Best little charger desulfator ever. Will not damage the ECU

racertracer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:48 pm

The other day my Sears Diehard P1 battery was dead due to a weak alternator. I replaced the alternator and all is well, the battery is now charging. But the battery was only showing 540 CCA not as good as I thought. The CRD needs over 800cca.

So I did some due diligence online regarding the Sealed Sears P1 battery and I learned that there is a good possibility of reviving an older AGM battery by desulfating it. I learned about desulfating a battery and this device http://www.amazon.com/KeyLine-Chargers- ... ntube05-20

What a remarkable little charger. The instruction say to let it alone to do its work and allow it to charge the battery at a very low voltage until it stops blinking and it will also desulfate the battery.

Well i left it alone for a week to 10 days and it finally stopped blinking checked the battery and the CCA shot up to 775. I am amazed.

I used this device to test the before and after CCA..... http://www.harborfreight.com/digital-au ... 66892.html.

It rejuvanates batteries, I bought the P1 in February of 2010.

flman · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 6:21 pm

Let us know the CCA after 10 days of not being on the charger? That would be the real test of your battery is truly restored.

jws84_02 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 6:49 pm

Any slow/trickle charger will usually bring most agm's back up. Back when I was competing in car audio, I would put all 5 of my batts on a charger once a month to "freshen" them up

flash7210 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:01 pm

Your amazon link goes to the .75 amp model.
Why not get the 1.25 amp model?

racertracer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:31 pm

From what I gathered, the lower .75 amp brings them back to life.

The battery must have all the cells in good condition and be able to hold a charge. If it has a bad cell the charger will alert you a red light will come on and that means that it's no good and can never be revived.

The down side to this is that it tales a long time to bring the battery back to life. It takes a few days, a week, a few weeks. Patience is key, have to wait for the green light to stop blinking. It desulfates the battery as it charges it, optimizing the battery.

There are other chargers out there that do the same thing but cost hundreds more.

The Solar panel community knows all about keeping their batteries at peak performance and also about desulfating batteries.

According to a solar panel user online, his desulfated AGM batteries will last 15 years or more as long as they are properly maintained.

Flman, I tested it yesterday. I started desulfating the battery a month ago and ended the process 2 weeks ago been testing ever since and it is still holding.

flash7210 · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:54 pm

So if it takes a week, or longer, to charge a battery, this is not something you would do with your daily driver. Or at least, have a spare battery.

racertracer · **Posted:** Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:16 pm

flash7210 wrote:

So if it takes a week, or longer, to charge a battery, this is not something you would do with your daily driver. Or at least, have a spare battery.

Correct.... I have afew other vehicles.

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:23 am

racertracer wrote:

There are other chargers out there that do the same thing but cost hundreds more.

.

Batteryminders 12248 does the same thing and less then $150 and will do the same thing much faster.

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 7:48 am

tjkj2002 wrote:

racertracer wrote:

There are other chargers out there that do the same thing but cost hundreds more.

.

Batteryminders 12248 does the same thing and less then $150 and will do the same thing much faster.

$150 vs $27 and it does the same thing but a little faster .... wait five days instead of a 7 days... I did my due diligence and it is not worth it.

You can buy multiple chargers and install the quick disconnect that it comes with for every vehicle you own for that $150, so that all your car batteries are kept in top shape.

I bought the other and compared it...... it isn't worth it.

papaindigo · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:31 am

I think the Schumacher SSC-1000A SpeedCharge 2/6/10 Amp Battery Charger and Maintainer with 50-Amp Battery Clips will do the same thing - $50 from Amazon

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:23 pm

Papa.....schumacher does not make a desulfating charger. You are looking for one that desulfates..... pulses higher voltage (15 volts or above) so that the lead plates become void of sulfation.

The process of desulfation is what takes time..... more sulfation a battery has the longer it takes to desulfate.

Sometimes sulfation has eaten away so much of the good lead plates that it makes the battery unusable.

Sulfation is what kills batteries.

The maintainer feature is good, but that part of the charging process comes to use after the battery is brought back to health and a simple smart trickle charger will do for that.

dirtmover · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:27 pm

papaindigo wrote:

I think the Schumacher SSC-1000A SpeedCharge 2/6/10 Amp Battery Charger and Maintainer with 50-Amp Battery Clips will do the same thing - $50 from Amazon

I don't believe the Schumacher does do the same thing. According to the manual "Desulfation could take up to 10 hours." This leads me to believe that they're doing what is more commonly referred to as equalisation. Pulse desulfation used by the other mentioned chargers takes a number of days to complete and unlike equalisation is completely harmless to the battery.

I have a Black and Decker charger that has a similar equalization/desulfation mode. I tried it on a weak battery I had on my bench and it completely destroyed it. It started off with a nominal open circuit voltage of about 12.5V and ended up under 6V by the time that charger had finished with it. I believe that intentionally "boiling" the battery resulted in 3 shorted cells.

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:33 pm

Right.

Boiling a battery will kill it.

Hence the reason why a low charge .75 over a long period of time will help repair the cells.. Charging the battery on a low charge will not allow the battery to boil and prevents the danger of explosions when over charging.

papaindigo · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:39 pm

All I can say is this is a direct copy from the operation manual of my Schumacher SSC-1000A charger.

11.6 : DESULFATION MODE If the battery is left discharged for an extended period of time, it could become sulfated and not accept a normal charge. If the charger detects a sulfated battery, the charger will switch to a special mode of operation designed for such batteries. Activation of the special desulfation mode is indicated by the CHARGING (yellow) LED blinking. If successful, normal charging will resume after the battery is desulfated. The CHARGING (yellow) LED will then stop blinking and stay lit. Desulfation could take up to 10 hours. If desulfation fails, charging will abort and the CONNECTED (red) LED will blink.

What this means in the world of this discussion I do not have a clue.

dirtmover · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 2:01 pm

papaindigo wrote:

What this means in the world of this discussion I do not have a clue.

Simply a victim of what the manufacturer has chosen (or not) to, tell us. Let's face it, 10 hours versus 1 week - it's gotta be better :dizzy:

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 5:43 pm

Low and slow is key.

Low voltage on a slow timer, it may be all that is needed.

Some folks on the solar cell forum have made their own trickle chargers from old, no longer utilized cell phone chargers. They replace the phone jack with small Radio Shack positive and negative battery clips and then connect to the battery. It is not a smart charger since it will not shut itself off when the battery reaches full charge but the voltage is low enough that it may not damage the battery.

diesel_guy86 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:08 pm

It won't be long and lead-acid, agm, and optima style batteries will be extinct.

Lithium power is on the horizon, there's already small car batteries out now. I've been using lipo (lithium polymer) batteries in the rc field for over 10 years now. When one of my fellow club members had a dead battery in his car, I jump started it with a battery 2"W x 1.5"T x 5"L, put out 500 amps for 30 seconds, and weighs maybe a pound.

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:14 pm

diesel_guy86 wrote:

It won't be long and lead-acid, agm, and optima style batteries will be extinct.

Lithium power is on the horizon, there's already small car batteries out now. I've been using lipo (lithium polymer) batteries in the rc field for over 10 years now. When one of my fellow club members had a dead battery in his car, I jump started it with a battery 2"W x 1.5"T x 5"L, put out 500 amps for 30 seconds, and weighs maybe a pound.

Interesting, I read that the lithium batteries cannot crank for long.....meaning that the initial charge is at 500 amps but it quickly dies if subsequent cranks are required to start the vehicle.

I read that lithium batteries quickly drains down.

Soon after the initial five or six cranks, it looses juice and it needs to be recharged....... Research and development is ongoing on this.

tjkj2002 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:43 pm

racertracer wrote:

Papa.....schumacher does not make a desulfating charger. You are looking for one that desulfates..... pulses higher voltage (15 volts or above) so that the lead plates become void of sulfation.

The process of desulfation is what takes time..... more sulfation a battery has the longer it takes to desulfate.

Sometimes sulfation has eaten away so much of the good lead plates that it makes the battery unusable.

Sulfation is what kills batteries.

The maintainer feature is good, but that part of the charging process comes to use after the battery is brought back to health and a simple smart trickle charger will do for that.

You don't want the desulfating chargers that pulse high voltage,will ruin AGM batteries very quickly.

Oh and the batteryminder has quick disconnects and a temp sensor(with disconnects also).Takes less then 3 days on a very bad battery to desulfate on 2amp charge.It also uses a frequency based desulfating which is much safer for batteries(more so for AGM batteries).

Took my totally dead 10 year old Odyssey PC1500DT to fully charged(and desulfated) in 2 days and has held 12.8v's for a year now sitting on the floor(on cardboard,not stupid) when it would drop from 12.8 to less then 6 volts in 12 hours.

racertracer · **Posted:** Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:58 pm

The time needed to rejuvenate the battery depends on the state of the battery a deeply sulfated battery may take weeks... .... If it can be repaired at all.

Not high voltage ... But higher than 15 volts less than 20 - pulsating spikes.

Never constant high voltage and you say you know? Pulses kill a battery ... are you kidding me?

Can you back it up with facts.

Best little charger desulfator ever. Will not damage the ECU

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