discussion on edta and desulfators

[bob g]

ran across an interesting discussion on the topic
of using EDTA and desulfators to rejuvenate batteries

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?2930-EDTA-a-Battery-Preserving-Agent

for those that believe in these technologies (and i use that term loosely)
the discussion will prove little, on the other hand those that don't believe in it will find some support for their position.

not likely to change any minds, but nevertheless i think that some good points are made.

bob g

[dnix71]

"Shortly after the introduction of pulse-chargers for nickel-cadmium batteries, we (at the Exide lab) tried the same thing with lead-acid batteries. It turns out that the lead acid battery, or even just bare lead grids suspended in acid, acts like a giant capacitor. A car battery may have an equivalent capacitance of several Farads! Therefore any pulse or spike that we attempted to introduce was absorbed by the capacitance effect and had no effect on the battery. The purpose of the experiments was to try to find a way to charge electric vehicle batteries rapidly. A starry-eyed researcher I knew was hoping for a 5 to 10 minute charge! One difficulty would be the amount of power required by the charging station. Considering that an EV battery could have a capacity of 200 amp/hours at 120 volts, in order to charge it in 10 minutes the charging system would have to supply over 1,200 amps at about 150 volts. That's 180,000 watts! A single charging station, with maybe 8 bays, would require as much power as a small town! In any case, we never found a way to rapid-charge a battery without killing it after a few cycles."

Yep. There are no shortcuts. I can tell you from personal experience that tetra sodium EDTA does NOT work. It just kills weak batteries. Sodium sulfite on the other hand DOES work. Epsom salts do NOT work, either.

[Bruce S]

I liked to lower portion of the conversation , where the guy explained in common sense language about the industry.
Sure you can use these "magic elixirs " if you're in a special circumstance and needed that extra jolt, but know that you need to replace the batteries ASAP.
Plus I do remember draining a rebuilding batteries especially back when you could battery kits to build your own.
I'm 1/2 tempted to cut one of my swollen together APC batteries, open to see the build of them, they still hold a charge at 12.5, even after sitting! but ... winters coming and I have 10 other things to attend to first 
Thanks for the link!
Bruce S
 

[BillBlake]

If you go to ebay and search for 'refurbish battery' there has been a lot of money being spent
by thousands of people on chemicals over time.
Most of them seem to have plenty of return time if your not happy.
The feedback scores going into the thousands are not perfect but real nice and real high.

I don't have a clue so far as to who's really the TopCat but do have to ask.
What is it?
Some kind of mass hypnosis going on forever with these people?
An Isaac Hayes song?

Bill Blake

[bob g]

personally i think the edta thing works out to be a combinational effect

1. the placebo effect, folks want it to work therefore it does work

2. folks use the stuff and are much more careful recharging the battery than they normally are.

3. as the earlier link alludes to, the effect is temporary, you see an improvement for a time, then a full on failure soon to follow... maybe the stuff works for 30 days or a bit more, outside the timeframe of leaving a bad review on ebay.

4. it might be in a small percentage of cases it does work to some extent, probably more so on a battery that is otherwise in good condition but has been sitting discharged for a long time, an example might be a golf cart that had new batteries put in a month before winter and then allowed to sit partially charged over the winter where they went dead... physically they are not worn out, they are just heavily sulfated.

bob g

[ChrisOlson]

Sodium sulfite on the other hand DOES work. Epsom salts do NOT work, either.

Is it sodium sulfite or sodium sulfate?  Interstate has used sodium sulfate in their Optima and lead-calcium grid marine/RV deep cycle batteries for years:
http://www.interstatebatteries.com/cs_estore/content/product_info/marine.asp

The sodium sulfate reduces sulfation and allows recovery from a deep discharge without harming the plates.  We got two Interstate SRM-4D's in our fifth wheel RV.  When we live in the bush in Canada when we go fishing up there, we've ran our inverter with the coffee pot going, microwave, my wife's 1,800 watt hair dryer, and even use a 12V battery charger plugged into the RV's 120 volt system powered by the inverter to charge up the trolling motor batteries in the boat after a day of fishing - all powered off those 2 big 4D batteries.  We've pulled them close to dead during a week of fishing and living in the bush in Canada many times and they have come back every single time when we get home and charge them up again.

Whatever they got in them, they are one tough SOB of a battery.  And it says on their site that it's sodium sulfate additive that they come with.
--
Chris

[Volvo farmer]

Your wife brings a hair dryer camping?

It's all falling into place now. Chris, You're a helluva man 

[ChrisOlson]

Your wife brings a hair dryer camping?

Oh yeah.  Can't go anywhere without the hair dryer.  My wife has long hair that hangs to the small of her back and if it gets wet it takes major power to get it dry again.  And if it don't get dry it gets tangled up into some sort of big Hair Knot.  And she better be able to plug that hair dryer into a current bush, and it better work too, or I got a problem   
--
Chris

[admin]

I did look into this (the electronic desulphator side) in detail a couple years ago, for an "Ask the Experts" column that Home Power asked me to write; gave be the chance to interview the tech support guys at Trojan battery, etc.

Now I can't find the link.....but in short.....both will void your battery warranty....but if you are looking at desulfators, I bet your warranty is long since gone.

~ Don't use any sort of desulfator, chemical or electronic, as a prophylactic against battery failure. Take care of your battery bank instead!  If you DO have a sulfation problem, fix the source of the problem, don't put a band-aid on it.

~ If you already have badly sulfated batteries, what do you have to lose? Try anything and everything, and then PLEASE report back to everyone here!!

admin

[ChrisOlson]

Moral to the story:
Most people already own a battery de-sulfater.  It's called a "battery charger".
--
Chris

[admin]

Chris;

Yup. And if it's pulse-width modulated, it does just about the same thing as a desulfator anyway!

DAN F

[ghurd]

Chris;

Yup. And if it's pulse-width modulated, it does just about the same thing as a desulfator anyway!

DAN F

Agreed.
Sandia papers proved it a long time ago.
G-

[ChrisOlson]

One thing about those pulse chargers like in in our Trace/Xantrex units is that they wreak havoc on a generator with a mechanical governor.  You'd swear the generator went berserk.  I've lost track of how many people I've heard complain about their "undulating" generator hooked up to a Xantrex inverter/charger.   
--
Chris