got home, I got the word to fix her car. OK, grab some wrenches, going to clean the posts and clamps, loosened the clamp bolt, grabbed the clamp and gave it a twist to take it off the post, BOOM!!! Apparently the post was broken loose from the case, when I twisted the clamp, the post turned too, and the plate twisted into the one beside it, instant short.

I got a 2” gash above my eye in my eyebrow that required stitches from a piece of the broken case. Luckily I had my glasses on and didn’t get any acid in my eyes, but did get it all over my face. After I got up off the ground, I ran to the outside water hydrant and stuck my face under it. Saved me from any acid burns. My ears rang for an hour or more.

I respect batteries now even more. I will not twist a clamp to get it off, nor will I tap on a post or clamp. I keep a towel or rag handy to lay on one before I work on one. Hydrogen gas is no joke, it will explode with enough force to blind or kill you.

 

Typical government foolishness !

 

...And the bloke featured in this video lived until the ripe old age of 27.