How to revatilize (charge) a new but dead battery


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Old 10-30-14, 10:56 AM
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How to revatilize (charge) a new but dead battery

I bought a dirt devil scorpion that just won't charge. It goes past its 24 hours and the light remains red, as if still charging and even if left longer the power won't last more than 4 minutes. Dirt Devil is replacing it so no problem and this one should be thrown away but then I thought is it possible to make this battery come to life? Under its specs it says: Nickel cadmium 6V 6 amps.
On thing I tried is while charging I removed it from the charger for about 2 minutes then set it on/off/on/off real quick about 6X (having seen this elsewhere for old used batteries) but nothing happened.
Any advice would be appreciated--though as one video suggested, hooking it up to 2 other equal batteries is not the thing I was looking for as an answer.
regardless, as mentioned, all help would be appreciated.
Or could the charger actually be the problem?
Thanks
 
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Old 10-30-14, 11:19 AM
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When a battery discharges to 0% capacity it is usually damaged and it's capacity will be affected.
A 6 volt battery is at 0% charge when it discharges to about 4.5 volts, so if it further discharges to 0 volts there is no magic or trickery that will bring it back to being useful.
 
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Old 10-30-14, 11:44 AM
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Thanks GregH. Just to make sure I understand your answer. You say, "When a battery discharges to 0% capacity it is usually damaged" Yes, but when does it do so--discharge to 0%?--or under what circumstances? As I had said in my title, this is indeed a NEW battery. Does this apply in my case? I received the unit. I charged it for 24 hours. the charging light was still red, meaning charging was not finished, I waited a few more hours, still red but removed it and used it--good for 4 minutes. I repeated the process--same thing except this time I disconnected on/off 6X quickly and left it charging for another 24 hrs still same results--sorry for repeating myself.
Thanks again
 
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Old 10-30-14, 01:18 PM
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Keep it and make sure that the replacement battery charges. If not the charger might be bad. Have you checked it with a DC meter? If it's the charger and that's replaced you might have 2 good batteries.
 
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Old 10-30-14, 01:45 PM
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Your 6 volt NiCad probably has 5 cells inside in series at 1.2 volts each. If one cell fails or reverses, it will drag down the rest. Some folks ( not you) will take a new battery and run the appliance until it stops, rather than charging the battery before use. That can ruin it .
 
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Old 10-30-14, 01:50 PM
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There are ways to rejuvenate a fully charged battery that suddenly stops due to "whiskers" that short between cells, but I don't think it applies to a "new battery" (that may have been made 3 yrs ago).

Just what I've read about the whiskers...no direct knowledge.

Plenty of YouTube and other info out there about rejuvenating a battery. Don't thing anyone here has ever had any luck that I remember.
 
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Old 10-30-14, 04:00 PM
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The supplied chargers are slow charge trickle type chargers. If the light comes on... the charger is good. If the batteries are old there isn't much you can do other than replacing them.
 
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Old 10-30-14, 06:24 PM
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Considering where most of the batteries seem to be made these days, are you really surprised? I would be very surprised if that wasn't a battery made in China since Dirt Devil is manufactured in China by TTI, a Chinese company. Just replace it and move on.
 
 

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