Are desulfators as effective as the ads claim?

2 Posts
Sep 19, 2007 10:58 am
Are desulfators as effective as the ads claim?

The brochures say the desulfator will return a battery to bsically original condition.  I have a string of flooded 110AH deep cycle batteries and one of them tests at only 30AH from full charge to full discharge (caught me offguard that it was that low).  It takes charge current fine and reads 12.63V or so a day after full recharge but settles to about 12.4v within days.  Could I really expect to return this unit to anything close to 110AH after using desulfator?  Its a group 27 Diehard about 5 years old.  Trying to decide whether to replace string with AGMs like Universal UB12900s or attempt rejuvenation of the old ones. Leaning towards new anyways since the Diehards have pretty high self-disharge rate.
 
2 Posts
Nov 8, 2007 01:18 pm
Re: Are desulfators as effective as the ads claim?

Built my own desulfator/pulse charger and finding it effective.  Charging tired battery conventionally and then hitting it with desulfator did not seem effective, no increase in capacity.  Running it down to about 50% state of charge and then recharging with desulfator DOES seem to work (after several cycles of discharge/charge).  Using 50 amp pulses 15uS wide, repetition 2500HZ and keeping it on until battery voltage reaches 14.0 (temp about 68 deg F).  Would need to scale pulse current if different than my 110AH flooded batteries.  I built the thing with a switch (desulfate, pulse charge) and will maintain string state of charge with pulse charger from now on.  My root cause problem was bought a set of 3 batteries (series connect) but did not check the date code.  One was a lot older and apparently took a beating with partial charge state for long time on store shelf.  Then it took some more beating in my series connected string when charging/discharging because it was not equal to its peers.
 
184 Posts
Nov 9, 2007 09:19 am
Re: Are desulfators as effective as the ads claim?

Chester,

A good quality PWM charge controller will also help to remove/avoid sulfation, at least the Morningstar products claim to be able to do so.  And since the charge controller is in use all the time (as opposed to a desulfator that is used periodically), I believe they are the first line of defense against battery sulfation.

John
 

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