Bringing Golf Cart Batteries back to life

[GGibson]

Thru my neglect I let the 2, 6v golf batteries on my trailer go almost dry. All during this time of neglect the trailer was hooked up to a 30 amp power supply. I refilled the batteries and they indicate full charge but I'm not sure how well they will hold a charge in normal use due to damage. Is there some recommended approach to help these batteries out? Say charge at 15 Volts to clean the plates??? I'm not sure where I'd get the 15 volt supply if that's the answer. Any suggestions out there??

 

[Casey Balvert]

I am not too sure that there is much you can do. If they were almost dry, there is the possibility that you were overcharging and boiled the water out of them. If they don't perform properly, I would suggest replacing them with a couple from Sam's Club for 50 bucks. Also check your charger for overcharging. Many of the less expensive units are not properly regulated.



Casey

 

[Fireman]

Check out the Trojan batteries, they have greater capacity and cost only slightly more, I was truely suprised.



Fireman

 

[Matt42]

Originally posted by GGibson

Thru my neglect I let the 2, 6v golf batteries on my trailer go almost dry. All during this time of neglect the trailer was hooked up to a 30 amp power supply. I refilled the batteries and they indicate full charge but I'm not sure how well they will hold a charge in normal use due to damage. Is there some recommended approach to help these batteries out? Say charge at 15 Volts to clean the plates??? I'm not sure where I'd get the 15 volt supply if that's the answer. Any suggestions out there??

The batteries are probably toast, and burned toast at that. I had the same problem with the golf cart batteries that I tried, which was made worse by the ambient 115F summers.



Something that may work in the short term is to drop one 325 mg aspirin tablet into each cell, then put the batteries on charge. Don't use buffered aspirin, or aceteminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin). Just use the cheapo generic aspirin; the kind you get for fifty cents at Walgreens. I don't know how it works, just that it does, and I've been able to get an extra six months out of some batteries.



I agree that the electrolyte has boiled away. There's a solar panel outfit in Scottsdale, AZ that sells special cell caps for golf cart batteries that will capture the vapor, condense it, and return it into the battery. They aren't cheap.



I ended up replacing the golf cart batteries wired in series with pair of parallel wired four year old Optima red top starting batteries I took out of my truck. I know that's not what they are intended for, but so far, these four year old batteries have been better than anything I've used before.