Desulpator success story? [RE-wrenches]

Tue Jul 23 14:12:42 PDT 2002

or maybe it's a testament to the robust Trojan T-105 battery.  You can read
my story and decide for yourself.

Recently, a friend gave me his GE Electrak E15 lawn tractor.  It included
the front mounted 42" mower deck, hedge trimmers, snow plow and 36 volt
inverter.  Everything works perfectly.  What a fun machine.  It's fun to be
able hear the neighbors lawn mower over yours as you mow your own yard.

Back to the desluphator topic.  Of course, he hadn't charged it for years so
when I went to pick it up I found the T-105's had voltages from 1.2 to -1.2.
 Two of them had reversed polarity!  All of them had at least an inch of the
plates exposed.  Of course, I new I'd be buying a new set of batteries.

The on board charger was dead and there is no pushing it up a ramp into a
trailer as those of you who own one know.  I thought I would at least try to
get enough in the batteries to get it up the ramp so  I hooked up my12 volt
/ 500 watt Tiger inverter and charged two batteries at a time.  Actually, I
had to use a standard car battery charger to get the batteries above 8 or 9
volts (per pair) as the Tiger wouldn't even try to charge until it could at
least tell it was hooked up to battery.  After several days and gallons of
distilled water I returned to pick up the tractor.  To my astonishment, all
of the batteries were staying above 6 volts with no charger them.  The
tractor barely got it self on my trailer but it did.  I brought it back home
and made several laps around the yard as the tractor slowed down to a crawl
as the batteries went down.

At the house I hooked up a spare SW4048 to the tractor as you can adjust the
charging parameters perfectly for a 36 volt pack.  Who says Trace can't do
anything right!  Also, I hooked some 12 volt maintainer/charger/desulphator
units that I keep at my shop for the various batteries I inventory.  They
are 120 AC and charge at just over 1 amp.  Charged the pack up again and
took the kids for rides.  Made it a little further around the yard.  Did the
whole process over again, took the kids for rides up and down the street. 
Went even further this time.  Charged with SW and desulphators again. 
Proceeded to mow the 1 acre yard and barely made it.  To make this long
story a little shorter the last time I used the tractor, I mowed the
neighbors yard after I mine and still had plenty of mowing left.  A few
hours after this last test the batteries were sitting at ~6.18 volts (with
no charging).

All of the batteries voltages stay with .05 of each other while charging and
discharging.  I am convinced that there is something to these desulphators
that are powered by 120 AC.

And yes, I am making up new battery cables from welding cable for them as
soon as the new lugs I come in.  "Fusion" lugs by the way.  It will be my
first time to use them so I'll report on them.

Travis Creswell
Ozark Energy Services

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