Porsche Battery Maintainer

[Brett Dikeman]

On Apr 12, 2006, at 1:32 PM, Ned Ritchie wrote:

> Charging while keeping the battery charged does not prevent the  
> lead from
> sulfating on the plates.

Sulfation doesn't happen above a certain state of charge, and  
certainly not on a battery kept on float; that's the whole point of a  
maintenance charger.  A float charge won't reverse sulfating that has  
already occurred (most likely), but it will prevent further sulfating.

>   There is a battery maintainer that works
> differently.  It is used by the US Military and others.

The US military is also spending billions on a missile defense system  
that doesn't work.  Also, the tests conducted by the university cited  
by Pulsetech conveniently omits the fact that the batteries compared  
were a)battery connected to a pulsing device with a solar panel  
trickle charger versus b)a battery connected to neither.  Well...no  
kidding the battery with the solar trickle charger was in better  
condition and its state of charge increased.  The "study" has never  
been fully published on the web or anywhere else.  Unpublished  
university research = questionable/worthless/for-hire university  
research.

>   It is NOT a
> charger, but it works better than a charger to keep your battery up to
> snuff.
>
> http://www.pulsetech.net/
>
> http://www.pulsetech.net/pulsetechnology/pulsetechnology.html

Or you can build the same thing based off a 555 timer, for about $20  
in parts; cheaper if you can find a suitable inductor and such in  
scrap electronics, and a bit of breadboard and misc resistors and  
such hanging around.  Just google "DIY desulfator".  There are at  
least a couple designs floating around on the net, and in general  
they're rumored to work far better than any of the "commercial"  
systems.  The maximum current of the pulse delivered seems to be a  
major factor, as is the number of pulses- and the homebrewed units  
with beefy cables deliver a bigger pulse and some designs even  
incorporate a little LCD that displays a value roughly related to how  
sulfated the battery is.  Yes, they work- there are guys that make a  
hobby/side business out of recycling old golf cart/forklift batteries  
for their home solar systems and such.

It's also a built-in feature on a number of chargers made by Vector  
(pretty good chargers, by the way.  They had some QA issues with some  
early units, but they're straightened out now; my first one died  
within a month or two and was replaced by Pep Boys without much  
complaint, even though I didn't have a receipt.  The new unit has  
worked great for quite a while.)  The only annoyance is that the  
Vector charger desulfator "mode" only works for 24 hours before  
shutting itself off, for unjustified reasons.

Brett