# [EVDL] Waking up neglected batteries



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I have sixteen Exide Orbitals that have been sitting around for a 
couple of years with only indifferent attention paid to them.

(I might be the first newbie to murder his pack before it even gets 
installed into an EV!)

Now that I've finally gotten a load tester setup and a couple of decent 
chargers, I'm going through the batteries and finding out what 
condition they are in.

I'm looking for advice for a good "exercise regime" to get them woken 
up as far as possible. Then some more advice on how to make sure they 
stay healthy until they get installed into the EV.

My tools:
Load tester - 2000 watt inverter, 1000 watts of trouble lights, an 
electric clock
Vector 30-amp smart charger - settings for 2, 10, 30 amps, plus a 
"desulfator" setting that runs for 24 hours
Soneil 1206S 3-amp smart charger
Old Schumacher transformer-based dumb charger - settings for 10 or 30 
amps
Harbor Freight top-of-the-line (hah!) voltmeter
A KillAWatt meter
sixteen Rudman Regs
(The PFC-20 is in the shop.)

The Vector charges them up to about 12.75 volts, the Soneil to about 13 
volts (both numbers are resting voltages).

The resting voltages of the batteries at the beginning of the process 
ranged from a low of 9.23v to a high of 12.20v.

My procedure at the moment is

1) Pick out the untested battery with the lowest resting voltage
2) Charge it up at 2a with the Vector
3) Run a load test (1000 watts of load on the inverter, about 80 amps 
or so on the battery according to the inverter)
4) Charge it up again at 2a with the Vector
5) Run another load test
6) Go to step 1

The best load test to date is about 15 minutes on the inverter, the 
worst less than one minute. So far I've found five batteries that last 
five minutes or less, and three more that last more than ten minutes.

So, am I doing it right? Variables include:
- lessening the test load
- increasing charging amps
- using a different charger (Soneil has a higher finish voltage, 
Schumacher will run forever)

I expect I'll have to replace a number of these batteries, but I've got 
time to try to wake them up before they're needed in the car.

For those who have read this far, here's a table of the resting 
voltages of the batteries when I started this procedure.

Battery Voltage Notes
1 12.20
2 12.14
3 12.11
4 12.11
5 11.92
6 11.87 lasted 10 min 30 sec
7 13.03 after a night on the Soneil - lasted 15 min 10 sec
8 12.74 after a night on the Vector - lasted 15 min 15 sec
9 11.97
10 11.21 lasted 5 min 35 sec
11 10.82 lasted 1 min 13 sec
12 10.96 lasted 45 sec
13 11.09 lasted 4 min 5 sec
14 9.23 Vector won't charge - says "shorted cell"
15 11.91 lasted 13 min 1 sec
16 11.89

Thanks in advance,

Doug

--
Doug Weathers
Las Cruces, NM, USA
http://www.gdunge.com/

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Doug,

You can revive batteries quite a bit, it usually takes a long
good charge to increase capacity and you need to continue to
exercise either until you see no more growth of capacity or 
until you decide that it is good enough to be installed in
the EV and the driving and recharging of the EV will give you
the additional exercise.

Best way to preserve batteries (but you need to start that
within a few months after purchase) is to charge them at least
every few months.
I do not know exactly what the regimen of battery companies are
but I noticed a marking on the (replacement) batteries that I
got shipped that they were "recharged at <date>"
This date was a few months earlier, so I think that every 3 or 4 
months all batteries are recharged to keep them alive and well.
It depends on temp how quickly they lose their charge, when hot it
goes a lot faster.

If you have a fixed (or variable) power supply that can deliver
about 13.7 Volts then you can place charged batteries on trickle
charge by connecting each one (with thin wires) to the supply.
After a while you will see the current go down to a few tens of 
milliAmps, but initially each may draw a significant current
dependent on how good it was charged and how much it still can
recover.

If you have a variable and current limiting power supply then you 
can set it to 15V and a current 1/100 of the capacity.
If these are 60 Ah then you set the current limit to 0.6A and let
the already charged battery do a slow equalization charge that
will create some gassing, but the trick of keeping the current
well below 1/40 of the capacity will avoid venting of the gassing,
it can recombine fast enough.
Note: do this only on AGMs, never on gel cells.
Keep the batteries no longer than a day or so at 15V, after that
you can "Float" them indefinitely at 13.7V

I have seen batteries come back to good health after literally
reading 0 Volts and taking almost half an hour at over 15V
before any current started flowing.
No smart battery charger will charge these batteries, only the
dumb power supplies and this may be needed to get your nr 14
going again.
If you have no power supply, then you can take another well 
charged battery and connect it to nr 14 with wires about the size
of an extension cord (plus, preferably a fuse unless you stay to
monitor the process as it does not take long to find that either
there is indeed a shorted cell and the battery never comes back
up to 12V, it stays at 10V or that the one cell that had entirely
discharged has received some charge now and you need to first
completely charge the battery normally, then connect it to 15V
for an equalisation charge, it needs it.

Success,

Cor van de Water
Systems Architect
Proxim Wireless Corporation http://www.proxim.com
Email: [email protected] Private: http://www.cvandewater.com
Skype: cor_van_de_water IM: [email protected]
Tel: +1 408 542 5225 VoIP: +31 20 3987567 FWD# 25925
Fax: +1 408 731 3675 eFAX: +31-87-784-1130
Second Life: www.secondlife.com/?u=3b42cb3f4ae249319edb487991c30acb

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Doug Weathers
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 12:25 PM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: [EVDL] Waking up neglected batteries

I have sixteen Exide Orbitals that have been sitting around for a couple of years with only indifferent attention paid to them.

(I might be the first newbie to murder his pack before it even gets installed into an EV!)

Now that I've finally gotten a load tester setup and a couple of decent chargers, I'm going through the batteries and finding out what condition they are in.

I'm looking for advice for a good "exercise regime" to get them woken up as far as possible. Then some more advice on how to make sure they stay healthy until they get installed into the EV.

My tools:
Load tester - 2000 watt inverter, 1000 watts of trouble lights, an electric clock Vector 30-amp smart charger - settings for 2, 10, 30 amps, plus a "desulfator" setting that runs for 24 hours Soneil 1206S 3-amp smart charger Old Schumacher transformer-based dumb charger - settings for 10 or 30 amps Harbor Freight top-of-the-line (hah!) voltmeter A KillAWatt meter sixteen Rudman Regs (The PFC-20 is in the shop.)

The Vector charges them up to about 12.75 volts, the Soneil to about 13 volts (both numbers are resting voltages).

The resting voltages of the batteries at the beginning of the process ranged from a low of 9.23v to a high of 12.20v.

My procedure at the moment is

1) Pick out the untested battery with the lowest resting voltage
2) Charge it up at 2a with the Vector
3) Run a load test (1000 watts of load on the inverter, about 80 amps or so on the battery according to the inverter)
4) Charge it up again at 2a with the Vector
5) Run another load test
6) Go to step 1

The best load test to date is about 15 minutes on the inverter, the worst less than one minute. So far I've found five batteries that last five minutes or less, and three more that last more than ten minutes.

So, am I doing it right? Variables include:
- lessening the test load
- increasing charging amps
- using a different charger (Soneil has a higher finish voltage, Schumacher will run forever)

I expect I'll have to replace a number of these batteries, but I've got time to try to wake them up before they're needed in the car.

For those who have read this far, here's a table of the resting voltages of the batteries when I started this procedure.

Battery Voltage Notes
1 12.20
2 12.14
3 12.11
4 12.11
5 11.92
6 11.87 lasted 10 min 30 sec
7 13.03 after a night on the Soneil - lasted 15 min 10 sec
8 12.74 after a night on the Vector - lasted 15 min 15 sec
9 11.97
10 11.21 lasted 5 min 35 sec
11 10.82 lasted 1 min 13 sec
12 10.96 lasted 45 sec
13 11.09 lasted 4 min 5 sec
14 9.23 Vector won't charge - says "shorted cell"
15 11.91 lasted 13 min 1 sec
16 11.89

Thanks in advance,

Doug

--
Doug Weathers
Las Cruces, NM, USA
http://www.gdunge.com/

_______________________________________________
For subscription options, see
http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/ev

_______________________________________________
For subscription options, see
http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/ev


----------



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Doug Weathers wrote:
> 
> > The Vector charges them up to about 12.75 volts, the Soneil
> > to about 13 volts (both numbers are resting voltages).
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

While I'm sorry to hear about your pack, I'm glad I'm not the only one 
with neglected batteries. I think we need to get this question into the 
FAQ.



> Roger Stockton wrote:
> > What I have found to be effective (and easy) to recover AGMs left
> > sitting like this is to connect the each battery to a 15V power supply
> > with an ordinary 100W 120V bulb in series with the battery to limit
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Jude Anthony wrote:
> 
> > One site did recommend a
> > high-voltage recharge to break up sulfur crystals on the
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> On 2 Jun 2008 at 8:56, Jude Anthony wrote:
> 
> > the FAQ is not available, and the archives didn't reveal anything to
> > me.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I have let agm's go down to 6V or less a couple of times. Once under
load by reversing a few cells and the other time a slow discharge from
aux equipment

Both times I brought them back the same way and it worked.
Useing my elchepo transformer in a box dayton charger set for 6V, I let
it charge until it is over 10V then flip the switch to 12V and let it
charge the rest of the way.
The charger has no regulation but starts at very low amps and prevents
the gassing or excessive heating.

The lightbulb is probably better.

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Jeff Shanab <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> >I have let agm's go down to 6V or less a couple of times. Once under
> >load by reversing a few cells and the other time a slow discharge from
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Thanks for the tips, guys. OK, a 15V amp-limited charge should help 
wake up the stinkers, and a light bulb will limit the charge well 
enough.



> Roger Stockton wrote:
> 
> > Sounds like the Vector isn't fully charging them. Maybe let it run to
> > completion, then let the Soneil run to completion so you take
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Doug Weathers <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> >Maybe I should also pick up a Fluke clamp-on DC ammeter. Any
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

If you can still find it, a Fluke 12B will be a dandy voltmeter - and 
reasonably-priced. DC clamp-on ammeter is more difficult - I use a 
Universal, but can't remember the model # right off the top of my head. It 
has more functions than my computer, but I think it cost around $250.

Joseph H. Strubhar

Web: www.gremcoinc.com

E-mail: [email protected]
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Weathers" <[email protected]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Waking up neglected batteries


> Thanks for the tips, guys. OK, a 15V amp-limited charge should help
> wake up the stinkers, and a light bulb will limit the charge well
> enough.
>
>


> Roger Stockton wrote:
> >
> >> Sounds like the Vector isn't fully charging them. Maybe let it run to
> >> completion, then let the Soneil run to completion so you take
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Doug Weathers wrote:
> > Thanks for the tips, guys. OK, a 15V amp-limited charge should help
> > wake up the stinkers, and a light bulb will limit the charge well
> > enough.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Lee Hart wrote:
> 
> >> I wonder if my el-cheapo meter is reading too low?
> > Cheap meters are often poorly calibrated. Confuse-us say, "Man with one
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Doug Weathers wrote:
> 
> > Thanks for the tips, guys. OK, a 15V amp-limited charge
> > should help wake up the stinkers, and a light bulb will limit
> ...


----------



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Roger Stockton wrote:
> > Jude Anthony wrote:
> >> My 12 Optima Yellow Top AGMs managed to discharge to ~6V
> >> each. I've been afraid to charge them, fearing that I might
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Please do NOT load your batteries yet before you have actually 
charged them!

Why did you stop charging while they were not done yet?
You should keep on charging them gently until ALL regulators blink!
Now you have not used the regulators to actually do something for
the batteries that were getting full and you have not properly
charged any of the other batteries.
For 12 yellow tops, you can charge them to at least 180V if you want to
give them a good equalization charge (15V per battery)
and the minimum you should reach is 14V per battery to make sure
that each one is full, so if you stop at any level below 168V
then you still have not achieved a balanced pack.
I believe Yellow Tops are about 40 Ah so it should be safe to
inject a continuous 1 to 2 Amp into them for two days
and slowly watch all of them fall in line with the others,
while the regulators burn off excess power.
I do not know how much the regulators actually bypass, if they
do 1 Amp then it is safe to send between 1 to 1.5 Amps into the
pack continuously and give them a good long charge.

Lack of charging kills batteries, a long slow charge keeps them
healthy (except chemistries that do not like overcharge) but for
Yellow Tops you can throw a lot of charge at them and they like it. 

if you start loading your 12V batteries while they still do not
yeat read 12V, then you can be sure that you are damaging them,
because some cells will be reversed from others pushing current
through them.
Please, after starving them so long at least give them plenty
before exercising them.

Success,

Cor van de Water
Systems Architect
Proxim Wireless Corporation http://www.proxim.com
Email: [email protected] Private: http://www.cvandewater.com
Skype: cor_van_de_water IM: [email protected]
Tel: +1 408 542 5225 VoIP: +31 20 3987567 FWD# 25925
Fax: +1 408 731 3675 eFAX: +31-87-784-1130
Second Life: www.secondlife.com/?u=3b42cb3f4ae249319edb487991c30acb

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jude Anthony
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 9:03 PM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Waking up neglected batteries



> Roger Stockton wrote:
> > Jude Anthony wrote:
> >> My 12 Optima Yellow Top AGMs managed to discharge to ~6V each. I've
> >> been afraid to charge them, fearing that I might cause further
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Hi, Cor.



> Cor van de Water wrote:
> > Please do NOT load your batteries yet before you have actually
> > charged them!
> >
> ...


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