Batt voltage rises w/o charge [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar]

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Hello Drake,

1) I've never seen that.  I'd like to know what's going on myself.

2) I'd say not.  To me it's suspicious that the local company with the magic
battery machine (a nice battery charger and a load bank?) would claim to be
able to fix 7 yr old batteries that I'm assuming have never been charged.
If these fail soon, it's not just the lost rejuvenation fee but the lost
customer good will and the hassle of changing out a battery bank that you've
recently installed. Do they offer a guarantee?

3) I'd do something else besides installing a 7 yr old set of batteries.

Good Luck,

Travis Creswell
Ozark Energy Services, Inc.




-----Original Message-----
From: Drake Chamberlin [mailto:solar at ecoisp.com] 
Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2005 10:25 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: Batt voltage rises w/o charge [RE-wrenches]

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Hi Wrenches,

We installed a bank of never used, 7 year old Concord 12 volt batteries in 
an entire system that had been in boxes for that time.  We decided to see 
what would happen.  Unbelievably, they seemed to have life left in them.

At first, they seemed to charge ok.  Then, the voltage went 
ballistic.  Yesterday, I watched the voltage level rise from the high 27s 
to the 29s in a matter of minutes.  We disconnected all charging sources, 
leaving the small DC load on.  The voltage shot up to 30.5 with no 
input.  At that point, I plugged in a 500 watt work light to get the 
voltage down.

A local company that rejuvenates batteries, with a machine that takes the 
batteries to high voltage and back down, says that is a sign of a highly 
sulfated battery, which these would have to be, given their history.  He 
says that leaving the load on is what caused the voltage to spike.

For a fee, the company will run these 12 volt gel cells up to 22 volts or 
even higher and then bring them back down.  This seems questionable to me, 
especially for gel batteries.

My questions are:

1. Has anyone else witnessed voltage spiking after charge is removed?

2. Is there any point in spending money on this rejuvenation process?

3. Should we cut our loses and get a bank of 6 volt batteries?


Thanks,

Drake 

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