Anyone have any experiences to relate with battery desulfation? I've got a couple of marginal batteries that I'd like to try to get a bit more life out of.

Some folks suggest flushing out the sulfide buildup with an EDTA or epsom salt solution, but I'm pretty skeptical of that.
Lead?acid battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Instead I'm thinking about picking up a CTEK US 3300 or a purpose built pulse-desulfator. I'm wondering if there's any point in spending the $90 when I've already got a perfectly adequate bench-charger.

CTEK Multi-use 3300 3.3A Battery Charger | Canadian Tire

 

How old are the batteries? Save your 90 bucks and get a new battery if it's over 3 years old! Then, sometimes in the next year or so, pick one of them things up......start fresh......

 

How much you can gain back will depend to a great extent on how severely discharged the batteries have been. What high end chargers have that your bench charger likely does not is the ability to charge with what is called an equalization charge. With the batteries disconnected it pumps out right at 16 VDC and remixes the acid and water. If the batteries are marginal and not toast, it might help, but you will be investing near the cost of a battery and it will not resusitate the truly dead.

Just for the heck of it, if you have a smart charger, you might leave em hooked up for a day or so and then load test em. If they are still only holding about 12 VDC, I would likely toss in the towel at that point. You also could charge em, let em rest for 24 hours and then used a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity.

The problem with chassis batteries is the plates are pretty thin and they do not handle deep discharges and recharges very well.

Battery manufacturers caution against adding anything to batteries for any reason. In the end, battery age and how they have been treated are the strongest determinates of how they will do on life support.

Good luck,

Steve

 

Don't waste your time, get some new ones.. they are cheap.