Trojan T-105

[Daddy2Cool]

     Recently I acquired (FREE) four used Trojan T105 Mileage Master 6V batteries.These batteries were used in an electric hand truck in a grocery store. They were allowed to run dry and were refilled with distilled water. After refilling the batteries, apparently they would take a recharge but not hold it for very long, so the store purchased 4 new batteries and discarded these ones.

      After getting the batteries home I tested each one with a volt meter and got readings of 6.15, 6.15, 6.17 and 6.20.What I would like to know is whether these batteries can be saved or if I need to do some other tests to determine if they are any good. I have read about sulphating batteries but don't know whether or not that would do any good in my case.

      Thanks in advance,

                Scott  

[Daddy2Cool]

That should read "desulfating"

[Nando]

First:

Charge them and attain the float voltage, then keep charging them at 2 to 3 % of their plate amp-hour capacity for a time equal to amp-hour capacity divided by the 2 or 4 % charge = hours,

So if the battery is 100 amp hour and you are over charging at 3 %, then 100/3 = 33 to 34 hours.

This procedure will deep charge the plates, then do some power loading at about amp-hour C20 and once the battery reaches 1.67 to 1.70 volts per cell, repeat the above procedure -- Record the time used charging and the time used discharged -- repeat complete cycle 3 or 4 times observing if the discharge time increases or not.

If increases you are desulfating them with this procedure and you may repeat it up to about 5 or 7 times to maximize the storage capacity.

If you can not see improvement then you may need a desulfating pulser.

Nando

[DanB]

From my understand, with many batteries there are two things you can look for - if either are the case then the battery is probably 'toast'.  When we were on Guemes island there was a fellow doing a talk from 'Dyno' batteries and he pointed these things out, said they're not even worth messing with if either of these things happen.  Since then I've been looking at batteries up here and I find that in almost every case, 'dead' batteries have one, or both of these symptoms.

-Lots of golf cart batteries and L-16's, depending on their construction will have sides that 'bulge' a bit (its soft thin plastic).  On a good battery - you should be able to squeeze them (the sides are a bit flexible) - on a 'toast' battery, the sides will be bulged, and hard.

-Look to see if the positive terminal is slightly 'raised' up from the top of the battery.  Sometimes you'll even see that the plastic around it is stressed (whitish color) and the pos. terminal migh be as much as 1/8" or more above the rest of the top of the battery.  If that's the case, then the battery is probably 'toast'.

[nothing to lose]

"-Look to see if the positive terminal is slightly 'raised' up from the top of the battery.  Sometimes you'll even see that the plastic around it is stressed (whitish color) and the pos. terminal migh be as much as 1/8" or more above the rest of the top of the battery.  If that's the case, then the battery is probably 'toast'."

I agree that can often be a junk battery, but I have some great batteries that have that problem to some degree, so it may not itself mean they are junk yet.

Those 10 Trojans I got long ago, 6 L16P's and 4 slightly smaller ones, all appear to have a raised post. 4 of the L16P's desulphated and worked like new (till I fried 2 of them myself) 2 are still working great. I think this is over a year, maybe close to 2 years now? And you know how I abuse them!

 2 of the smaller ones still work great also.

 Of the 10 scrap yard trojans only 4 never had any life at all that I could get out of them. And the 2 I killed was my own fault probably bouncing them around in the truck on rough roads.

I also have some heavy duty Semi batteries that work great, raised posts and constantly wet around the Positive. Not good being wet of course, but they are very usable power wise. Don't know the ratings, but they have alot of amp hours in them. For less than $5 what the heck. I use them in a shed in the woods where the wetness does not hurt anything. Not leaking, just always damp type wet.

 Don't know about the bulging case, I think a couple of my good T-105's are a bit warped but I don't think I squeezed them.

I do alot of things to these scrapyard batteries, they are cheap enough to take a chance on, I never give up on a battery like a trojan till I have desulphated it ALLOT.

 I been using a Vector (Now Black an Decker) smart charger. Lot's of things I do not like about that charger now that I had it for a long time, but it seems to have a good desulphate mode.

Things I don't like about it. If battery is totally dead (like leave car headlights on) it will not work till you charge the battery some. Shuts off with errors alot on batteries known to be good, I eventaully do get them charged. Clamps are too small to fit normall auto battery cables, also easily broke clamps. And if power goes off for a few seconds the charger shuts off and you have to manually turn it back on again. That last one is a real pain for me with crappy grid power here. I mean I set the charger up working in the morning, hour latter the power goes off 5 seconds and I come home to find the charger did not work almost all day. I sometimes now run it off a UPS to avoid that problem.

 Shumacher has a desulphating charger also, I consider it worse than the B&D though, I tried one. Shumacher does not have a way to set it for desulphate, it only does it IF the charger think it should be done. I had sulphated batteries I wanted to desulphate but the Shumacher charger would not kick into desulphate mode, I had to use the Vector then instead. Sometimes I just wanted to fast charge a battery and the Shmaucher would kick into desulphate mode.

 Since they cost about the same anyway, if buying a new charger with a desulphate mode I would buy a Black an Decker!

Also another strike against the Schumacher, it has no on/off button. To turn it off or reset it after an error you have to unplug it. Real pain and really stupid design!!