SOI Fireside Chats, SOI_ University

[Save Old Iron 1,563]

As promised earlier this year,

I'm making time available for one on one discussions involving electrical troubleshooting theory or practice.

Anyone who has SKYPE loaded on their PC can participate.

I will make time this Saturday, January 15th, after 7 p.m. eastern time to spend some time chatting about anything electrical.

Hopefully in the next week or so, I will have developed some familiarity with Skype's "whiteboard" option which allows both participants the ability to draw on a digital "blackboard". This will allow participants in the conversations to put up pictures and have the ability to circle, draw, or redraw pictures or diagrams to help the learning process.

For the maiden voyage, please respond to this post or to my email thru Redsquare and I will get back to each responder with a time we can get together, one on one or possibly in a larger group in coming weeks. We will see how this all works out.

Respond here or by RedSquare email to my address.

Hope to see someone - anyone - on Saturday night.

[buckeye 2]

Yikes!

I dont have skype, but wanted to ask you if you ever found anything out about the asparin in the battery trick, that was discussed the the forum chat last week.

[Sparky-(Admin) 19,441]

You'll have to let us know how this works out Chuck.

Good luck!

Mike.........

[Save Old Iron 1,563]

Yikes!

I dont have skype, but wanted to ask you if you ever found anything out about the asparin in the battery trick, that was discussed the the forum chat last week.

Buckeye,

I did pursue this with 3 folks I know have some chemistry background. I did get answers from 2 of the 3 and expect the third just hasn't seen the email yet.

Here is my high school chemistry level take on the problem.

When a lead acid battery discharges, sulfur is taken out of the sulfuric acid electrolyte in the battery and deposited on the lead plates of the battery as lead sulfate.

The action of recharging the battery removes the lead sulfate off the lead plates and puts the sulfur back into the electrolyte making the sulfuric acid solution stronger.

When a battery is not kept fully charged, some of the sulfur forms a very strong chemical bond to the lead and "crystallizes". This near permanent chemical bond deactivates the section of the lead plate it becomes attached to, preventing a reversal of the bond and therefore this section of the cell plate has "died".

So we now have lead plates covered with lead sulfate, and a very weak (cannot dissolve or dissociate chemical bonds) acid based electrolyte.

Now your question. What happens if you throw an aspirin in to the battery (and I assume you mean one in each cell)

Well truth be known, ASPIRIN, or acetylsalicylic acid is a very weak acid in its normal state and can be broken down by moisture into salicylic acid and acetic acid. Both compounds will be weak acids given the "dose" of aspirin you suggest.

So if I interpret this "old wives tale" correctly, the expectation is for aspirin to dissolve or dissociate the lead sulfate from the cell plates. Chemically, it will try. Just like you can try to pull a loaded flatbed with a motorcycle. It's just not going to happen.

But

I have Google'd the term "desulfating battery charger" and found some interesting stuff on the net.

There are a few patents out there for battery rejuvenators that claim to use high frequency pulse rate, ultra low voltage, ultra high amperage circuitry to "blast" the sulfur off the plates.

From what I have read, devices have been designed to produce low voltage (less than 1 volt), extremely high amperage (800 amps is what I saw) and a pulse rate of over a 1000 pulse hits per second.

This combination is supposed to form a gas bubble behind the sulfur on the lead plate and literally "blast it off" the plate, freeing up a fresh lead surface to allow current to flow thru the electrolyte and therefore allowing the electrolyte to absorb the sulfur from the plate.

Sounds like someone should write MythBusters and see what happens.

For now, I vote BUSTED on this one.