Battery : Snake oil revival

S

Schmuly

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I haven't started driving my new 07 4runner yet as I am doing maintenance and small mods to it. I will be insuring and registering it before the month is over.
About once a month it wont start, the battery had died again. I charge it up and within a month it is down to 9.3 volts. The Panasonic is the original one to the beast just over 10 years old. Doing some research you can desulfate the plates ONCE with Magnesium Sulfate. (Epson Salts) I read mixed stories about this, but thought I would try as I have nothing to lose. If it buys me a couple of months, it might be a quick fix for in the bush. It sounds like many years ago people commonly rejuvenated dead batteries this way. (back in the 40's, 50's and 60's)

Last month I opened up the cells and each one was down a little, I topped them up with Distilled water about a month ago. Charged the battery up and it was slowly loosing volts down to 11.85 volts. Tonight I opened the battery up again and added 1/2 tsp of Epson salts to each cell. I will check voltage in the morning (sitting for 12 hrs) to see if ant difference. If no difference, I will charge battery up again and monitor it again for a week or two. Last resort I will purchase new battery as this one is 10 years and 3 months old.
Playing Myth Busters at home is fun?
 
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I'm having a similar problem with mine (10 year old Panasonic), but it's not as bad yet. I've tried charging it, and it will show maybe 13.3 volts when I take off the charger (surface charge), then 12.8 volts half a day later (fully charged) then 12.3 volts the next day, which is not fully charged but still enough to start the engine. It starts slowly when it's cold. I had it tested the other day, and it measured 473CCA, and the tester said to charge the battery (I have, but it's not holding the charge).

I'd probably experiment with different charging profiles before adding anything to the battery. For example, try a high current charger to burn any internal shorts, or try a higher voltage to desulfate it. Unfortunately I only have a trickle charger right now, and I'm not sure it's even strong enough to fully charge the battery at all (but it looks like it's working).

4 years is typical for a typical battery. Everything I've read here suggests these Panasonic batteries are better than a typical one. I want to get as much life out of mine as I can because I know any replacement won't be as good.
 
lol... Whats with you guys trying to keep 10 year old batteries on life support? Its well past its usable service life and you got your ROI.

Just get a new good battery for <$100 out the door. Over the course of 5-7 years of reliable service life the total cost of ownership is pretty cheap for reliability and piece of mind.

Am I the only one that likes seeing some fresh lead under the hood?

Heck I change every 3-5 years no matter what just so I don't have to deal with the stuff you are doing. Its reliability you can rely on.
 
Bumbo said:
lol... Whats with you guys trying to keep 10 year old batteries on life support? Its well past its usable service life and you got your ROI.

Just get a new good battery for <$100 out the door. Over the course of 5-7 years of reliable service life the total cost of ownership is pretty cheap for reliability and piece of mind.

Am I the only one that likes seeing some fresh lead under the hood?

Heck I change every 3-5 years no matter what just so I don't have to deal with the stuff you are doing. Its reliability you can rely on.
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Exactly! Life is too short to be dealing with flakey batteries. I'm pretty much a "one strike and you're out" guy when it comes to batteries over 5 years old.
 
nice attempt at OP.
i have revived a dying automotive battery before..

what i did was test the original electrolyte with a hydrometer, and i saw it was dilute, was suprised, cos my theory was that it would be concentrated thus needing water {i have blindly added distilled water to dying automotive batteries before in the past and they didnt revive]...

so i discarded the old electrolyte, and flushed the battery thoroughly with water, after which i filled the battery with good electrolyte sg 1.28, hooked up a desulphator and charged the battery for 48hrs. the battery recovered, last i checked, the owner was enjoying it still.

would advice you to hook it to a variable charger 15v to 15.6v @ 1 to 2amps for 24hrs to 48hrs..it will help in desolving the deposits on the plates.
confirm the sg is still within spec with a hydrometer, dont just assume!
 
earthrealm said:
what i did was test the original electrolyte with a hydrometer, and i saw it was dilute, was suprised, cos my theory was that it would be concentrated thus needing water {i have blindly added distilled water to dying automotive batteries before in the past and they didnt revive]...
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That kind of makes sense when I look up the chemistry of a lead acid battery:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–acid_battery

When the battery is discharged, lead is converted to lead sulfate and the specific gravity could go down. I'm guessing this happens mainly on the surface of the plates, which are probably thin with a high surface area. At the end of the battery's lifespan, maybe some of the lead sulfate falls off and collects at the bottom of the battery, so you have lead/ lead oxide plates and dilute electrolyte. Or maybe you can get some of it to fall off with a "desulfate" charger. So in either case, getting rid of some of the old lead sulfate and putting in new electrolyte will give you a battery that holds more charge, but with thinner plates. That's just my speculation. I don't think you'll ever get it back to new without putting in new plates, but you might get some more life out of it.

1.28 is stronger than the minimum 1.265. "A higher SG will improve battery performance but shorten battery life because of increased corrosion activity." So that would help a little.

I don't really want to invest any money in this battery, though I might go as far as buying a more powerful charger since I could use that for other things. Nor do I want to deal with toxic chemicals. Safely disposing of the used electrolyte (which is probably also contaminated with lead) could be a problem.
 
I checked the voltage this afternoon and it was the same as last night, put 10 amp charger on and let sit for a few hours. We registered and insured it this afternoon so it is ready to go for its maiden voyage of us owning it.
A new battery will be put in when we head to a larger city, probably in a week or two.
 
[MENTION=78511]earthrealm[/MENTION] [MENTION=113611]m85476585[/MENTION]

I like that you know how, and/or have done it before.

I would too if I was dealing with a larger battery investment, like in a solar bank, where things like that would cost thousands to replace.... Plus it just comes with life cycle maintenance on stuff like that.

That said, I also know when to pick my battles, and a 10 year old automotive battery isn't one of them.

That said, still cool to do it, try, learn... even more so on the older Panasonic. Sounds like one of those "they dont make em like they used to" batteries. Now I wish I had one too.
 
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yeah [MENTION=144483]Bumbo[/MENTION] , i have a renewable energy setup --- solar panels, deep cycle flooded batteries, inverter...for many years now, thus have been dealing with batteries and stuff for some time now.

That said, I also know when to pick my battles, and a 10 year old automotive battery isn't one of them.
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yeah doesnt really make a lot sense messing with it, 10yrs is good enough, but if you have the skills and tools lying around , why not see if you can bump it up to 12yrs..or even 15yrs :) , got nothing to loose. For us renewable energy crew, there is a kind of joy one gets from reviving a dead/junk battery probablly in the same class as guys here get from succesfully wrenching/Diying on their truck
 
After 48 hours of charging (1A charger) and two 20 minute drives the battery is down to 12.5V. I was hoping for a higher voltage, but I have it back on the charger until tomorrow afternoon.

If anyone in Colorado wants this old battery to try to revive, it's yours for $20 (the core charge on a new one) if you pick it up (I'm a bit north of Denver). And once it's completely dead you can get $10 for it at O'reilley even if you don't buy a new one there.
 
earthrealm said:
yeah [MENTION=144483]Bumbo[/MENTION] , i have a renewable energy setup --- solar panels, deep cycle flooded batteries, inverter...for many years now, thus have been dealing with batteries and stuff for some time now.



yeah doesnt really make a lot sense messing with it, 10yrs is good enough, but if you have the skills and tools lying around , why not see if you can bump it up to 12yrs..or even 15yrs :) , got nothing to loose. For us renewable energy crew, there is a kind of joy one gets from reviving a dead/junk battery probablly in the same class as guys here get from succesfully wrenching/Diying on their truck
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Really depends on where you stand sometimes too... I wrench on my truck to make sure it gets done right, and so I learn how to maintain my own stuff. Its educational and at times a lot of fun. Its not always about saving money but it's a product of the process . As a trail truck, I want reliability. I have often times spent money on good parts to replace working parts.

But... I'm totally with you, there are times I want to stretch the buck, and I do.

Sometimes it all depends on whats connected to it... I have experience with battery systems used in server backup and infrastructure backend. Even with the skills and tools you better believe its cheaper to change it at the end of its service life... last thing you need is a cascade failure of some sort or a fire.

Even from a home renewable energy standpoint... You get to know your batteries after a while. I would renew/refresh depending on how the packs felt. I also rather do it early as life-cycle maintenance.

On the flip side I have also sold batteries that still had some service life in them... The hobbyist and DIYers make it easy to recoup some of that ROI and then take that cash and reinvest into new hardware for the sake of reliability.

There is always someone looking for a deal on batteries... sometimes it works out a lot better than you would think.
 
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m85476585 said:
After 48 hours of charging (1A charger) and two 20 minute drives the battery is down to 12.5V. I was hoping for a higher voltage, but I have it back on the charger until tomorrow afternoon.

If anyone in Colorado wants this old battery to try to revive, it's yours for $20 (the core charge on a new one) if you pick it up (I'm a bit north of Denver). And once it's completely dead you can get $10 for it at O'reilley even if you don't buy a new one there.
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I don't typically see more than 12.5 out of either one of my batteries when the rig has been sitting, so I'd say it's fine as long as it's holding 12.5v regularly. I'll see 12.8 out of my yellow top after a good charge and 12.6 out of my deep cycle marine. The Deep cycle is having some issues, but it never drops below 12.2 after sitting for a week.
 
Drunner97 said:
I don't typically see more than 12.5 out of either one of my batteries when the rig has been sitting, so I'd say it's fine as long as it's holding 12.5v regularly. I'll see 12.8 out of my yellow top after a good charge and 12.6 out of my deep cycle marine. The Deep cycle is having some issues, but it never drops below 12.2 after sitting for a week.
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Good to know. The spec in the service manual says it should be 12.5-12.8, and I assume 12.8 is fully charged for a new battery. Problem is I doubt mine will hold 12.5, unless this charge is any different than the last couple times. I expect after sitting for a couple days it will be down to 12.3 or lower.
 
After a few days of charging and some long drives last week and this weekend, my 4runner been sitting in the driveway since Sunday, and the battery is down to 12.0 V this morning. I think that confirms it's time to replace it.
 
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