Battery buzzing on desulphator

[zmoz]

I have a 17AH SLA battery hooked up to a "Battery Minder" desulphating charger. Today I noticed that while it's desulphating, the battery is making a quiet buzzing noise. The noise is definately not coming from the charger, but the battery itself. Is this normal? Or is something wrong?

[TomW]

Its simply the life being boiled out of your battery.

A. Everyone knows SLA batteries should not be desulphated.

2. Once you cook out the liquid its a brick.

Cheers.

TomW

[FishbonzWV]

I have a solar Batteryminder rated at 5A hooked up to a 50w PV panel that is hooked to 4 195Ahr 6v AGMs wired for 12v. It's just a trickle charger to keep some juice flowing while the batteries sit and since they were used when I got them I didn't figure it would hurt to use the desulfator as the charge controller. I've never heard any noise from them.

What's the amperage of your Batteryminder?

I've also got 4 more of these batteries on a Vector Smartcharger that has a desulfator circuit built in. These don't make any noise either. I noticed on the Vector that when in charge mode the batteries get warm, but when it's desulfating (if it really is) the batteries don't get warm and the voltage doesn't raise like it does when charging.

Bonz

[zmoz]

That is not true, Tom. There are plenty of people that desulphate sealed batteries. The Battery Minder is specifically designed to work perfectly with sealed and AGM batteries, and has a good reputation for doing just that. It floats the battery at around 13.5v, which is perfectly acceptable for an SLA. I have used this same charger on an AGM battery which would not take a charge, worked great, and now that battery has been brought back to about 50% of it's original capacity.

FishbonzWV - it's a 1 amp charger, but it's not putting out that much while it's floating/desulphating.

[pyrocasto]

You just have to be carefull to make sure you have enough water. I have some 250ah 12v SLA and they can lose water. Just because there is not cap to pop off doesnt mean you shouldnt drill a couple of holes and add some. Your water is the life of your battery.

[Tom in NH]

I have a homemade desulfator on my batteries and I can hear the desulfator itself whining and buzzing, but the sounds come from the board, not the batteries. --tom

[ghurd]

I have heard that too.

Buzzing from a PWM charge controller. 360HZ.

I tightened the screws a little and the buzzing stops.

G-

[whatsnext]

This is odd. When I charge and desulfate SLA batteries I see exactly the opposite things than you. Desulating= warmer batteries charging at a higher voltage. Charging= room temperature batteries at a lower voltage.

John.........

[nothing to lose]

"A. Everyone knows SLA batteries should not be desulphated."

Hi Tomw.

Actually I did not know that, hmm I geuss he didn't either

They're still a lead acid battery even though sealed, but the low amp hrs was my worry. I have a few bricks here I plan to try to bring back. I figured connect a few together to total more amp hours and maybe even to a dead auto battery and then desulphate the entire string at once. Think that would work any better than hitting a single 20amphr SLA alone?

Most of my bricks are out of dead UPS systems, like 1 unit had 4 6V 20amphr batteries for 24V supply. Also dead rechargable halogen lights. Figure no go as they are anyway so might as well try something with them.

Any advice on trying to bring them to life other ways first?

[TomW]

NTL;

Well, I could be wrong and desulphating is OK but anytime a sealed device is hissing it usually means something is getting out they wanted to keep in by sealing it in the first place. Now I am dead sure equalizing is bad for them for that same gassing reason.

All tweaking and hacks aside once the electrolyte dries by outgassing it is going to be useless.

Not willing to argue it at all but sure seems to be common sense which can be lacking in todays world.

T

[FishbonzWV]

That got me wondering about the Vector and it's desulfating mode. So I patched in my Fluke to see how many amps it was pushing. Goose eggs on the meter! So apparently the thing does't work. I have had that thing on these batteries over two weeks alternating between 24 hours of (supposed) desulfating and 8 hours of charging. The charge circuit works fine but the desulfate circuit must be just flashing lights!

I bought the Vector just because it had a desulfator that you could activate. B.S.

Now,

These latest AGM's I picked up, 3 are good working batteries and 1 was 5.8v. It would take a charge but voltage dropped quickly under load. I popped the top of of it and saw the center cell glass mats looked pretty dried out compared to the other two cells. Added about 8 oz. of distilled water to it over a couple of days time (this was to give it time to wick up evenly into the mat). I thought I was desulfating it, buuuttttt....

Now it's on the BatteryMinder, I'll see what happens.

One other thing...while charging all 4 AGM's in a string, 3 out of the 4 had the center cell warmer than the outside cells. I wonder if their cells are drying out also. Will probably open those up and check the hydration of the mats.

Nothing like 'sperimentin'

Bonz

[nothing to lose]

Ya, I'm not arguing either, I agree if it's hissing somethings probably not right.

I kinda meant the part about everyone knowing reply as a joke, though looking again it may not appeared that way.

equalizing is bad for them, I think I agree with that. Seems that's kinda over charging one and that causes more gassing I think. Desulfating the larger normal deepcycle ones I been doing though doesn't seem to bubble/gas as much as normal charging does on them.

 I don't know what happens inside a SLA though. Since mine are bricks already I figure it can't hurt anything as long as they don't explode!!

[RP]

I thought desulfating involved high current pulses.  Your Fluke meter may not be geared to pick these up.  Just for fun, try hooking a light bulb or something in series between the charger and the battery and see if you detect any "flashes" of current.

[nothing to lose]

"The charge circuit works fine but the desulfate circuit must be just flashing lights!

I bought the Vector just because it had a desulfator that you could activate. B.S."

Same here, but it does work, no B.S. unless you got a bad one, unlikely.

 I think the pulses just don't read for some reason, my cheapo meter shows nothing too.

But I brought back a couple junkers to useable service for sure so it was working.

I really don't know what the vector does or how, but after along time desulphating the batteries were still low, but when I charged them they held the charge far better than before. Trojans I got at the scrap yard that would go dead in 24hrs no load after being fully charged are now being used alot on my inverter and were lasting very well.

Nothing is connected now, put everything away before going to canada and haven't set anything back up yet, only been home about a week and 2 days. Hopefully soon it will be back together.

[FishbonzWV]

ntl

This is the Vector number two. The first one lasted about a week on desulfate mode. I had it running and went to check it before going to work one morning and it was dead. Turned the unit off and back on and nothing happened. Took it back to Sam's and traded it for another. The first one must have failed shorted and this one must be open. The voltage on the batteries do not change when it's in the de-mode. If you look at their web site, they have a ton of remanufactured equipment. Hmmmm?

Time for another trip to Sam's.

Bonz

[nothing to lose]

You may have a bad one then.

I know mine has brought basically useless batteries back to usable life. I am not certain about that voltage change though. It seems to me that I keep desulphating for days and the voltage does not rise, but then when I charge the battery it does hold the charge far better than before. Like some batteries totally died in 24hrs sitting there, then I run desulphate mode for several days or a week on them, still dead but after charging they stay charged. It has been awhile since I used it that way, I was getting junk batteries from a recycler and doing this.

It does seem strange to me it worked without charging, since the sulphates on the plates are the problem and caused by discharge normally, and disolveing the sulphates back off the plates and into the water is normally what happens durring charging.

 The problem is when the sulphates won't dislove back off the plates.

So I don't really know what is going on in there at the time, maybe it is just softening the sulphates some how so that charging removes them as it should, but not actaully putting them back into the acid like charging does?

Anyway, I'll see tommorow/today what happens to 2 trojans. Just checked them, they were sitting unused since before I went to Canada (about 8 weeks at least) and I don't know what state of charge they were before I left. But I checked then with a meter and it showed the pair at only 11.5V and when I put the charger on 40amp setting it dropped back to 15amps charging and kept going down quick to about 12amp so I stuck it into desulphate mode for the night.

Another set about the same size was showing 12.45V and was taking a 42amp charge in the 40 amp mode so my charger was working correctly. These are about 360amphr trojans each.

Got them at scrap prices from a recycler, 10 batteries for about $50, 6 came back good and I got alot of use from them. 2 of those died in my truck on a long trip, not sure what happened to them, but I still got 4 great ones, 2 maybes, 4 junk I still try things on. Not bad for $50 investment really. I love junk batteries and desulphating

I've got a bunch of other types also.

[FishbonzWV]

If you get a chance, see if there is a change in voltage when you put it in the d-mode. I double checked mine and there was no change at all from the 'resting voltage'. The Batteryminder raises the voltage on the other pair.

Thanks

Fishbonz

[whatsnext]

I'm pretty sure that the 'desufating' mode involves short pulses of high voltage. My Shumacher shows 16-17 volts when in the desulfate mode which it does automaticly when it senses that the bat needs it.

John.......

[nothing to lose]

I been using a Vector that only shows dashes when desulfating and you choose it manually. I just bought a Shumacher yesterday and having fun with it

 I think they are a bit different and don't know if they actaully work the same or not yet.

I am not sure if I like the auto desulfate mode or not yet though. If I want to desulphate I want to do that rather the charger thinks I should or not!!

So far of all the batteries and sets I connected it to it only went into desulphate mode once. It seemed to be working fine though, but I wanted to desulphate on some others. I know they could use it, they sat low for awhile, they have to be partly sulphated. Well the Shumacher did show around 14V maybe higher the time it went into desulfate mode.

Anyway the Shumacher does run fine from an inverter

I used it a short while from my Aims 5K inverter, worked fine any setting. Also I had a small 300watt inverter I ran it from for a long period at only 2amps charging. 2amps was all the inverter would handle, 12amps and the inverter would shut down. Posibly partly due to how it was set up. 50% charge maybe on a large Semi tractor type battery then the Xantrex power plus unit was connected to that big battery. After alot of abuse the inverter has got a problem now in the Xantrex and also the aircompressor tossed a rod, so I was using the lighter type socket to plug the 300watt inverter into that power pack.

I am back into the remote rock house again I talked about in other posts before. Still not planning to turn on the grid there, so I have to do something else. For now I am charging at home again and will be hauling batteries back and forth like before. Nice to know the Shumacher will run from an inverter. Not the best way, but it works, I can have a battery bank at the remote house and batteries in the truck, use an inverter from the truck to power a charger to charge the house batteries. Temporary this time, I'll be building a pipe rack for a truck and plan a tilt tower on it

I got a gennie and wind, no tower!!

[ghurd]

Just 2 cents from my experiences.

Sam's is selling some 'Power On Board' Vector stuff.

I like Vector stuff fine for many uses, it's not top of the line but it works.

The 'Power On Board' stuff is just junk. Like 350W inverters that will not run a 100W bulb, and get so hot with a 65W laptop supply I was afraid to put it on the car carpet. (I was dumb enough to buy 3 because of the low price)

G-