Lead Acid Car Battery

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

--

Rick C.

- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Sjouke Burry]

On 26.04.19 18:33, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

You have the honor of watching a short developing..........

 

[George Herold]

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 12:33:52 PM UTC-4, gnuarm.de...@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???
Un-hook battery, go to Auto parts store and buy a new one. :^)

George H.

--

Rick C.

- Get a 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 4/26/19 12:33 PM, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

You're charging it backwards.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

http://electrooptical.net
http://hobbs-eo.com

 

[Jon Elson]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 09:33:48 -0700, gnuarm.deletethisbit wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while
and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up
the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery
voltage dropped and the current rose!

This is typical of a sulfated battery. Depending on how bad it is, it
may recover and be usable, or not. Shorted cells frequently happen after
this. Otherwise, it will just have reduced capacity.

Jon

 

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 12:44:21 PM UTC-4, Sjouke Burry wrote:

On 26.04.19 18:33, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:
I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2..5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

You have the honor of watching a short developing..........

Certainly sounds that way. And I'd be real careful around that battery
too. Car batteries don't like being completely discharged and especially
don't like being left that way for an extended period of time. Sounds
like it;s time for a new battery.

 

On Friday, 26 April 2019 19:40:14 UTC+1, Jon Elson wrote:

On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 09:33:48 -0700, gnuarm.deletethisbit wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while
and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up
the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery
voltage dropped and the current rose!

This is typical of a sulfated battery. Depending on how bad it is, it
may recover and be usable, or not. Shorted cells frequently happen after
this. Otherwise, it will just have reduced capacity.

Jon

There are charging regimes that claim to be able to bust some of the sulphate.


NT

 

Take a regular battery charger. Put a big filter on it like 10,000 uF. Then in series with one of the leads to the battery insert the secondary of a 6..3 volt (iron) transformer of sufficient ampacity.

DO THIS OUTSIDE !

If anything, especially the battery gets warm then find a ballast for the charger, put it BEFORE the filter. You want to maintain that AC.

At this point I would avoid using epsom salts. Someone mentioned shorts ? Well there is magnesium in epsom salts so...

If the impedance of the battery does not drop epsom salts may fix it. That might last a year. Might. Don't use epsom salts twice, that increases the chance of big problems.

If you have an ESR meter that resolves down on the milliohms you can get a pretty good picture of the battery's condition. The lower the better just like a cap.

But DO IT OUTSIDE. Friend of mine had a car battery explode all over his face and that was not pleasant. Those things CAN explode, although I think that time was ignited gas, probably hydrogen.

Gas is why you do it outside. I don't remember which is which at the moment but oxygen is emitted when you charge and hydrogen when you discharge, but that could be the other way around.

One of the most dangerous things NOT to teach your kids about is separating water without separating the gases. Gaseous hydrogen and oxygen in the same are are extremely dangerous. Proper hydrolysis puts them in separate tanks, not in the air around you. If a battery leaks you can have that, depending. What's more, the mixture in the battery is ripe for a blast.

So do it outside.

 

On Friday, 26 April 2019 22:27:29 UTC+1, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

Take a regular battery charger. Put a big filter on it like 10,000 uF. Then in series with one of the leads to the battery insert the secondary of a 6.3 volt (iron) transformer of sufficient ampacity.

DO THIS OUTSIDE !

If anything, especially the battery gets warm then find a ballast for the charger, put it BEFORE the filter. You want to maintain that AC.

At this point I would avoid using epsom salts. Someone mentioned shorts ? Well there is magnesium in epsom salts so...

If the impedance of the battery does not drop epsom salts may fix it. That might last a year. Might. Don't use epsom salts twice, that increases the chance of big problems.

If you have an ESR meter that resolves down on the milliohms you can get a pretty good picture of the battery's condition. The lower the better just like a cap.

But DO IT OUTSIDE. Friend of mine had a car battery explode all over his face and that was not pleasant. Those things CAN explode, although I think that time was ignited gas, probably hydrogen.

Gas is why you do it outside. I don't remember which is which at the moment but oxygen is emitted when you charge and hydrogen when you discharge, but that could be the other way around.

One of the most dangerous things NOT to teach your kids about is separating water without separating the gases. Gaseous hydrogen and oxygen in the same are are extremely dangerous. Proper hydrolysis puts them in separate tanks, not in the air around you. If a battery leaks you can have that, depending. What's more, the mixture in the battery is ripe for a blast.

So do it outside.

Once fully charged they begin to produce H2 & O2 if charging continues at high enough voltage. No gas is produced on discharge.
If overheated they can also produce sulphuric acid on overcharge. Since H2SO4 boils at 337C I guess it's just carried off as spray with the water, where it hangs around as microdroplets in the air. It's fun to breathe - I barely waited for it to stop to leap out.


NT

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 26/04/2019 17:33, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Many decades ago, long before GPS, I worked for a company who, among
other things, did marine surveys. Position fixing used triangulation
from microwave transponders located on land. These used two lorry
batteries, 70AH IIRC, and they needed to be replaced every few days,
usually by carrying them long distances. This is part of the reason why
I am so short.

I was in charge of workshop battery maintenance, and grew to know and
love my charges, and indeed their charges. I tried every
electrochemical nostrum going to maintain their vigour.

However, based on my experience, your battery is what us experts would
refer to in technical parlance as 'well fucked'.

Cheers
--
Clive

 

[Dave Platt]

In article <qa0292$32q$1@dont-email.me>,
Clive Arthur <cliveta@nowaytoday.invalid> wrote:

I was in charge of workshop battery maintenance, and grew to know and
love my charges, and indeed their charges. I tried every
electrochemical nostrum going to maintain their vigour.

However, based on my experience, your battery is what us experts would
refer to in technical parlance as 'well fucked'.

Thank you, Clive... well said... I needed a good laugh this afternoon.

 

[George Herold]

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 6:55:36 PM UTC-4, Clive Arthur wrote:

On 26/04/2019 17:33, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:
I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2..5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Many decades ago, long before GPS, I worked for a company who, among
other things, did marine surveys. Position fixing used triangulation
from microwave transponders located on land. These used two lorry
batteries, 70AH IIRC, and they needed to be replaced every few days,
usually by carrying them long distances. This is part of the reason why
I am so short.

I was in charge of workshop battery maintenance, and grew to know and
love my charges, and indeed their charges. I tried every
electrochemical nostrum going to maintain their vigour.

So any wisdom to share?
George H.

However, based on my experience, your battery is what us experts would
refer to in technical parlance as 'well fucked'.

Cheers
--
Clive

 

On Friday, 26 April 2019 23:55:36 UTC+1, Clive Arthur wrote:

Many decades ago, long before GPS, I worked for a company who, among
other things, did marine surveys. Position fixing used triangulation
from microwave transponders located on land. These used two lorry
batteries, 70AH IIRC, and they needed to be replaced every few days,
usually by carrying them long distances. This is part of the reason why
I am so short.

I was in charge of workshop battery maintenance, and grew to know and
love my charges, and indeed their charges. I tried every
electrochemical nostrum going to maintain their vigour.

However, based on my experience, your battery is what us experts would
refer to in technical parlance as 'well fucked'.

Cheers

What do you think of adding phosphoric acid? I tried that before.


NT

 

[George Herold]

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 5:27:29 PM UTC-4, jurb...@gmail.com wrote:

Take a regular battery charger. Put a big filter on it like 10,000 uF. Then in series with one of the leads to the battery insert the secondary of a 6.3 volt (iron) transformer of sufficient ampacity.

DO THIS OUTSIDE !

If anything, especially the battery gets warm then find a ballast for the charger, put it BEFORE the filter. You want to maintain that AC.

At this point I would avoid using epsom salts. Someone mentioned shorts ? Well there is magnesium in epsom salts so...

If the impedance of the battery does not drop epsom salts may fix it. That might last a year. Might. Don't use epsom salts twice, that increases the chance of big problems.

If you have an ESR meter that resolves down on the milliohms you can get a pretty good picture of the battery's condition. The lower the better just like a cap.

But DO IT OUTSIDE. Friend of mine had a car battery explode all over his face and that was not pleasant. Those things CAN explode, although I think that time was ignited gas, probably hydrogen.

Gas is why you do it outside. I don't remember which is which at the moment but oxygen is emitted when you charge and hydrogen when you discharge, but that could be the other way around.

One of the most dangerous things NOT to teach your kids about is separating water without separating the gases. Gaseous hydrogen and oxygen in the same are are extremely dangerous. Proper hydrolysis puts them in separate tanks, not in the air around you. If a battery leaks you can have that, depending. What's more, the mixture in the battery is ripe for a blast.

So do it outside.

I'm mostly a battery idiot. I would love my batteries to last
longer, but I'm too lazy to take care of all of them properly..
(and no money to pay someone.)
Cars, truck, tractor, backhoe, ...and smaller stuff.
I've never been able to bring a battery* back to useful
life if I measure any thing less than ~11.5 V after a few
minutes on the charger.


If you know of any good links, videos.. ?
please share.

George H.

*12V lead acid

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 26 Apr 2019 23:55:29 +0100, Clive Arthur
<cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 26/04/2019 17:33, gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:
I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Many decades ago, long before GPS, I worked for a company who, among
other things, did marine surveys. Position fixing used triangulation
from microwave transponders located on land. These used two lorry
batteries, 70AH IIRC, and they needed to be replaced every few days,
usually by carrying them long distances. This is part of the reason why
I am so short.

I was in charge of workshop battery maintenance, and grew to know and
love my charges, and indeed their charges. I tried every
electrochemical nostrum going to maintain their vigour.

However, based on my experience, your battery is what us experts would
refer to in technical parlance as 'well fucked'.

Cheers

I did some work for Offshore Navigation Inc, who provided location
services for oil rig guys in the Gulf of Mexico, pre-GPS. They used
Raydist, a Loran-like HF hyperbolic nav system, and charged a lot for
it. They used some Shoran too, which was more like you describe,
pulsed microwave transponders.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Jon Elson]

gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while
and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the
voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage
dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and
it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current
rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to
2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this
before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Thinking about this some more, you may only have one non-shorted cell there.
You can let it go for a while to see what happens, but a massively sulfated
battery is not likely to come back.

Jon

 

[Clive Arthur]

On 27/04/2019 00:29, John Larkin wrote:

<snipped>

I did some work for Offshore Navigation Inc, who provided location
services for oil rig guys in the Gulf of Mexico, pre-GPS. They used
Raydist, a Loran-like HF hyperbolic nav system, and charged a lot for
it. They used some Shoran too, which was more like you describe,
pulsed microwave transponders.

These were Decca Trisponders - the 'base station' in yellow and the
transponders in blue with a directional (90 degrees IIRC) microwave
antenna on the remotes and a omni on the boat, not shown...

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/669/636/rs8492.jpg

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/670/84/rs8634.jpg

Fairly short range, I think, all TTL IIRC.

I hooked up the base station to an HP85 computer through a BCD interface
and wrote some HP Basic software to calculate and plot a point on a
flatbed pen plotter every second. I hooked up a relay to an RS232
output running at some very slow speed to give a contact closure pulse
to put a fix mark on the echo sounder or sidescan sonar too. The HP85
could just about keep up, it used a 600kHz 8 bit processor and
everything was floating-point by default.

The first time it was used, the skipper couldn't get the hang of running
the boat up and down straight lines looking at the plotter, until I made
a miniature paper boat and stuck it on the plotter pen, turning it to
face the direction away or towards, then the penny dropped.

Cheers
--
Clive

 

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 11:08:05 PM UTC-4, Jon Elson wrote:

gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com wrote:

I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while
and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the
voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage
dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and
it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current
rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to
2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this
before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Thinking about this some more, you may only have one non-shorted cell there.
You can let it go for a while to see what happens, but a massively sulfated
battery is not likely to come back.

Jon

I've never seen a battery come back. That is if you mean by "come back" that
it healst itself from bad symptoms like this battery has. And even if it does, so
what? Then you still have a battery on it's last legs anyway. Rather
have to get one when it leaves you stuck somewhere, at 11PM, in the pouring
rain?

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 10:20:16 +0100, Clive Arthur
<cliveta@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:

On 27/04/2019 00:29, John Larkin wrote:

snipped

I did some work for Offshore Navigation Inc, who provided location
services for oil rig guys in the Gulf of Mexico, pre-GPS. They used
Raydist, a Loran-like HF hyperbolic nav system, and charged a lot for
it. They used some Shoran too, which was more like you describe,
pulsed microwave transponders.

These were Decca Trisponders - the 'base station' in yellow and the
transponders in blue with a directional (90 degrees IIRC) microwave
antenna on the remotes and a omni on the boat, not shown...

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/669/636/rs8492.jpg

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/670/84/rs8634.jpg

Fairly short range, I think, all TTL IIRC.

I hooked up the base station to an HP85 computer through a BCD interface
and wrote some HP Basic software to calculate and plot a point on a
flatbed pen plotter every second. I hooked up a relay to an RS232
output running at some very slow speed to give a contact closure pulse
to put a fix mark on the echo sounder or sidescan sonar too. The HP85
could just about keep up, it used a 600kHz 8 bit processor and
everything was floating-point by default.

The first time it was used, the skipper couldn't get the hang of running
the boat up and down straight lines looking at the plotter, until I made
a miniature paper boat and stuck it on the plotter pen, turning it to
face the direction away or towards, then the penny dropped.

Cheers

Raydist used hf transmitters to go pretty far offshore, way past line
of sight.

http://www.jproc.ca/hyperbolic/raydist.html

A raydist system came with an operator who could figure out the
hyperbolic coordinates. It was incremental, tracking your location
based on the known start point.

I just read this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471384208/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

which is fascinating but grim. A lot of wrecks happened because ship
crew had no idea where they were.

This is amazing:

https://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-at-Honda-Charles-Lockwood/dp/0359257364/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1VKB473VMURLY&keywords=tragedy+at+honda&qid=1556385027&s=books&sprefix=tragedy+at%2Cstripbooks%2C181&sr=1-1-catcorr

a fleet of Navy destroyers ran hard onto the rocks on an abandoned
rocky shore at what is now Vandenberg Air Force Base. Among other
mistakes, a suspected 180 degree RDF ambiguity was involved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Point_disaster







--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 11:48:19 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, April 26, 2019 at 12:33:52 PM UTC-4, gnuarm.de...@gmail.com wrote:
I'm charging the battery on a vehicle that has been sitting for a while and it was down to zip voltage. I put a power supply on it and ran up the voltage until the current was at 2 amps. As I watched the battery voltage dropped and the current rose! I double checked all the polarities and it's wired up right and the ground on the vehicle is disconnected.

The charging started at about 10 volts on the battery. As the current rose I dialed the voltage back, lather, rinse, repeat. It is now down to 2.5 volts and the current is still slowly rising. I've never seen this before and I've never read about anything like this. Any ideas???

Any cells discharged to less than 1.5V are permanently gone, that means 9V terminal voltage to you.

I've had car batteries discharged to 0 volts. Standard cheap chargers
won't even try to charge them, so they have to be bootstrapped with a
real power supply before the charger will take over.

They recovered fine, but they were discharged for less than a day.
Maybe longer term zero volts would be fatal.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com