How to Recondition Batteries
Learning how to recondition batteries was something we undertook so that our off grid renewable energy system would be more cost effective.
We had heard that we could take old batteries and recharge them bringing them back to new condition. It sounded like a good idea, taking some old batteries and bringing them back to life. But how to recondition batteries?
We figured that a simple battery charger would be able to revamp old batteries but even when charged for days they still didn't work.
We really didn't want to take apart the batteries to see what was wrong so we did a bit of research first. It turns out that most batteries have plates in them surrounded by mild sulphuric acid. As the battery gets older and more discharged the plates tend to get oxidized. A buildup of this stuff eventually renders them useless. It is actually called sulfating.
We discovered there is some ingenious little device called a desulfator that sends a pulse through the plates and eventually breaks off the sulfates on the plates returning the battery to normal condition.
It sounded pretty cool so we set out to find a battery desulfator for ourselves and get better at learning how to recondition batteries.
We looked around but most of them came in around the $300 range. It didn't look like a very complicated device so we decided to see if we could make our own battery desulfator.
What did we need to get started?
Good reliable plans to build a battery desulfator Find a source of parts to make it Learn how to recondition batteries
We looked around for some suitable plans and found most of them were under $20 so we figured that wasn't too bad. One set of plans even told you how to build a business learning how to recondition batteries. That sounded interesting as there must be a tremendous supply of old batteries that could be revitalized.
We settled on the plans from the Off Grid Living website, but we are keeping in mind those other plans to start a battery reconditioning business.
It was pretty interesting and cost us only about $15 to build our own battery desulfator. It worked pretty good taking an average of only a couple weeks to bring a battery back to life.
We learned where we could get industrial batteries for free as well. Now we have all of the off grid batteries we could ever use. Only about half of them we are able to recondition but considering that batteries are a huge part of any renewable energy system cost that isn't bad. We have saved thousands of dollars.
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