Way to revive tired gel-cell batteries?

Question

I have acquired some 12v gel cell batteries, some of which have been left in an almost discharged state for several months, and don't seeem to be charging up readily. I vaguely remember hearing some tips on how to breath new life back into such batteries. I think the advice was to charge rapidly, then completely discharge quickly, and repeat several times. And another trick I think I heard was to put the battery charger leads on the wrong terminals momentarily. I vaguley remember that this was supposed to blast something or other off the plates. Does any of this sound plausible?

Thank you,

JD

Ecnerwal · Accepted Answer

Not for lead-acid gel cells. IMHO you may be scrod with abused gel-cells. Here's some info from a place that deals with a lot of batteries.

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You might (and might not) get some benefit out of using a desulphator on them. Can be bought or built. More typically useful on liquid acid batteries, but possibly worth a shot - on the other hand, you can get "good used" batteries for not a lot of money, e.g. from

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(not even a customer, but have them in my list of places that have stuff I've looked at - notably, fixed low shipping, which counts for a lot when ordering heavy batteries).

The original article now seems to be on a pay to view basis, but here's a derivative article:

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For nicads, "zapping" them with a big capacitor can be beneficial to blow off dendrites that form and short out the plates. Does not restore full capacity, but can restore some useful capacity to cells that had reached uselessness - ie, won't take a charge at all - zap, get perhaps

1/2 original capacity. I've done that repeatedly with some drill batteries. Always in correct polarity - I can't see any benefit to reverse - sometimes abused cells reverse, but that's NOT a good thing.

JakeD · Answer

Thank you very much for the links and suggestions. Extremely helpful -many thanks...JD

Way to revive tired gel-cell batteries?

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