Better, Stronger?

[lebmain]

Hi All,

I have a few (expensive) deep cycle batteries that have been heavily used, but not that old, less that 2 years, that have degraded in capacity. Inspecting one of them, I find that negative plates are still in good condition, but the positive plates not so good, as expected.

I would like to rebuild these batteries by replacing the positive plates with lead plates, as Plante plates. I have been reading a lot about this topic, and wonder if someone has tried this. I see that Plante plate design is simple, but the problem is the long time it takes for formation. I read the post by JeffD at http://www.fieldlines.com/board/index.php/topic,136261.html and found it very helpful.

My questions are:

- Is there an effective way to speed the formation of the Plante plates? Would adding some red lead expedite?
- Would the batteries eventually get back to close to full capacity if this is done?

Thanks for any comments anyone provides.

[joestue]

I think you'd be better off attempting to make your own plante cells than doing a science project with normal negative plates and diy positive...

man, now you got me thinking.
normal tire weights aren't good for batteries because they're a mix of stuff alloyed to them stronger, but knowing that the positive plates are either antimony or calcium (should be a simple chemistry test to figure out what it is) then you could mix in about 2x more 99% lead and make your own plante cells.

About 60% of the weight of an automotive-type lead-acid battery rated around 60 Ah (8.7 kg of a 14.5 kg battery) is lead or internal parts made of lead; the balance is electrolyte, separators, and the case.[4]

more wikipedia fud.
i'd like to know who can get 60 amp hours from a car battery.
if this were the case my car would start after leaving the lights on for 6 hours...

[Bruce S]

I think you'd be better off attempting to make your own plante cells than doing a science project with normal negative plates and diy positive...

man, now you got me thinking.
normal tire weights aren't good for batteries because they're a mix of stuff alloyed to them stronger, but knowing that the positive plates are either antimony or calcium (should be a simple chemistry test to figure out what it is) then you could mix in about 2x more 99% lead and make your own plante cells.

About 60% of the weight of an automotive-type lead-acid battery rated around 60 Ah (8.7 kg of a 14.5 kg battery) is lead or internal parts made of lead; the balance is electrolyte, separators, and the case.[4]

more wikipedia fud.
i'd like to know who can get 60 amp hours from a car battery.
if this were the case my car would start after leaving the lights on for 6 hours...

Joe;
 That's almost correct, actual measured Ahr of a "normal" sized car battery is 54Ahr my MB's battery comes in at ~72Ahr.
Some Englander did some test a bunch of tests find what the Ahr levels were. NOT taking into account that it wold toast them  .
My 150cc Scoot's motorcycle batt comes in at a whopping 7Ahr. I took in out and replaced it with 10Ahr worth of NiCds  so I could run extra things like body warmer for cold weather riding.

Cheers;
Bruce S