TheSamba.com :: View topic - No point bothering to resurrect battery that sat 2yrs right?

Mon Mar 05, 2012 10:44 am

I could swear I'd let a car sit outside my parents' place for over a year, trickle-charged the battery, and all was good. I'm in CA cleaning up an estate and I'm wondering whether to bother trying to resurrect a couple of batteries that have sit for almost two years. I should know the answer by my age (almost certainly NO!) but I don't need to cause I got you fellers!

Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:14 am

I would expect they'd work. Doesn't get too hot in Oregon, and heat is the enemy of battery life. (Cold reduces the available charge, but only while it's cold). Check the fluid level. How old were the batteries before they sat?

Mon Mar 05, 2012 11:54 am

Thanks for responding!

These batteries are in northern California, and they've seen some pretty high temperatures. I popped open the caps on one of them a minute ago, one side had fluid, the other dude was merely wet. I guess it wouldn't hurt to put some distilled h2o in, connect it to my ancient charger and see if it bubbles. Or at least that's what the old-timer next door suggested; I shouldn't pretend to understand them perfectly.

Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:44 pm

Give it a try. What do you have to lose.

Mon Mar 05, 2012 5:45 pm

Were they just sitting on the shelf, or were they in a car, still connected? If they were connected, they are likely toast. If not, they may come back around. Top off the water level and slow charge them for a day or so. If they take a charge, then have them load tested at your FLAPS.

Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:48 am

Take them to a specialized battery shop before anything.

they use special equipment to desulfate the plates.

I've had a couple batteries brought back this way.

Fri Mar 09, 2012 11:21 am

A hydrometer is the in my opinion best way to check state of charge.
I have a battery in my VW that was purchased in June of 2000. When doing routine maintenance yesterday I checked it with the hydrometer. The battery is still over 80% of charged based on the specific gravity of the fluid. Lucky i do not live in the desert.

Sat Mar 10, 2012 6:40 am

I bought a truck that had been sitting for 5 years. Trickle charged the battery for 4 days; drove the truck for 3 years without any battery issues.

Sun Mar 11, 2012 7:58 pm

Flat batteries can be saved. Where I work, on boats, we have batteries come back flat all the time. All of the marine chargers we sell have a safety feature. They won't charge a battery once the voltage drops below around 10.5 volts. They'll show a charge fault and go in to standby mode. I've recovered dozens of these batteries using our chargers. The trick is to hook up a good battery temporarily to the dead battery with a set of jumper cables. This way, you're "fooling" that battery charger sensors. Once the voltage on the dead battery starts to ramp up, around 20 minutes or so, you can disconnect the jumper cables and continue charging normally.

Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:05 pm

I'd really like to know if the OP ever tried to save the batteries.

Mon Mar 12, 2012 9:59 pm

If the battery is less than a couple of yeears old when it was left alone, it may come back. Much older than that, and it just won't hold a deep charge any more.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:28 am

I brought back a Costco Kirkland brand battery that was flat for over 2 years. 5 days on the trickle charger and it's been just fine for 3+ years now.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 9:05 am

19super73 wrote: I brought back a Costco Kirkland brand battery that was flat for over 2 years. 5 days on the trickle charger and it's been just fine for 3+ years now.

That's the key, a trickle charge at one to two amps. A motorcycle charger would be perfect.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:34 pm

cdennisg wrote: I'd really like to know if the OP ever tried to save the batteries.

Guys, I only accidentally viewed this thread a minute ago, and was floored to see it's still alive!

Sorry & thanks! I assumed there was no way...

This is actually still an issue for me, though until I read some of your interesting posts just now, I had surrendered. I even went to buy a new battery today at WalMart (shudder), but realized I didn't have the cash or money in my bank account! (I even pushed one of the dead cores all the way through the store in a cart).

The main thing that kept this matter going for me was that after getting some encouraging results I had blown the fuse in my multimeter by connecting it incorrectly, and then couldn't find a replacement.

My encouraging results were as follows:

I added distilled water and used my multimeter to test the charge on all three batteries. Two gave the result my neighbor predicted before charging: approximately 3volts. But one had 8 or 9 volts. He told me that a good sign would be if bubbles appeared in the cells. On the two I charged for a couple hours each, there were bubbles (though one had a cell with no bubbles).

Finally, I took them into Schucks (OReileys) and had them put on the tester. Within minutes on each, the machine said "replace battery," but sometimes it says that immediately. I'm just kind of suspicious when right next to that tester is a rack full of batteries "on sale" for $100.

Another neighbor of mine said they shouldn't be left to charge on concrete, as somehow this undermines one's efforts.

Anyway, some of your suggestions were intriguing, not just for my current situation, but for future reference. Not sure I fully understood though.

In any case thanks for replying!

Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:38 pm

Good the hear that you tried. Never hurts.

Here's a tip for buying a battery with limited funds. Check out the local junkyard. I have bought many batteries there for 5-15 bucks, and had good luck with them.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:51 pm

cdennisg wrote: Good the hear that you tried. Never hurts.

Here's a tip for buying a battery with limited funds. Check out the local junkyard. I have bought many batteries there for 5-15 bucks, and had good luck with them.

Yeah, I considered that. But they don't want so little anywhere near me. 35 or so bucks minimum, so I may as well just get one with a 1yr warranty.

What is your opinion of the schmuck's testers? Just a little dubious at least, right? Shouldn't I try charging for a full day at only a few amps as you've had luck with?

Edit: above in this post I actually wrote 'schuck's," but my phone auto-corrected it to be 'schMucks.' It did the same several posts earlier, substituting 'dude' in place of 'side' or 'cell' or something.

Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:42 am

I know nothing about Shmuck's testers, but I have no reason to think that they are being shady. You could try another shop, too. I usually go to NAPA.

If you have not tried a slow charge, you should. You've got nothing to loose.

PS I've called it Shmuck's for years.

Thu Mar 15, 2012 3:38 pm

John Revolver wrote: Take them to a specialized battery shop before anything.

they use special equipment to desulfate the plates.

I've had a couple batteries brought back this way.

Sorry to overlook this post! I wonder if there's such a service near where I am.

Wikipedia has this interesting bit on desulfation:

Quote: The process can often be at least partially reversed by a desulfation technique called pulse conditioning, in which short but powerful current surges are repeatedly sent through the damaged battery. Over time, this procedure tends to break down and dissolve the sulfate crystals, restoring some capacity. Desulfation is the process of reversing the sulfation of a lead-acid battery. Desulfation is achieved by high current pulses produced between the terminals of the battery. This technique, also called pulse conditioning, breaks down the sulfate crystals that are formed on the battery plates. Short high current pulses tend to work best. Electronic circuits are used to regulate the pulses of different widths and frequency of high current pulses. These can also be used to automate the process since it takes a long period of time to desulfate a battery fully. Battery chargers designed for desulfating lead-acid batteries are commercially available. A battery will be unrecoverable if the active material has been lost from the plates, or if the plates are bent due to over temperature or over charging.
Batteries which have sat unused for long periods of time can be prime candidates for desulfation. A long period of self-discharge allows the sulfate crystals to form and become very large. Some typical cases where lead acid batteries are not used frequently enough are planes, boats (esp sail boats), old cars, and home power systems with battery banks that are under utilized.

Apparently these devices can be had for 50 bucks, though difficult to find locally.