Battery Rejuvenator?

Has anyone tried “Zap BTTL Battery Rejuvenator”?

 

http://robsfamousshoppe.com/Zap-BTTL-Battery-Rejuvenator-Restoration-Kit-Zap-BTTL.htm

 

With almost a dozen tractors, (2 of which are battery driven), if it works it would be worth a try.

More than likely this is epson salts !! I ordered a 5.00 kit from ebay and that is what it was.  17 tbl spoons disolved in 1 qt of water, pour out 1 qt of acid and add this mix and shake the battery. 2 weeks later GO BUY A NEW BATTERY!!! Just my experience, Scott

Spend a few extra $ and get a battery maintainer and plug it in when not using the battery for longer than a few days . Well worth the money and prolong the life by keeping the battery from sulfating 

been trying the restore process following directions explicitly on a couple of spares with poor results.  i like jay's math even without factoring in my own time & limited workspace considerations.

Lead still corrodes inside the case of a battery, it produces a sulfate while recharging off a generator or charger with this material collecting in the bottom.  If it collects long enough it can and will short out a cell but most of all it is reducing the capacity of the cell for electron transfer for holding and delivering charge, it can also come from the connection grids and as these deteriorate they can disconnect leaving a open and totally unusable battery.  When a battery is done, there is no 'rejuvenation' just temporary recovery prior to a full failure, battery starts getting weak buy a replacement.

If you have old tractors, you will have battery issues. I had a fairly new battery in my fifth wheel trailer that load tested low. Took it back to Interstate warehouse for warranty and they took it out back and then asked if I could leave it overnight. I was leaving the next day so couldn't leave it. I asked what he was going to do that I couldn't do. He said that if I had a big commercial charger that will hold 25-30 amps (boost setting) to leave it on for 6 hours and the battery would be good. Have saved more than a dozen batteries since.

When I saw ZAP your battery, I first thought it would be for NiCAD batteries. I made one back in high school electronics. It worked pretty good on NiCADs that didn't hold a charge long. Car batteries? Sounds like snake oil to me. I do remember a buddy back in high school would put 1/2 of an aspirin in each cell of a weak battery and get some more life out of, or so he claimed...

The battery converts sulfate to metal when charging. It creates sulfate when discharging. In normal cycles, not left discharged for a long time, the sulfate crystals are tiny and easily converted back on charging. When left discharged for a long time the sulfate crystals accumulate and grow into larger crystals that aren't so easily dissolved on charging. A sulfated battery will show a high terminal voltage while accepting normal charging current. Trouble is that current won't go down all day and by then there's water being lost but no charge accumulated in the battery. A time with both voltmeter and ammeter are useful indicators when used together.

There have been the magic potions suggested. Mostly not much better than a kick in the battery ribs. Like kicking a dead horse. I've seen it advocated to pour out the acid solution, wash the cells with several changes of clean water, pour that out and then put in new acid. That has a chance of washing out excess sulfate exposing more lead and lead oxide to the solution but the total battery capacity can't be as great because of the loss of active material.

There have been charging circuits proposed and made that claim to reduce the big sulfate crystals. The one's I've seen depend on a short discharge cycle after a short charge cycle. More charge than discharge. I designed and built one with a resistor for discharge in parallel with the half wave rectifier. I still have it somewhere. It didn't help my tractor's battery, but then I discovered the problem was worn out and broken brush leads in the starter, not a battery problem. I had the starter rebuilt with new bearings, bendix, and brushes and its worked fine every since. There may be other anti sulfating schemes around. Some of the battery maintainers claim to do an antisulfation scheme if their smarts detects sulfation.

Sulfate crystals can also fall to the bottom of the battery. Also active material falls there. There's space left for that accumulation. When it gets too deep is one way a cell can be shorted. Loss of active material causes loss of battery capacity with time. A new battery will exceed ratings, and it slowly goes down hill, until it often gets to the point it doesn't have enough working material to do the job you want, a cold winter night start if it doesn't break plates off the connecting bar or short from accumulated material in the bottom. If you have a choice then you get longer battery life by choosing the biggest (and heaviest) battery that will fit the available battery space. If you have a choice learn to read the manufacturing date codes and grap the newest one on the battery rack. A battery isn't helped by sitting unused for several months. I bought a new battery for my camper a couple days ago and found some on the kiosk at wally world with an 8/12 sticker. Should be fairly young. They had a battery tester there and one one arrangement it said two new batteries were bad. Then different check without involving the automatic charger said the second of those was fine. I bought it and it took half a day for my maintainer to bring it to full charge. Soon as I fix the truck's turn signal output to the trailer I can head off for some threshing shows in Minnesota.

Makers of discount batteries know how to fill a big case with a few plates, making a battery look big without it having a similar capacity, and know how to lie on ratings. Lead is heavier than acid, one way to check. Doing a deep cycle discharge is another test but ordinary starting batteries tend to warp and break plates on that occasion.

Gerald J.