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Re: (ET) Lead Acid Batteries

Normal life for L-A batteries is around 5 years, under ideal conditions.  Over time and cycles, the storage capacity is reduced,   I've run them longer, but I wasn't coming close to using their rated capacity.  L-A batteries left alone long enough to self discharge below 6.0V for a 3 cell battery are taking damage beyond normal use as they go lower than that.  Even if you get hose 8yr old batteries to produce normal voltage, the capacity would be very diminished.
The active materials [and the grids / plates themselves crumble & corrode] gradually get disconnected from the plates, and end up on the bottom of the cell, eventually causing  leakage / self discharge.  Nothing you add will put the active material back onto the partially degraded plates. 

On 11/19/2023 9:55 PM, Frontier Yahoo Mail wrote:

I am looking for a bit of advice on my lead acid battery pack in my N/I EGT-150. The pack wasn't new when I purchased them about 8-9 years ago. 
I know it should be time for them to go to the battery graveyard.  This tractor has been setting for a while due to the OEM F & 
R Contactors finally giving up. Since replacing those I have been running the Pulse Tech desulfate charging system on each of the three 12 volt 
sub packs, (two deep cycle six volts each). The Pulse Tech system will only work with twelve volts so you just parallel them and it works 
great. One sub pack appears to be coming up as it is showing about 25% charge after 3-4 hours of pulsing.  The other two appear to 
be complexly dead and show as "bad battery" on the pulse charger.  As a test I thought I might try to put a surface charge 
in with my auto charger on each 12 volt set and then see if the Pulse Tech would help them. On the fast charge one set appears to be taking a 
small amount of charge whereas the other one did nothing.  After reconnecting these two back on the Pulse Tech they still won't 
begin to disulfate.  I see liquid rejuvenator products advertised on eBay which claim to work about 95% of the time on failed 
batteries.Â
I am wondering if anyone in Elec Trak land has tried this and what your results have been. For 
the money it certainly would appear to be an economical if only short term solution. Then 
again it may just be time to purchase new batteries. I noticed that the lithium's are 
comparatively priced, however from what I am reading on this site it sounds as though they are 
pretty finicky on the amount of discharge they are able to handle without internal 
damage.  Beyond my Pulse Tech desulfating charger I am still using the EGT's on 
board "battery boiler" which has always done the job.
Any thoughts are most welcome.Autumn Train in NW Iowa
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