Great video, by the way. I rebuild batteries as a 2nd (semi-lucrative income), so I just have a couple of suggestions that you can do to improve your success rate. 1st (do a simple prebuild {pour out and filter original acid}, then using Baking Soda. You can use Tap {HOT} + Baking Soda mixed well and pour into each of the battery cells. This will remove almost all Sulfur buildup off Lead plates. After 15 minutes, pour out baking soda mix and rinse out the cells thoroughly. 2nd - Take filtered original acid, refill battery. Get Lead Acid Refill Bottle (at Advance Auto Parts) and top off battery level. To truly rebuild a battery to perfect, you need an Impulse Charger (fairly inexpensive). If not, then you can do the welder, but an older battery charger (the "Roll-a-round" style, which Harbor Freight still sells), will do the trick quite nicely! In 8 years of rebuilds, totaling almost 200 batteries, I've only had 5 fails. Hope this helps!

I learned from VGG that you gotta put your used batteries on boil for a few hours and that usually brings them around. Otherwise you gotta dispose of them safely by throwing them into the ocean for the electric eels.

My dad talked about rejuvenating a dead battery and I never believed it until he did it several times at my gas station. He would take a dead battery and place it on charge and get it nice and warm. Then he would turn it over and allow the electrolyte to drain out. Next step, he would flush each cell several times which would help removed deposits on the bottom of the battery and help clean the plates. When it was flowing clean, per say, he would drain it and refill with new sulfuric acid and place the battery on charge. We never needed to purchase a battery for the purpose of giving a hot shot on a road call as we always had a reclaimed battery. The recharge was done with an old associated battery charger that was seen around may garages in the 60's and 70's. I wish I still owned it as it was kinda bullet proof and just kept on recharging batteries. I believe it was a light green case and it had a set of rubber wheels and a handle plus a hinged lid over the controls.

The testing was great, will i ever do this probably not. But, what you have explained and showed as to how the batteries work are greatly appreciated. I have worked on mowers for people which had low charging systems and now i can actually explain why their charging systems need to be up to par.

I did 225 amps for 10 min then 1 hour rest. Did this for 5 cycles, brought the battery right back to life. Been using the battery for the past 6 months no issues. I think you need more amps and a little more time. i think 100 amps for 10 -15 minutes for 5 cycles would work good. You then need to trickle charge the battery at like 2 amps for like 16 hrs.

One way I have found to (maybe) get a stubborn battery to take a charge that a smart charger refuses to help is to hook up a fully charged battery in parallel with the problem battery for 10 to 30 minutes. Sometimes that's enough to get over the hump where your smart charger will take over and finish the job. Works for lithium Ion batteries too, but your connection time is measured in SECONDS not minutes.

Detailed and scientific explanations. Useful and useful content. Thank you

My favourite mechanic uploads again. Total is a good day.

I actually cringed, and leaned back in my chair as I watched this video. So very happy these didn't blow up.

Experiments were smartly done. Thanks for this info.

I usually do 20 amp punch for a 15-minute procession. Let it sit for half an hour after each session, and I have restored 3 batteries so far!

I actually just did something like this not too long ago. I bought a used Escort and the battery was flat dead on it. Took it out and put the charger on it and it would only put out about 400 CCAs. Hit the jump start on it and cranked amps up to 30 for 10 minutes three times and charged it for a night after. The next morning, CCAs jumped to 725 and now, the Escort has no problem starting!

This is the second time seeing this on UKposts. You went way deeper. Q1 - what if you drained electrolytes first, filled with distilled water only, did the cycles, replaced with acid? Q2 - what if you never introduced distilled water, but topped of with acid instead? Q3 - what if you drained avoid, and topped of with fresh clean acid? Before you hit it first time.

I zapped two batteries last week and so far they are working good.

Great video. Very informative and easy to follow. Thank you😊

VERY INFORMATIVE! THANKS!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

That was very interesting. Project farm channel did a similar test few months ago and had similar results. I would use my welder in a pinch after seeing these two videos. Thanks!

Works really well with my 1100ah off-grid battery.If you desulfate with an overcharge your electrolyte levels should come back to right around normal if it did bring the battery back. sulfate turns back into acid your level should come backup and you shouldn't need acid. The plates on car batteries aren't thick enough. The desulfating is typically used on traction batteries built much more robust.

about time someone did a welder test on batteries ,i always wanted to know

1- I would have used a manual "Dumb" charger that has a multiple Amp settings instead of the welder . 2- When you get over 11 volts reading, you can use the smart charger for an extended period of time as you very likely can damage a perfectly restorable battery if you keep "zapping" it with the welder. 3- If you are going to use the load tester, you need to make sure that the battery is fully charged and has 12.6v+ otherwise the amperage reading will not be accurate. Thank you for your intelligent car videos.

Great video. It is disappointing to see that none of the batteries were able to be resurrected but they did have a partial improvement. Thanks for making this!

Nice video learned a lot of useful information. Thanks have a great day!

You also can do things like gently tap the battery with a rubber mallet to try and break up some of those deposits. Also seen a guy gently rolling his battery down a grass slope, but gently. All these things are supposed to basically use physical movement to try and break up the sulfate... but obviously be careful because you don't want to break up the lead plates, they're made out of thin wires and are actually a grid not a continuous plate... and they're forms of lead that are very brittle and fall apart.

I also was not very succesfull using this same method. Used method once on a dead (11,69V) and I concluded if the voltage is not too far away you will have succes. No nerve too use the high amps like 75. Wet my pants, great video well explained, thanks

I don't have a welder, but I learned a lot about how batteries work.

I remember in high school auto shop a battery exploded. Dude took the lead off the battery while the charger was still turned on. That battery flew up and hit the 2nd floor ceiling.

Very informative. Thank you 👍

There are some chargers that actually have a desulfation mode, my old boss borrowed me his CTEK and it had a reconditioning mode that hits the battery at 15.8V and 1.5A to break those sulfate crystals.

Thank you for this amazing info! ❤

My uncle does this yearly on his batteries as maintenance, given that I've seen some battery brands I've never heard of with some old stickers, I'd say it works in that way. Blast off all the old crystals for the year, I'd buy a cheap IGBT stick welder for that.

Interesting, with good information. That said, I'm gonna buy a new battery.

Thank you. Very informative video.

Thanks for taking the time to ahare.

Great Idea and great video.... there is something i am still wondering. and would hope you could test. First zap the battery with 35 amps for 5 minutes to bring it to around 8 volts. (if it is below... of course :-) Then SLOWLY Charge it over night with a normal charger! Then once again two cycles of 35 amps on the already "fully charged" batteries. Then test again. Or way number two. First zap them the way you did and afterwards charge them with a normal charger before testing them.

Thanks for the big work for us.

Blasting away when the battery is in a severe state of discharge just removes the sulfate mechanically and it is lost. Thus, you just prolong the nuisance of having to replace the battery until you are on the way to a wedding or some other important function. It is pretty common to cause an open circuit in some part of the internal rigging of the battery. Also of importance, that gas coming out of the battery contains hydrogen and it can combine with oxygen to "pop" which isn't actually a pop. It can blow the whole battery apart. When this happened to me, there was hot acid everywhere and my ears were still ringing for about 6 weeks... Bottom line, work an hour or two overtime on your job and then buy a new battery. Trust me, it only hurts until you do it and you are then on to the next adventure!

Smart and well explained!! Thank you bro!! My question- what will happen if I don’t have that antique welder, and my welder have only AC output?

First off, I'd be wearing a full face shield when doing this, not just goggles. Over 40 years ago I learned how to work on cars from helping my older brother. Once when I was still young he needed to jump start a truck and didn't have good jumper cables handy, so he used thick welder cables like this. My job was to hold the cable's plug ends onto the good battery's terminals while he turned the key. I don't think it worked, but it made me think how a disastrous thing to do would probably be to connect welder cables to a battery and then turn the welder on. I figured the battery would just explode immediately! Neat to finally see what actually happens!

I think that video is pretty nifty I never had a clue as to what actually makes a battery degrade I think that was the bomb 💣 nice 👌 thanx

After watching a bunch of videos claiming batteries can be restored I am convinced that it's best to take dead batteries down and buy new ones. It's cheaper, faster, less hassle and it works.

With the voltage readings taken, how are any negative readings recorded? All the positive voltage readings have a negative sign 😮. Thanks for the technical information information. All the best.

Great info dr steve

Solid video 👍... I've done something similar & have a $50 Walmart Value battery still going strong @ approx. 6 years😄💪

Thanks for the info 😊

"Lose subscribers due to reality" --- You are really funny!!! Very enjoyable, good measurement of not just voltage but amps as well. Well done!

Your like a battery wizard bro!

It’s worth a try anyway 😊 Thanks 🙏

might note that the electrolite is a mixture of water and acid. the cells are low because the water has evaporated leaving a stronger acid solution. when you let the acid mixture boil out while charging you are loosing acid so if you add more water you are getting a weaker acid concentration.

Project Farm had done this as well, interesting results

Thanks for this experiment! Conclusion as far as i'm concerned, if a battery is this bad, just go and buy a new one.

Excellent Excellent Excellent! clarity. many thanks for sharing your knowledge...DVD:)

Came for the "hey hey hey", stayed for the explosions

A few comments from my experience and chemistry I learned in school: The acidity of the electrolyte changes during charging and discharging. The water evaporates but the acid remains so its concentration also varies due to evaporation. Because of the excessive concentration, Sulphur crystals precipitate on plates. So the electrolyte concentration between cells can vary widely, especially on unused batteries. So, a good restauration (presuming the plates are not bent beyond hope) would require: -Emptying the battery in a safe container. -cleaning the cells from precipitation as good as possible with distilled water and a basic solution (baking soda). -charging (more like boiling) a battery with distilled water for a couple of times, water will dissolve all the remaining crystals. Or better said, crystals will dissolve in water due to difference in concentration and heat. Check the acidity of the distilled water, it should increase. -Safely discard the resulting solution, it is basically a mild sulphuric acid now. -replace back the electrolyte with correct concentration to the recommended level. I would probably use new electrolyte if I wasn't a cheapskate. For maintenance: -top up to recommended level with distilled water in order to rebalance the concentration equilibrium. Toping up with electrolyte will cause the Sulphur crystals to precipitate. -Keep the battery connected to a smart charger, one that can provide trickle charging I have a 10yo battery that I restored back to 90% rated CCA.

Good work 👍

Well that was educational... I remember the time I blew the top off a battery... yep, separated the entire top plastic section from the rest of the battery, sounded like a rifle shot too when it went off... luckily nobody was standing over the battery at the time... or they would have been toast

I don't think you want more sulfuric acid in there if the low level is only due to evaporation. The acid in there already is thus extra concentrated so the plain water will return it to its correct strength. Also aren't the lead plates spongy to increase the contact area for higher amperage?

one of the methods of yesteryear was to do this with frozen water/sewer metal pipes.. yes, this was before plastic piping got a foothold..

Useful information,

I find that after the desulfation process, putting the battery on a very low (anywhere b/w 1 or 2 amps) trickle charge for a long time (24 hours or even sometimes 48) works well at getting it up to full voltage; typically around 12.7 volts. Also, a series of discharge/charge cycles can help in building up the mA-hr. capacity of the battery. It can be a long process sometimes to rejuvenate a weak battery, depending on how old it is and how badly sulfated.

Thank you.

I feel that after blasting the crystals: draining them, flushing with disntilled water, and then rebalancing the batteries with new sodium sulfate electrolyte solution would greatly restore the capacity after desulfation, instead of using the old polluted water. I would consider that a true refresh, maybe not 100%, but maybe you can get 90% true capacity back. You should try sodium sulfate refresh and test it out, would give you a pt2 for this video.

Once you got the battery #2 to 11.something, you could have put it back on the smart charger, and probably got it back by restarting over & over for a few days..... Seems like it would have taken a charge at that point..... It takes TIME for some of this to happen.... You need the Sulphur crystals to go back into the acid suspension, in the sulphuric acid..... Ideally, you'd be at a very gentle boil, where there would be bubbling, if you looked in the holes, but acid wouldn't be gushing out.... as the acid gushes out, you are losing some of your sulphuric acid.... thus, when you add more distilled water, you have a weaker acid solution there, which won't work as good inside the battery....

Ive seen batteries blow up man so please be careful with this. One time in a small Jhon Deere 190 excavtor there was a hairline crack in the battery from people hammering the terminal on. Gas escaped and a bad connection caused a spark igniting the gas escaping from the battery while I hit the key and it blew the end out of the battery. Sounds like a shotgun going off. My brother was headed back around to check the connection when it blew up almost in his face. Another time I saw a mechanic mistakenly hook up 24V to a dead 12V battery so we could unload a track loader and free up a trailer. That battery instantly blew up one cold morning as he hooked it up to 24V. Luckily he had the habit of turning his face when hooking up battery cables. Many folks haven't seen them blow the side out yet so do be careful.

Question - what voltage is the welder outputting given the 30 amp setting? I've seen a number of these videos, but info only on amperage, not voltage...

What was the voltage (from the welder) during the tests?

I bought a cheap 2nd hand dc arc welder just to try this after the Uncle Tony video. I'd heard of it before but wasn't encouraged to try it before then, but I've since tried it 3 times and it simply has not worked for me and I subsequently deem it not worth the effort vs the even significant price of a new battery.

I agree with you on the distilled water part, but I pretty much doubt dealers have it on hand. Right out of the hose I’m sure…

Thank you very much

Nice. Thanks.

Great video

Heads up! Not all stick welders run the stick welder on positive. In fact my hf stick welder runs reverse polarity. I just did this project and reversed charged my battery. Crazy

Fun to watch and learn 😅

Remember if the battery blows up, don't forget to look away. If you do a real good job of it, the entire top of the battery blows off in your face. I was close to Sears at the time so it wasn't a long walk to get a new battery.

How much internal resistance and capacity loss can your application take? We run our fence energisers on decades old car batteries. They only take a few (25~100)milliAmps.

Yes you can aggressively remove hard sulfate from the plates using a dc welder. Done it many times.

Nice1..Ratchet & thank u

A De-Sulfator that works slowly without heating the battery up is probably also a bit better for the battery than the welder that can boil the water.

I always find the older chargers that are not smart chargers. ... They're still around.. I got four or five of them. . small ones all the way up to 200 plus amps,...👍👍👍

Wonder why the Lexus' battery was so low to start with. Was it discharged intentionally or does the charging system need checking? Great video! I would've used ear plugs also, just in case one of the batteries blew up!!!

I use all batteries in my camper where I don't need cold drinking amps. I have batteries 10 years old that still work PERFECT for small devices.

Distilled water can actually contain more minerals then regular water or tap water due to the concentration caused by condensation in the still during distillation. If you want water free of minerals you need to you “demineralised water”.

Thanks.

If you get the muck of the plates its in the acid/batterywater. Change the acid/batterywater to get rid of the muck in the system.

Once you've kicked a battery up to around 11v with the welder can a smart charger work on it? My trickle wouldn't connect to sub 10 volts but will see it if it's over 10.

thank you , awesome video , i like that you are very funny.. by the way i like the music at the end of the video , what is the name of that song or music.

Keep in mind it is now 2023 and car batteries have been around for over 100 years. Since back then trying to revive batteries, so the when the say bulk charge at max of 30 amps its cause its tried tested and proven method. I have tried to revive numerous batteries.... and only 2 out of some 20 plus came back to life...temporarily. With these lead acid batteries best thing to do is go out and get new. you will waste more money by wasting time even if you do get one revived for short while, you will have to replace it sooner than you think. especially newer cars, more and more new cars you have to reprogram components each time the battery comes out. though i solved that problem connecting a small 12v battery to vehicle battery cables before removing them from battery being replaced. as long as the small battery is connected you wont loose programing.

Did you checked electrolite density?

Yes this is very doable. I did this six months ago and the battery is still going strong. I zapped it 15 times at 30Amp for 5 minutes, with 5 minutes in between to cool down the battery.

Can you use this method for gel batteries

what voltage is the welder output? adding epson salts might help the welder.

I had an old car battery blow up right in front of my face as a teenager, simply by boosting it correctly just as I moved the cable for a better connection!!! It went off like a shotgun, thankfully my dad and I didn't get hurt....I've worked at car lots and automotive industry, I've boosted thousands of vehicles in that time but a little piece inside me cringes still, when I boost a car to this day. My Dad was a mechanic and said it was from built up hydrogen gas in old battery. Thankfully we were ok, just a tshirt with acid holes was worst damage. My husband is a mechanic also and he also had a car battery blow up but he got lots of the acid in his face when it went off like a shotgun. He said he left his eyes closed and ran for the hose to rinse himself off. He also says he suffers from "battery PTSD" like me. Moral of the story....be careful with old batteries!!!! My

Watched a few of these and the voltage always comes back but the cracking amps needed doesn't.

Cool test, but in my opinion, trying to charge each of these batteries with a regular charger after filling with water and using those results as the baseline for further improvements would have been a much better test since it would eliminate the question of whether the welder actually repaired the battery or just somewhat recharged it. I suspect you probably could have gotten very similar if not better results by just recharging the batteries with a normal charger, but since you didn't try it, we won't know. Also, keep in mind that it takes a minimum of several HOURS to recharge a deeply discharged lead acid battery no matter how much power is available, so you may have gotten better results by recharging those batteries overnight with a charger after using the welder because you didn't fully charge them in the few minutes you had the welder connected.

What about the recondition mode on a smart charger? What does it do to condition a battery? Essentially how does it work?

Would a short blast of reverse polarity help shed those sulphate crystals first, or would it ruin the battery?

are you DE sulfating the cells with pulse width modulation when you charge them? My special AGM charger also de sulfates at the same time and restores most batteries on1-3 sessions.

I used to be a battery replacement installer. Putting an arc welder anywhere near a battery is an ignorant endeavor. I have seen customers come into the shop with batteries that had the tops blown off! The battery acid can destroy cotton clothing, and it can burn you!

I really need help recently my 2015 Kia Optima was broken into and someone damaged the ignition switch I connected it back together now I’m Experiencing a power on when I trun the key but no start or crank But the power comes on when I trun the key

Hey everyone i found this in my main feed and thought id give you a lil better insight i used to recondition battery's for about five years basic theory in doing so is using the electrolysis method is a very good easy and safer method of reconditioning battery's first off you need a charger that has a variable to be able to set current flow to the battery's being charged is key yes i said battery's any were from two to 10 charging at the same time by using a 110 volt circuit that has been converted to DC that and the battery's being charged are being charged in series it other words positive to negative and positive to negative and so on with your battery string in series the flow of electrons are running in reveres of there natural flow of how it normally runs in an electrical system thats the basics . ok now you know the basics now you need to know what to look for when you run across some junkers first off you need to pop the caps and get a look at the plates if the acid is murky black or dis colored set it aside it more than likely shorted out second is look at the plates make sure there not warped also look at the side of the case make sure its not bulging out the sides if they are set it aside next if its low add some distilled water is prefered if not tap waters ok then take a voltage read a fully charged battery should be between 12.4 to 12.7 anything lower the battery needs attention if it reads less lets say 10 volts or less the next test is crucial it will tell you rt now if its possible to bring it back to life every cell by itself if its in good condition should have at least 2.1 volts but you need to see if that cell is still alive but reading voltage between the cells taking the reading from the acid with either a volt metter or just a simple LED light by stripping the wire back about an inch an LED lamp fires at 2 volts see where in going with this ok led lights are a diode and voltage travels from ground to positive thus take the negitive starting from the negitive side of the battery dropping the bare neg. wire into the cell then the next cell over take the positive lead and drop it in the acid the LED light should light up if so move on to the next all the cells if they are active with no shorts the light will fire if it doesn't more than likely that cells had better days . next take how ever many battery's your wanting to check run the leads in series then hit the cells for about 5 mins @ approx 10 amps or higher then recheck the string of battery's doing the two volt test if theres any cells at that point that didnt fire set that battery a side it junk . so now the rest take a gravity reading with a hydrometer see where the spicific gravity readings are mark them down then start the batterys charging @ 4 amps they need to slow charge between 2 to 4 amps for 48 hours recheck them with a hydrometer after the first 24 hrs and look at the cell acid and add if needed after the next 24 check them once again if they are between 12.4 to 12.7 your in good range let the battery's cool down over night then load test them @ 125 AMPS for like 15 seconds in two different segments i did this for like 5 years i had car lots and a few auto part stores selling them the demand got so greay i couldent keep up with it not enough cores in my area for the need but i did make some good money doing while i did and hardly ever had any of them come back

Not many people will have a welder like that and if they do they should be careful enough to try it.