Rejuvenating Battery #5

This is Yokohama 80D26L battery. It could not last for 1 minute during first loading. It went to 32AH in second loading and 29AH in third loading. This should be 58AH battery at 5HR or 70Ah at 21HR.  It gets rejuvenated close to 50% of its original battery.

Rejuvenating Battery #4

This is an old battery from Century which is NS40 size.  It has been rejuvenated to 12AH capacity.  The charging power level is way larger than the battery capacity to give a tremendous desulfation.

Rejuvenating Battery #3

This Furukawa 46B24L NS60L (40AH) battery has only 10AH when it is first loaded. After the first charge using Bedini charger, the battery capacity increased to 13AH on second load. After the second charge, the battery shows also 13AH on the third load. So, there is only slight increase in battery capacity after the rejuvenating process. This is about 1.5 day process. (Honda car usually use Furukawa battery)

Summary of rejuvenating new battery

So far I have charged two new batteries with Bedini Rejuvenator.

1. Shogun NS70L (60AH) Load cycles
1. 200 minutes
2. 279 minutes
3. 287 minutes
4. 289 minutes
2. Panasonic NS70L (65AH) Load cycles
1. 288 minutes
2. 315 minutes
3. 296 minutes

It can be seen that the first charge gives the best boost. After that, the subsequent cycle hardly make any improvement. In Panasonic case, the improvement is only single digit percentage 9% boost from first charge. Both Shogun and Panasonic do show 5AH difference in the first loading 200 versus 288 minutes, but the difference is insignificant in final loading 289 versus 296 minutes.  

Cheap console computer for battery rejuvenator

Alright, I am thinking about setting up a cheap computer that can interface to multiple battery rejuvenators. Buying a new PC is quite expensive. But here is what I found, Raspberry Pi at USD25!!! Of course, it is not window and require to make sure if can talk through USB-serial console. But it is worth considering. May be I should buy one and try.

Multiple batteries charger and desulfator

Considering setting up a battery shop, you have many weak used batteries to rejuvenate. Buying many chargers may not fit the bill. Pulse Tech provides you with 12 batteries charger and desulfator.

1. HD PC-12 RediPulse 12-Station HD 12-Volt Battery Pallet Charger USD3947.50
2. SC-12 Xtreme 12-Station HD Battery Charger USD3500

Average cost per station is USD291-328. Is this anyway cheaper?

Specific battery for Cadex CA-12

Only the below battery brands are able to use Spectro CA-12 to measure their battery capacity. They are based on a set of battery matrices. Trojan battery can be found in Malaysia right here.

SPECTRO CA-12 BATTERY MATRICES

					Golf Car		AWP and Floor Machine
					Reserve Capacity Minutes		Reserve Capacity Amp Hours (AH)
Make	Model	Group Size	Use	Voltage	@56 Amps*	@75 Amps*	20 Hr Rate
Trojan	T-105	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	115	225
Trojan	T-875	GC8	Golf	8V	117	N/A	N/A
Trojan	T-1275	N/A	Golf	12V	102	N/A	N/A
Interstate	U2200	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	122	232
US Battery	US2200	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	115	225
US Battery	US2200XC	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	122	232
					*48V Cars	*36V Cars
Deep Cycle Batteries (Beta)*
Trojan	T-125	GC2	AWP / Floor	6V	N/A	132	240
Trojan	T-145	GC2	AWP / Floor	6V	N/A	145	260
Trojan	T-605	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	105	210
Crown	CR225	GC2	Golf / AWP	6V	N/A	115	225

Battery load tester

What are the available lead acid battery load tester in the industry?. Here is what I found.

1. Agilent N3300A Series Electronic Load Mainframe 
2. Agilent 6060B RM10,620 
3. Agilent 6063B RM12,040 
4. Teslagenx load test box

The application note is available here.

The refurbished unit is available below:

1. Test equipment connection

Rental unit

1. Agilent 6060B
2. Agilent 6063B

Profiling Battery Matrix for Cadex CA-12

"The leading health indicator of a battery is capacity, a value that is difficult to appraise. Many battery testers claim to measure capacity, but this is not possible with voltage and resistance alone, nor will a load test achieve this.

Critical progress has been made with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). EIS is not new. Size, high cost, long test times and required skills to interpret results have restricted their technology to lab environments. To facilitate capacity estimation, Cadex extended EIS and developed multi-model electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, or Spectro™. The heart of Spectro™ is a patented algorithm that performs 40 million transactions while scanning the battery with 20–2,000 Hz low amplitude signals.  the Spectro CA-12 providing capacity, CCA, and SoC in 15 second test.

Configuration is by matrix selection. A matrix is a multi-dimensional lookup table against which the measured readings are compared. Text recognition, fingerprint identification and visual imaging operate on a similar principle. The Spectro™ system uses three types of matrix types: The battery-specific matrix serves a designated battery model and provides capacity readings in the form of a number, the generic matrix accommodates a battery group and gives a pass/fail on a capacity threshold of 40%, and the application-defined matrix inspects performance characteristics of new batteries.

Battery matrices for capacity measurements are created by scanning 10 or more batteries of the same model but with different capacity levels. The SoC-matrix is made by reading batteries with different SoC  levels, and the performance-matrix is derived by taking a snapshot of a good, marginal and poor battery from the assembly line. Batteries are scanned with the CA-12 and the data is sent to Cadex by the Internet for matrix assembly." - Cadex

Cadex is the only device I have known of that can measure battery capacity in SECONDS! Typically this would have been done by performing long hours load test. However, Cadex Spectro CA-12 device today has not profiled all the major batteries in Malaysia. It is not able to tell the capacity based on battery-specific matric.

Cadex Spectro CA-12 GA is the new version that provide 40% capacity measurement without the need of battery matrix. 

How to prevent battery sulfation in new battery?

New batteries are not allowed to be placed on the shelf for too long without charging. It will self-discharge and the sulfation will built up over the time. This is the cause of  battery capacity degradation. What the battery shop is doing now to prevent sulfation is actually filling up the acid only when it is about to sell off. Tesco is selling lead acid battery with a bottle of sulfuric acid. This is quite dangerous because the user has to fill up the acid by himself. The price is not anyway cheaper because of DIY.  Device such as battery maintainer comes in to prevent the sulfation build up after a full charge. Such device can be sold to battery shop to make sure their battery is at optimal level. The similar device can be sold to battery consumer but will battery shop sell it? Selling desulfator means selling less new battery. Here is where you find the best battery maintainer/desulfator. 

Use digital hydrometer to measure sulfation level of battery

Alright, it seems that there is a way to test the sulfation of the battery by using hydrometer to test the specific gravity content of the liquid electrolyte in each cell. I prefer to get a digital hydrometer to log the data because testing each cells need a lot of data logging. Here are some digital hydrometers.

1. SBS-2500 Digital Hydrometer / Density Meter
2. The BeerBug™ - Digital Hydrometer (This one needs to convert into measuring acid)

Here are the steps.

Various automotive lead acid battery brand in Malaysia

Here are some of  the common battery brands for lead acid battery in Malaysia.

1. Panasonic
2. Yuasa
3. Shogun
4. Century
5. GP
6. Delkor
7. Hyundai
8. Yokohama
9. GS

On board car battery desulfator

Back in my early post on "a thought about Bedini charger", I suggested an integrated on board battery charger/desulfator. Well, my idea is not new. Apparently, after I researched further, I found that such devices are available in the US, Malaysia and China market..

1. Pulse Tech 12v On-Board Desulfator Power Pulse PP12L
2. BatteryMINDer Model 12151
3. Battery MINDer 12v On-Board Desulfator OBD-12
4. Battery Life Saver Desulfator / Rejuvenator - BLS-12/24C
5. Infinitum Battery desulfator (Malaysia)
6. Ultipower (China, on board device may need for enquiry)

Rejuvenating New Panasonic Battery

I have just bought a new Panasonic battery recently. The model is NS70L, 65AH, model 65D26L. I am using Bedini charger to rejuvenate it to see whether it can increase its original capacity as what has been claimed by r-charge. The battery is 54AH after being used for a week in the car. Let's see how much it can go further after the rejuvenation.

After the second load cycle, it has reached 59AH, pretty close to 65AH original capacity.

At the third load cycle, it still stays at 59AH. Looks like this is the maximum capacity. So, it doesn't seem that it can reach beyond its original capacity yet. Perhaps only after many load cycles.

Battery desulfator open source design

Here is the interesting open source design of battery desulfator from Mikey Sklar , mini-D and his more latest version DA-PIMP.

Experiment with Bedini Charger

I bought a Shogun NS70L battery (60AH) on 30 Nov 2010, about 2 years ago. I have used bedini charger to charge this battery to test whether the charger can increase the capacity of the new battery since r-charge claimed that the battery capacity can increase more than the battery's original capacity. Well, there is a 39% increase than its initial battery capacity. But I realized my new battery initial capacity was not really up to 60AH capacity after the charging.  It is 54AH only. May be Bedini load test is slightly offset.

Now, this battery has just died on Jan 2013 after 2 years. The battery water is below the minimum level. After filling up the battery with water, I charged it with Bedini charger. During the first load test, there is no capacity at all. It has initial charge of 12.6V when it died, but too weak to sustain any load. Now, it has gone through 10 cycles loading. Below is the result. I am getting around 29AH now from 0AH and going for the final charge. Considering this is a dead battery, the result is not that bad. But, it has not reach its initial battery capacity of 54AH as what r-charge is claiming yet. Sometimes, the battery quality depends on the manufacturer and may not perform as what r-charge is claiming.

On Mar 14, after 2 weeks of not starting the engine, the battery cannot start the engine anymore. The rejuvenation effect is not lasting. This is about 1 month use only.