In this article we investigate 2 simple yet powerful battery desulfator circuits, which can be used to effectively to remove and prevent desulfation in lead acid batteries. The first method uses PWM pulses, while the second method implements a ordinary bridge rectifier for the same.
Sulphation in lead acid batteries is quite common and a big problem because the process completely hampers the efficiency of the battery. Charging a lead acid battery through PWM method is said to initiate desulfation, helping recover battery efficiency to some levels.
What is Sulphation in Lead Acid Batteries
Sulphation is a process where the sulfuric acid present inside lead acid batteries react with the plates overtime to form layers of white powder like substance over the plates.
This layer deposit seriously deteriorates the chemical actions inside the battery while charging or discharging making the battery inefficient with its power delivering capabilities.
Normally this happens when the battery is not being used for long periods and the charging, discharging processes are not done very frequently.
Unfortunately there's no effective way of tackling this problem, however it has been researched that the jammed sulphur deposits over an effected battery may be broken down to some extent by subjecting the battery to high current bursts while charging it.
These high current charging pulses should be well optimized through some control circuit and should be diagnosed carefully while implementing the process.
1) Using PWM
Implementing the method through PWM controlled circuit is probably the best way of doing it.
Here's an excerpt from wikipedia, which says,
" Desulfation is achieved by high current pulses produced between the terminals of the battery. This technique, also called pulse conditioning, breaks down the sulfate crystals that are formed on the battery plates. Short high current pulses tend to work best. Electronic circuits are used to regulate the pulses of different widths and frequency of high current pulses. These can also be used to automate the process since it takes a long period of time to desulfate a battery fully."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ABattery_regenerator
The circuit of a PWM battery charger discussed here can be considered as the best design for carrying out the above desulfation process.
How the Circuit Functions
The IC 555 is configured and used in its standard PWM control mode.
The output from the IC is appropriately amplified through a couple transistors so that it is able to deliver the said high current pulses to the battery which needs to be desulfated.
The PWM control may be set at low "mark" ratio for implementing a desulfation process.
Conversely if the circuit is intended to be used for charging normal batteries, the PWM control may be adjusted for generating pulses with equal mark/space ratios or as per the desired specs.
The controlling of the PWM will solely depend on an individuals personal preference, so should be done correctly as per the battery manufacturers instructions.
Failing to follow the correct procedures may lead to fatal accidents with the battery, due to a possible explosion of the battery.
An input current level equal to the battery AH level may be chosen initially, and reduced gradually if a positive response is detected from the battery.
2) Desulfating with a Transformer and Bridge Rectifier Circuit
To make this simplest yet effective battery desulfator with charger circuit you would just require a suitably rated transformer, and a bridge rectifier. The design not only desulfates a battery, it keeps the new batteries from developing this issue and simultaneously charges them to the desired levels.
At the beginning of this post we learned how to desulfate using PWM concept, however a deeper research shows that the process of desulfating a battery may not necessarily require a precision PWM circuit, the supply just needs to be oscillating at some given rate, and that's enough to initiate the desulfating process (in most cases)... provided the battery is still within the curing range and is not beyond the reviving state.
So what would you need to make this super simple battery desulfator circuit which will also charge the given battery, and additionally possess the ability to keep the new batteries from developing the sulfation issue?
A suitably rated transformer, a bridge rectifier and an ammeter are all that's needed for the purpose.
The transformer voltage must be rated approximately 25% more than the battery voltage rating, that is for a 12V battery a 15 to 16V supply may be used across the battery terminals.
The current can be approximately equal to the Ah rating of the battery for those which need to be revived and are badly sulfated, for the good batteries the charging current could be around 1/10th or 2/10th of their Ah rating. The bridge rectifier must be rated according to the specified or calculated charging levels.
Desulfator Schematic using Bridge Rectifier
How Bridge Rectifier Operates as a Desulfator
The diagram above shows the bare minimum requirement for the proposed battery desulfator with charger circuit.
We can see the most standard or rather crude AC to DC power supply set up, where the transformer steps down the mains voltage to 15V AC for the specified 12V battery.
Before it can reach the battery terminals, the 15V AC goes through the rectification process through the attached bridge rectifier module and gets converted into a full-wave 15V DC.
With a 220V mains input, the frequency before the bridge would be 50Hz (standard grid spec), and after rectification this is supposed to become double that is at 100Hz. For a 110V AC input this would be around 120Hz.
This happens because the bridge network inverts the lower half cycles of the stepped down AC and combines it with the upper half cycles, to finally produce a 100Hz or 120 Hz pulsating DC.
It is this pulsating DC which becomes responsible for shaking-up or knocking down the sulfate deposits on the internal plates of the particular battery.
For a good battery this 100 Hz pulsed charging supply ensures that the sulfation ceases to occur on the first place and thus helps to keep the plates relatively free from this issue.
You can also see an ammeter connected in series with the supply input, it provides a direct indication of he current consumption by the battery and provides a "LIVE update" of the charging procedure, and whether or not anything positive might be happening.
For good batteries this will provide the start to finish info regarding the charging process, that is initially the needle of the meter will indicate the specified charging rate by the battery and may be gradually expected to drop down to the zero mark, and that's when the charging supply needs to be disconnected.
A more sophisticated approach can be employed for enabling an automatic cut-off once the battery is fully charge by employing an opamp based automatic battery full charge cut off circuit (the second diagram)