Battery Desulfators- Do they work?

[meep]

I've built a couple of desulfators in the past, and they have some usefulness but varies highly with the condition or failure mode of the battery. Batteries take a LONG time to desulfate, and the spikes are a) weakened if the battery is connected to other devices b) can take out equipment which can't handle the spike voltages. Mine peaked at about 60V for highly sulfated batteries (measured with o-scope).

Of the one desulfating maintainer I purchased (shumacher), it did not appear to me to have any effect. I never put it on a scope.

-M

 

[metroplex]

Just wanted to add that I have two Pulsetech XC-100's and they are garbage. I bought them because the Army does use Pulsetech in their tool kits (the big ones that you tow around) but unfortunately these XC-100s don't work properly. Pulsetech has discontinued the XC100 and is supposed to release something new.
One of them floats at 14.6 VDC indefinitely. The other does drop down to 13.2 VDC but doesn't seem to properly maintain a battery. My Ford's BMS state of charge, even after two 8 hour calibration periods during sleep mode, failed to rise up to 99%. My Battery Tender waterproof 800 mA will bring a car battery up to 99% SOC within 1 or 2 sleep period calibration periods, and these are the small Tenders aimed at motorcycle batteries. I have other half a dozen of these little chargers because I have a detached garage that will get below freezing in winter. They have worked great since 2006. I have one on each battery (riding mower, motorcycle, cars, etc...) I just wanted a desulfating charger which is why I gave the Pulsetech XC100s a try. I've noticed they tend to shut off during float mode at certain times.

The Battery Tender maintenance charge is 13.2 VDC at 50mA to 150mA or so to prevent parasitic drain. It never cuts off like some of the chargers that go to 14.2 -14.5 VDC and shuts down, then restarts. I had a charger that did that and killed one of my batteries over time.

I have a BatteryMinder 1510 on one AGM motorcycle battery that I've been testing. It seemed to make it start the cold blooded Ducati engine a bit stronger but the float voltage is higher than the smaller Tenders, at roughly 13.5 VDC

I am starting to think maybe the desulfation modes on these chargers are all a gimmick as i have yet to see any empirical testing that correlates actual desulfation occurring, other than sales pamphlets or sales testimonies from websites selling chargers.

 

[Mav123]

Bumping if anyone found a unit that can generate frequencies above 5 KHz ?

See the comment by craftsman

 

[Mav123]

I know this is a bit of an old thread but I wanted to chime in with my opinion on the subject as I own a Batteryminder 1500 and Batteryminder 12248. While these devices by no means can recover a battery with a bad cell, I have had success in recovering a few batteries with one particular battery that had a resting voltage of only 11.9v. After about 6 months on the Battery Minder, the Battery had a resting voltage of 12.5V which in of itself is an impressive improvement. Now, after a total of 1 year of usage on the Batteryminder, it has a resting voltage of 12.65v which basically means the battery has about 95% of its original capacity. This would seem like it's not too big of a deal but when you consider that this battery is officially 10 years old, then it's something! I believe one of the things that made this Battery last so long was the fact it was mounted in the trunk so it wasn't subjected to excessive heat which would have definitely killed the battery. But the Batteryminder was absolutely instrumental in helping me recover the battery as a resting voltage of 11.9V meant that it really was headed for the scrap heap.

Which unit did a better job?