Reconditioning a battery with a DC arc welder...

[Dr. Righteous]

There are a lot of YouTube videos on this technique and I've probably watched all of them.
There are different opinions on the "best way" do so this but most are cycle the charge/rest time in 5 min charge and 10 minutes rest. Do at least 4 or 5 cycles and then tech the battery with a load tester.

I have a DC arch welder that can crank out 160 amps if needed. It will run on 110v or 220v but I'm using it on 110v.
So far I've tried 2 different batteries and so far 2 failures.
I know this technique isn't guaranteed to work every time but the batteries do go from dead, totally flat; Won't accept any kind of charge from a regular battery charger to holding a 12V+ static charge. But when you putting a load tester on (typical 100 amp tester) the batteries will drop to 8v and just won't deliver much current. Sticking on in a car will you 1 revolution, and then nothing but clicks.

I start by cleaning the batteries up, scrubbing the gunk off the top and cleaning the terminals with a wire brush. I pull the caps and check the electrolyte level and top it off with distilled water as needed. Load testing give my just a few volts and no capacity to deliver any current.
I'll set the welder to deliver 20-30 amps to start and then look for bubbling action from the cells. Typical I'll have more action in some sells than other but all cells will will bubble.
I've tried different amounts of current and different on/off times with the same results.
I've NOT put more than about 70 amps into a cycle even though you see a big increase in bubbling action. I try to stay in the 20-60 amps max. Both these batteries preformed well last year and took a good charge with a cheap 10a charger and stayed strong with long cranking attempts. So I really don't think they are beyond all help. I'm just wondering what else I can do that might bring them back to life.

 

[indept]

I wouldn't trust that battery. If it's that dead just get a new one. Even if it worked it's guaranteed to leave you stranded at the worst possible time.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

I wouldn't trust that battery. If it's that dead just get a new one. Even if it worked it's guaranteed to leave you stranded at the worst possible time.

Yeah, these vehicles aren't drivers (yet). Just need to be able to start them and move them since they are just projects. I really, really, really, don't want to buy new batteries for that purpose.

 

[Jeepwalker]

Well, you have to look at why batteries go 'bad' in the first place to see if you really 'fixed' it ...or brought back a battery that wasn't really dead in the first place. You probably saw a lot of videos why this is, but batt failure come down to the below reasons ...and the question is, Can you (or DID you) reverse those problems with a high charge?

1) Internal structural damage - No
2) Depleated (eaten away) plates - No
3) Sulfate coated plates - Perhaps a little
4) Weak/low electrolyte - Yes by replacing it (but then the plates are probably sulfated if it sat a while)
5) Stratified electrolyte - Yes
*not a complete list of failures

If a battery is low on charge or depleted and remains depleted (or low) for a period of time, the plates will become covered with a sulfate which inhibits the flow of electrons between the plates and the solution. Think of it as a mineral coating on the inside of hot water pipe or your truck's radiator -- it impedes the transfer of heat. Again, the sulfate coating limits the ability of the energy exchange between the plates and electrolyte. The longer a battery sits at a low charge or 'dead' the greater the sulfation will be. And the less effective the battery will be. In the cold winter (for those who live in the N), a dead battery won't sulfate much, even if it sits a week, it could be charged up with little (but perhaps some) long-term damage. In the warm or hot summer if the same thing happens, the coating will develop on the plates much quicker and cause decreased energy transfer. A guy could inadvertently 'murder' a battery pretty quick in the summer. A heavily sulfated battery won't have much capacity at all.

Pulse desulfators essentially claim the pulses can knock off sulfation. That may be true under certain circumstances with very mild sulfation. Guys at the battery companies say you can't remove enough to make a meaningful difference. And for an old battery, if the plate grid is completey worn and 'eaten' away from use and age, you can't restore that condition, except with maybe some David Copperfield 'magic'. lol

So, you probably knocked some sulfation off, or, the battery was just ultra low or you 'trickled' an otherwise good (but uncharged) battery back to life.

OR ...the battery had been sitting a long time, like on a concrete floor which is cooler, the electrolyte had settled and stratified due to the temperature differences ..and not making a good overall solution for electron exchange at the upper half of the battery. So it appeared 'dead'. Your high-charging regiment caused bubbles which mixed the electrolyte and allowed the mixed solution to contact the entire plate surface for energy exchange. The Optima chargers I beleive do that for a period to attempt to mix the electrolyte. If that was what occurred you could do the same thing by shaking the battery. Shake (slosh back/fourth) ....let it sit a few seconds for fluids to distribute, then shake it (slosh it vigorously side-to-side) again. Then charge (under 10A). I do that on my skid steer battery before I go to charge it ...if it has been sitting for a long time ..and other batteries that I have which may sit for a while. You should do that on any battery that has been sitting static for a while. ...before you put the charger on it or even start the car/truck/mower/tractor/etc.

AGM batteries that's not a problem. Normal driving keeps the electrolyte mixed.


Glad you got the batteries working again!!

 

[GTyankee]

100 years ago when i was a teen
we would take the old rubber cased bad batteries,
dump the acid out
fill them with plain water, dump it, fill with water again & dump it again
Then we would grab some short 2 X 4s
then we dropped the empty batteries onto the wood, we dropped them from a short height a few times
Then used a garden hose to flush out the cells
we did that a few times & then looked down into the cells to see if we could see anything that might short out the plates

Then we turned the batteries upside down & let them sit out in the sun for a couple days, we wanted all the water out of the battery
The reason for that is you never want to pour sulfuric acid onto water

After all the water is gone, turn the batteries over
Now take the box with the plastic container of sulfuric acid in it, it will have a flexible hose & a clip on it
( you may have seen a similar setup with Milk or Wine in a box )

Now unlatch the clip & gently tip the box until the sulfuric acid begins to run out slowly
Fill each cell up to the top of the lead cells, after a short break, then top the cells up with distilled water
Now you can begin SLOW charging the batteries for maybe an hour, then you can turn your charger up for few hours.

If you did it right, no acid touched your eyes, your skin, your clothes & more often than not, you will have a battery that may work again for awhile

I never tried it with the plastic cased batteries

 

[Daw14]

What was used for the case before plastic ?

 

[Wild one]

What was used for the case before plastic ?

Rubber,but you have to be old as dirt (which i am) to remember them,lol

 

[kurek]

Both of my little winter maintainers claim to have some battery repair functions, they're not real clear on exactly what they do (two different brands, too) but one of them had a little graph in the owners' manual that I glanced through before throwing it away and it looked like it would first try to identify if the battery was in a car or not using some kind of measurement, then deliver some ~20v pulses for a while, then some modulated high frequency pulses at normal charge voltage ~15v and repeat.

For all I know that could just be a fancy drawing in the manual to make it seem more elaborate than it really is, I've only ever had one genuinely dead battery since then and it was the OE battery in my '15 Ram.

For giggles here's something I found on ebay a couple weeks ago..

 

[indept]

100 years ago when i was a teen
we would take the old rubber cased bad batteries,
dump the acid out
fill them with plain water, dump it, fill with water again & dump it again
Then we would grab some short 2 X 4s
then we dropped the empty batteries onto the wood, we dropped them from a short height a few times
Then used a garden hose to flush out the cells
we did that a few times & then looked down into the cells to see if we could see anything that might short out the plates

Then we turned the batteries upside down & let them sit out in the sun for a couple days, we wanted all the water out of the battery
The reason for that is you never want to pour sulfuric acid onto water

After all the water is gone, turn the batteries over
Now take the box with the plastic container of sulfuric acid in it, it will have a flexible hose & a clip on it
( you may have seen a similar setup with Milk or Wine in a box )

Now unlatch the clip & gently tip the box until the sulfuric acid begins to run out slowly
Fill each cell up to the top of the lead cells, after a short break, then top the cells up with distilled water
Now you can begin SLOW charging the batteries for maybe an hour, then you can turn your charger up for few hours.

If you did it right, no acid touched your eyes, your skin, your clothes & more often than not, you will have a battery that may work again for awhile

I never tried it with the plastic cased batteries

That's how batteries back in prehistoric times (1970's) used to come when new. You got the battery dry and a container of sulfuric acid. You would fill it & charge it before using. Guess it helped with shelf life since the clock didn't start until you activated it. Not like today where you walk into a store with ready to go batteries, you have to check the date on it to make sure it didn't age for a few years on the shelf before buying. The good part of doing it the old way is you always had some acid left over so you could experiment with pouring it on different materials to see how long it took to eat through it. Helped pass the time since the internet didn't exist.

 

[MoParts]

What's your time worth?

There are used battery stores in San Jose for example, that will sell you a used battery with a 30-day warranty for $40, $10 core on top of that. Or a 90-day warranty for $10 more. In this same market a new "economy" group 24 with a 1 year warranty is going for $120, plus a $22 core charge.

 

[Hemi adventure]

Well I'm oldern dirt too. Back in the late 60's an old guy I worked with would take old batteries ,turn the upside down, fill them with water a cupple of times, then put a spoon full of baking soda in and let it boil over night. Then rinse again several times, and finally refill with acid and charge up again. He said he never bought new batteries because this was basically the same thing as a new one. He gave me one of them that I used in my 63 Fairlane for about 9 months before I traded it in for my 65 Stang.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

What's your time worth?

There are used battery stores in San Jose for example, that will sell you a used battery with a 30-day warranty for $40, $10 core on top of that. Or a 90-day warranty for $10 more. In this same market a new "economy" group 24 with a 1 year warranty is going for $120, plus a $22 core charge.

Don't think there is a source of used batteries in this area except a salvage yard perhaps. I have a couple more batteries to test and see if I get a keeper out of those. If I have to buy a battery I'll just bite the bullet and do it. I'll just have to swap it between vehicles when I need to do something with them. Both batteries that didn't make it was actually pretty old batteries. Might have better luck with the others.
I did notice though the longer I let them "cook" they got a bit better. I have nothing to loose really I'm thinking of setting up an area I can just let them cook for days and just keep and eye on them. I have a charger other than my welder I can use for that.

 

[RLJ10X]

An Arc Welder hooked to an automotive battery.

What could possibly go wrong.

 

[Joe Merchak]

Yeah, these vehicles aren't drivers (yet). Just need to be able to start them and move them since they are just projects. I really, really, really, don't want to buy new batteries for that purpose.

Why dont you get yourself a good jump box. Hook it up to the cars battery cables, start the project, move it and unhook it. Alot light then carrying a battery around.

 

[MoParts]

If I have to buy a battery I'll just bite the bullet and do it.

Yeah, that's what I would do, but I understand sometimes the completion date is far enough out that having a new battery sitting around is a liability(needs tending). Though a good float charger will keep a new battery healthy for a long time.

 

[chri5k]

Or it could end up like this



Or this



I have been in a room shortly after a lead-acid battery explosion. It sent two guys to the hospital with acid and molten lead burns. Acid was everywhere and ruined most of the furniture. The walls, floor and ceiling needed repair as well. IMHO messing around with this to save a few bucks on a new battery is not worth it. Also the "reconditioned" is probably not very reliable. The internal components of the battery, mainly the plates, are consumed during the chemical reaction. No amount of electricity is going to put the molecules back in their original place. Sure some sulphation may get knocked loose and expose some of the lead making the battery seem "rejuvenated". Additionally, other parts like insulators and separators are not "reconditioned" by electricity so those components are still degraded.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

An Arc Welder hooked to an automotive battery.

What could possibly go wrong.

Oh yeah, thing could go wrong in a big way if you are not careful. The battery spews out flammable and poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. You have to take a lot of precautions. The gas has an intense rotten egg smell so nobody will be hanging around and breathing it. Have to do this kind of thing outside. Don't touch any connections until you kill the power first. Wear protective gloves, mask, and eye protection.
I have a battery charger that is meant for a golf cart that puts out 48v but it can be dialed back as low as 6v. I'm going to set that up for 12-13v and let it 'cook' the dead ones for a couple days to see if it regains any capacity. Since the brute force approach didn't yield good results I'm going for the slow and steady approach.

 

[GTyankee]

I was part of a Pit Crew back in 1968
Our car raced a 3/8ths mile circle track
We had one car ready to race & during the week nights & some afternoons I would work on a back up car
Mostly stripping the interior, so that the car could be sent to a shop to get the roll cages in it.
It came back from the welding shop & another guy put the battery in the battery box & cut a truck tire tube to stretch over the battery & then hooked up the charger.
I was riveting in the rear sheet metal that went from the center of the roll cage on back to where the rear seat had been & up to the rear window shelf.
I heard a loud POP, it almost sounded like something had been tossed in a dumpster. It shook me up a bit.
The battery had exploded & i was only 3 feet away ?
The rubber cover had done its job, it sure smelled for a bit

 

[chri5k]

I was part of a Pit Crew back in 1968
Our car raced a 3/8ths mile circle track
We had one car ready to race & during the week nights & some afternoons I would work on a back up car
Mostly stripping the interior, so that the car could be sent to a shop to get the roll cages in it.
It came back from the welding shop & another guy put the battery in the battery box & cut a truck tire tube to stretch over the battery & then hooked up the charger.
I was riveting in the rear sheet metal that went from the center of the roll cage on back to where the rear seat had been & up to the rear window shelf.
I heard a loud POP, it almost sounded like something had been tossed in a dumpster. It shook me up a bit.
The battery had exploded & i was only 3 feet away ?
The rubber cover had done its job, it sure smelled for a bit

Good on you for having a cover to contain it. The guys I mentioned earlier were wearing googles. Their faces were pock marked all around where the goggles did not cover. Pretty sure they would have been blinded or suffered serious eye damage if they had not been wearing googles.

Heck the hospital copays are going to be more than $200. Just buy a new battery. It is cheaper and less painful.

 

[GTyankee]

The rubber tube over the battery was actually required by that particular racing association back then.

I have noticed that currently the battery is located on the drivers side for weight & it is accessed from the drivers side rear wheel well