Club 80-90 Forums

Jury (for me) is out on whether desulfators (desulphators?) actually work but bought one anyway to try on a battery that has had a fair bit of use over last five years. I'm not so stuck for a battery that I need to do this - more an experiment and whether its worth doing periodically to maintain my camper batteries and/or cold cranking ability.

So, anyone used one or have any facts to back up their effectiveness?

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I built one out of a kit many years ago. I have used it on marginal old batteries without a lot of apparent success, improving voltage holding but not capacity. Maybe a better one might have more effect. I feel that it is of help as a part of a maintenance regime with a good battery that is unused for some length of time but can't back up with any observations.

I bought an auto-pulse one. It makes a reasuring bleep and clearly has a degree of intelligence on startup but I'm somewhat sceptical. Some insist they do work, whilst others say no. Will feed back anyway

As far as I know, discharged batteries form lead sulphates on the plates, as long as they are re-charged soon after discharge this sulphate is re-converted back to lead ( if i remember right), however if left discharged the sulphate hardens and no longer converts back.
This can also happen to parts of the plates if you don't fully charge the battery to 14.4v or so.
Desulphating basically agitates the sulphates so they fall off the plates. it might revive a battery slightly but never fully and you're still left with sulphates in the bottom of the cells and lost capacity due to lost lead. so does overcharging to boil the electrolyte and loosen the sulphates.
If you use a decent modern intelligent charger you'll get the best life out of it. I'm not convinced desulphating does any long term good.

We used to use an Epsom salt solution for old batteries, apparently new batteries have an additive already in to stop sulphate build up, I believe the pulse de sulphate only work on new batteries as more of a deterrent than a remedy, any sulphates that fall of the plates can create a short and drain a battery.

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Exactly what I suspected. I must have watched countless videos of people trying to resurrect dead batteries which to me, seems a pointless exercise but as a way of maintaining batteries from the off, it might have some merit. Not so easy to prove though.

We regularly use pulse chargers at work for heavy duty batteries to restore CCA capacity 100Ah 1400 CCA. However we also have intelligent testers that check the condition and suitability for recharging. An unrecoverable battery will regain no CCA after a pulse charger cycle and the tester will ID this pretty accurately. If the tester says renew battery then it's toast. As for over gassing through recharging due to sulphate build up, this can cause bulges in battery casings or the safety valves to blow at worst in a sealed battery or a distinctly eggy smell from the gas if it's vented, these batteries don't always fail an intelligent test for capacity but we do renew them as it means the battery is working too hard too recharge and presents a safety hazard from the explosive gas.