General Parts

On hand of JB's (John Bedini) drawings #1 and 2 only one battery is used in small setups, it is mainly for testing. We all use one or two driving batteries charging a Battery bank through the SSG or SG energizer. If you want to get really serious building, then buy a couple or four new 12V 7.2AH gel cells for starters, especially if you are planning on working in living room conditions, but much better yet are four of U1 garden tractor batts with removable plugs for checking the output of the SG by watching the bubbles in the electrolyte level, in your shop ore garage if you have one. Don't buy batts that have been sitting on the shelve deteriorating. Stay away from old batteries, unless you have no choice, until you constructed an energizer that has a proper output! You will be able to charge sulfated batts that no longer take a conventional charge, as long as all cells are still conducting. I use a hydrometer to check charge or quality of the cells, which is another reason for not buying sealed batteries. Gel sells that no longer took a conventional charge and would not respond well while hooked up to the SSG, I filled with battery acid just to the top of the plates. Because of air locks it is a little tricky to do but works good with a stainless steel needle syringe.
If an old battery took much abuse, it is probably not worth bothering with!!!
Do not be alarmed if an old battery slowly drops to 0 volts. I had one that staid at 0V for several months. It was my old farm tractor battery, which I brushed the dust off of at 4.5V and added 3 liters of tap water to it, bringing it up to 7.5V. Here is the story:
My little 2 1/2" energizer was working very hard, starting from 7.5 volts, with the voltage steady climbing about 1V/24hrs up to 10.84 volts, where it suddenly shorted out, I knew because the neon lamp was lighting up, which surprised me, because I had checked that battery thoroughly shaking it hard, there where no loose "marbles" in the bottom of the battery case (broken out active material). I switched over to the CSB 12V 7.0Ah batt, where the energizer was working just fine. Thence I shook the battery again real hard and dumped the acid-water-mix in a plastic container and rinsed the individual cells out four times, using a water nozzle, only fine sludge appeared, then I added new electrolyte battery acid-mix (you can buy it at a battery outlet). As I measured the voltage across the terminals right away, I was reading 11.84 volts to my surprise!! Again I hooked up the SG energizer and it charged up to 12.4 Volts. Soon thereafter it slowly dropped down to 0 volts where I left it. Not until I had my little SSG4a B/C four coiler finished, I assure you, it is a real jewel, I drove it with my Happy Day Goat Dairy power source at 11.5volts input and hooked it up to that old 600CCA which was at 0 volts, the AMP/VOM showed a current of 2.5amps in and charging 0.6 amp out, with a surprising "high" voltage charge off the Thyristor (SCR) starting at 20 volts slowly and steady dropping, never seen before, Tom Bearden is elaborating about it in his papers. Once it arrived at 12.5 V, I switched that batt for another momentarily and noticed to my surprise 11.7V from 0 volts in a half hour. It now easily charges up to 14.2 volts and is holding its capacity around 12.68V if I let it sit. The first half hour discharge cycle at 1.5 amp dropped it down to 12.10V but it recuperated right away to 12.26V. Next cycle it took 1 1/2 hrs to drop to 12.25V. Last, it took four hours to bring it down to 12.25V at 1.5amp. As you can see, the battery slowly improves in its holding capacity.
Old dirty electrolyte has strange effects on batteries. I have super charged two 8 year old 12V DELCO 1000 CCA's only do find them one day discharged to 10 volts after they sat for a couple of months. They would charge up to 12.46V and loose the charge over night from then on. Hence I also rinsed them out like I described above, they slightly gained voltage after I filled them up with new electrolyte. Keep in mind that every battery behaves slightly different and must be stabilised before parallel charging after a cleansing job, even if it is a twin of the first. This two DELCO's I'm talking about are a good example.The first one I hooked up to the SSG4a B/C started charging with a PS intake of 15V, out at over 17V (with the volt needle violently kicking at the start) while slowly dropping down to 14.45V within a halve an hour where it stabilized more or less and started to properly charge the battery... 25min. later it held a charge of 12.40V. The other DELCO charged normally and steady from the beginning, starting at 12.30V or so and climbed to 13.30 within about 20min. where I unhooked it and balanced both at 12.45 in between rest periods, charging or better said energizing them in parallel from that moment on until the voltage stopped climbing at 13.30 thus after unhooked, the surface charge tissipated away to 12.58V where it staid as before the trouble started. The battery capacitance of the two will be improving now if cycled.
For one dollar I bought a new looking 12V 600CCA RV/Marine deep cycle, measuring 10 volts across the terminals and 0.1125 points sg (specific gravity) "low” in the red on the hydro meter, all cells where the same. I hooked it up in intervals to two of my SSG's for a couple weeks just steady charging without any discharge, once it started moving, gaining on capacity to 15volts and measuring 0.1225 psg "fair" near the top of the purple, just before entering 1250-1300 psg "good" the green, I started cycling the battery. It dropped down from 13.22 volts to 12.88 with a load of 0.900Amp (three auto clearance lamps) within 3 hrs where I unhooked it with the volts moving up to 12.91 where it staid for a day, it would not drop any more, thus I charged it up again. I can tell, the one dollar was well spent; it is going to be a dandy!! ... Is it worth the trouble? That is up to you!

Testing an old lawn mower battery
A friend gave it to me. It is a 12V Die Hard SEARS year 97 showing a charge of 8Volts. The little access pop lids where glued in!!! After angle cutting with a knife around the circumference I popped them out and found the acid low in all the compartments. I filled them up to the top of the plates with electrolyte and toped them off with distilled water, hooked it up to my SSG4a B/C , set the PS "Zurich # DS-304M" to 10V 1A in 0.4A out for slow low energizing , meaning as little current in as possible, remember it is the scalar energy we are after to fix the plates. I could use 15V 2A in and 0.8A out and charge the battery much faster but naturally more current meaning more cycling time it would take much longer!!!! Once the charging voltage stopped climbing or it stopped supercharging in this case at 14.15V it was time to start cycling it. I discharged it with a 200ma 12V bulb. You got to take it easy with the load at first. The battery took 5min. discharging down to 12 V, then 10 min. to 12.25V, then 45 min. to 12.30V. After 7 cycles it charges now up, on the same setting, easy from 12.25 V to 15.75V in one hour. Hooking it up to my 1500watt (too big) inverter with the DS-304M set to 6V energizing 4 Ni Cad's, drawing 5.6 amps total only for testing purposes, the battery dropped to 9 volts and held there more or less for 15 min. where I shut things down. The lawn mower battery right away recuperated to the capacity of 12.45V. The fact it dropping below 12V told me that it wasn't ready for a hefty load yet. I did some more cycling but using a two filament auto teal lamp which drew 2 amps as the load. Then I used the 1500W inverter trick again (which is too much load of coarse) to see whether the battery was improving in capacity, which it did, because it held then at 12V for 15min and again recuperated to 12.45. Looks like I have a battery which I can put to use after some more cycling :).

Summer 2007, Rescuing an old sulphated 1000 CCA battery by cycling it my way:
A friend looked for a spark by striking a wire between the two terminals of a 12V battery in a scrap yard and brought it to me. It is called a freedom battery and had removable pry caps under the plastic sticker, thus I was able to top up the electrolyte, the ones which have no removable caps are garbage (rip off).
The idea is to place a load of 5.2A onto the battery for a short duration while making sure the battery recuperates over 12 volts, preferable 12.25V.
The Hydrometer showed a 0.1125 density of the electrolyte reading and the voltmeter indicated 11.25 Volts and the conventional charger accomplished zero charging.
I hooked it up to my SSG4a with a Volt reading of 11.28 and climbing, which is a promising sign. (Usually the initial charging with old sulphated no good batts is between 18 and 24Volts with the voltage slowly dropping to the proper level where it then starts climbing). When the battery was to the point where the volt needle no longer climbed any further I discharged it with two car tail light bulbs at 5.2 A within a few seconds, watching the voltmeter needle dropping to 11.5V then letting it recuperate. If it recuperated more then to 12.25V, I discharged it a little more. You want to make sure it always recuperates over the 12.00V mark. Next charge it would stop charging a little higher as before and would take a little longer to discharge and it also would recuperate a little more say, to 12.35V. In repeating the charging and discharging cycle, it became evident that the battery after 48 hrs cycle time would charge up to 14.75V and would discharge and hold a 5.2A load down to 12.10V for 15 min. by removing the load the battery would recuperate to 12.58V within 5min. I left it sit for a week or so, the volt indicator needle showed 12.50V and applied the same load to it. It held the load of 5.2A at 11.90V without dropping any further for 15 min. where I unhooked it and watched it recuperating to 12.30V within one minute. Of course I charged it up to max. voltage right away again. The more I repeat this cycle the more capacity the plates will store. I tried this with several batteries now and it seams to work according to the quality of the battery; very well for some and not so good for others. This system is a lot less time consuming than the procedure of the C20 rate.