Homebrewed Electricity > Storage

Interesting garage sale day.

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pyrocasto:
Well, all morning I spent in my car going to different garage sales trying to find something that might interest me. After 3 hours of sales, I had found 3 movies and 2 CFLs. Not very exciting. After I had given up and went home, I remembered seeing a yard I wanted to stop by and talk to the owner about. This guy got a citation from the city because he had too much crap. That's perfect for me.
I looked around his property for a good hour, found out he's an awesome guy. I saw a few items that caught my eye. First off, a few high lift well pumps laying around. A bunch of different radiator setups, from anything that has a radiator. A walmart deep cycle battery, same as I already have in my solar setup. Some box fans and motors.
My eyes finally fell apon these beauties:





He said he had six and they came out of an electric boat. Like I said, the dude was nice. He gave me these for free and so I took them home to test. If I found out they work, I'll give him some money for them next time I go.
I looked them up and I believe they are 255 ah a piece, and new value at $375 or so. Well, one is dead and only reads 8 volts, charger wont touch it. The charger brought the other 2 back and is charging now.
So what should I do with these, as to take care of them? If I leave the charger on them, is that all I can do since they are sealed maintainence free, or is there something else I can do to help the life and workingship(is that a word?) of them?
Also, is it possable to use that 8volt dead battery for something? Since it still has some kind of a charge, I didnt know if I could use if for something that didnt require 12 volts.
Now I'm very happy to find a guy like this, and I'll go back later this week for the other deep cycle probably.

Peppyy:
I can't believe they are really sealed. It looks like they have some sort of caps on them.
The first thing i would do is make sure they have enough fluid in them. Top them up to the correct level with distilled water. I have brought several apparently hopeless batteries back to life by watering them.
Wish I could find something like that around here :) Good luck with them.

Nando:
All the batteries, including the maintenance free, have ways to fill them out -- required for production, SO LOOK and learn to open the valves covers and re-fill with DISTILLED water and re-charge with a not to heavy current ( ~ 3 to 5 amps)for days,.
Regards
Nando

pyrocasto:
Right now I'm on 6amps and I've jumped around on 2 batteries. Now one has been charging for a good 6 hours now and is still slowly climbing. I will charge the other one afterwards.
The dead one though, wont charge with the charger, so I guess I'm gonna try and start it with one of the good batteries, and see if I can get the voltage climbing at all.
From empty to new it will take at least 2 days per battery to charge.
I'll try and pop off the caps(looking things) and fill with water. Hopefully I can get that dead one going, since that's a potential wad of money.

ibeweagle:
dont know about some of this advice it is what I have heard take the 8 volt one and dig a hole for it and short it out with car battery cables for a short time one second to get bad shorted cell burded clear of short hole is in case battery blows up also get a battery desuffider or build one yourself cheers ibeweagle

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