Refurbishing a battery.

[Guest]

I've been doing a lot of research, of late, to try and learn if it is possible to bring a battery back to life. So far Im still in the dark as to the possibility.

The NTM (new to me) CB650 came with a new ish battery which when tested only showed around 4 volts. Hitching my new Genius charger to it didn't help as the charger indicated the battery was too weak to accept a charge.

After some study, the charger manual indicated the best approach is to charge with the Genius set to 6 volts first. On achieving 6V to then switch to 12 and continue.

I noticed one of the cells was dry so after adding distilled water I started the procedure and after 2 days achieved 6 volts. Switching to the 12 v setting didn't get much further topping out after 4 days at around 8V.

Doing more research, I find smart chargers are not recommended for battery recovery and plain old "dumb" analog units are a better choice. The idea seems to be to let the battery sit on the charger until an over voltage is first achieved which is supposed to de-sulphate the plates.
At this point I have gotten the battery to around 10 volts after 2 more days and have removed the charger to allow a rest period as also advised.

I will continue the procedure in a day or so to see if I can make it to the magical 12+ but, despite the advances so far, I am sceptical this will happen,or if it does the charge will last for any length of time.

I have also read that it might take several days or even weeks to happen on a low amperage unit such as we use for bike batteries.

So being a novice at this, I once again seek the vast knowledge of the GS gurus.

As always, all comments are appreciated.

cheers

[JTGS850GL]

Buy a new battery and check your bike's charging system.

Lead acid batteries sulfate when deeply discharged. This effectively coats the plates and renders them useless. There are chargers that will send voltage pulses to help break up the coating, but usually it's a feudal effort on a battery that has sat discharged for any period of time. In your case it sounds like the battery is in pretty bad shape. I wouldn't trust it and a bad battery can do damage to your charging system if left in place.

[spyug]

Thanks for the reply.

At this point this is a purely academic exercise. The battery is undoubtedly toast and will be replaced, I just wondered if there was any truth to the rumour that lead acid batteries can be brought back to functioning life and if so , the best way to do it.

The battery had been bought new to help start the bike after a 10 year hiatus. That was about 2 years back. The bike was unable to start after a cleaning of the carbs. My buddy gave up on it and let it sit until I picked up the bike this past week. To my knowledge, the bike is otherwise healthy.

I'll let you know what, if anything, can be achieved.

Cheers.

[JEEPRUSTY]

I have seen a few sites that deal with this
I think its mostly myth as it never worked for me

[JTGS850GL]

Normally a battery converts lead to lead sulfate while discharging. Once the plates are completely covered with lead sulfate the battery is considered "discharged". When recharging the battery, the lead sulfate is reconverted back into lead and the sulfate returns back to the electrolyte. The cycle continues back and forth until the lead is consumed and the battery is no longer usable.

A lead acid battery that's sat to 2 years without a charge is not going to be brought back to life and have anything close to normal capacity. The problem is that the longer a discharged battery sits the harder the lead sulfate on the plates becomes and the more difficult it is to convert it back to lead. Most chargers can not restart the conversion processes and even if they can reconvert some of the lead, the exposed surface area is badly compromised leaving the battery with a seriously compromised capacity.

Bottom line, there's no real way to recondition a heavily discharged battery that has sat for and extended period of time. Especially if exposed to higher temperatures as this accelerates the crystallization process of the lead sulfate.

[spyug]

Thanks for clarifying that. It is pretty much as I have been thinking. I am a sceptic by nature and it does seem implausible to be able to reanimate a battery but who knows until you try.

cheers.

[GateKeeper]

easy to remedy....

get a new battery toss out the old

I even have a cheap place for you

http://www.kapscomoto.com/Street_Bike_Sport_Bike_Batteries_s/6214.htm

.

[TooManyToys]

The de-sulphating chargers work as long as the plates are not too oxidized, and if the electrolyte has boiled off they are usually gone. The old tube driven charges used to do this by their nature.

https://www.bobdrake.com/Images/Features/Bobs-Pages/Bobs_Junk_files/Ford-Service-Dept.-Battery-Tester_Fast-Charger.png

[greg78gs750]

seems like i saw a homemade desulphating thread here on the forums some time ago.....

[jsandidge]

seems like i saw a homemade desulphating thread here on the forums some time ago.....

Search Youtube. I'm positive I saw a video on this.

[chuck hahn]

The TMX ones that I used to get for 40.00 shipped are listed as "unavailable" and "dont know if this item will be available again".

So I did some search feature looking and theres this one that is relatively cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053Z6LGY/ref=pd_luc_sbs_01_04_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[bwringer]

When faced with a dead battery, I apply an amazing high-tech substance called "Visa".

[Grimly]

I have a Whizz-Bang Electronic Co de-sulphator and it actually works - but only on batteries that are marginal. As said by others, once they've gone past a certain point (and who knows what that is, but two years is way beyond it), there's no recovering them. Having said that I was teased by a couple of them that seemed to be creeping back up and even regained some useful life, but no cranking amps.
One of them was a sore one - a battery I'd bought and hadn't used, but had kept trickle and maint charged often enough for it to be salvageable, but it had simply been out of regular service for too long (2 years). That same battery, in daily use, might have lasted 5, 6, 8 years.
I'm looking at replacing the electrolyte with alum and having them be part of a standby bank of power-cut batteries, where they can be linked to provide a normal output when needed, to run a UPS.