4 Steps to Revive a Dead Rechargeable Battery
what you'll need
- Dead battery
- Multimeter
- Welder
- Insulated Gloves
- Safety goggles
There are 4 steps to revive a dead rechargeable battery. Over time, a rechargeable battery will lose its capacity to hold a charge and will no longer work. This happens because of overcharging, making it too hot or too cold and many more. You may think that since it can not be charged, you should just recycle it and buy a new battery. Instead, follow these steps to revive your battery with a small dose of high amplitude and low voltage hits to bring it back to life.
Step 1. Checking Battery Levels
First, check the equipment that recharges your battery to ensure that it is the cause of the battery not charging. If not you will need to use a multimeter to check the charge of your battery. In most cases the reading will show that the voltage is much lower than it says on the screen. If you have a spare battery of the same make, you can use this as a measure to know how much power the battery should have after you have revived the dead one.
Step 2. Check Equipment Levels
Test out your Welder on the multimeter to make sure the DC power is running and also to check whether the gun is positive or negative. Sometimes welder can have AC that are polarity is backwards in which you need to turn the knob on your welder until your multimeter tells you that you are making around thirty volts.
Step 3. Zap Battery
This can be very dangerous procedure because you are going to be using high voltage of current in this step. With your dead battery out and making sure you are wearing your safety goggles and insulated gloves, tap the positive end of your welder to the plus terminal on your battery while holding the negative end of the battery's minus terminal. When you use this technique make sure you are not welding onto the battery. Just tap the positive end of the welder to the plus on your battery and you shock see some sparks if done correctly. What this does is forcing a huge amount of current into the cell which vaporized the dendrite like shorting a fuse. You can also use this same technique on other battery's that might have corroded, in which you peel it apart to get to the cells. Then use a tool to sand off the crowded material and then zap them with a welder or car battery.
Step 4. Test Battery
Now when the battery is replaced back into the application you are using you should see that the battery will be much better than it use to be. Although using the technique of zapping your battery also will have some consequences. The zapping of the dendrite means another one will be close behind, also the material you vaporized has now been permeated the separator of the material which forms a resistor that can short the plates. The cell also can not be shorted and will have a poor charge retainer.