Wiring circuit

If you own a motorcycle, a motor home, a caravan, a lawn mover, a day cruiser or maybe a vintage car you must at some point had to write off a lead acid battery. When a battery is improperly charged or allowed to self-discharge as occurs during non-use, sulphate crystals build up on the batterys plates. The sulphate preventing the battery from being fully charged and therefore it is unable to deliver its full capacity. When trying to charge a battery in this state it only gets hot and looses water, the gravity of the electrolyte is not increasing to its normal “full charge” state. The only thing you do is killing the battery completely. If a battery has a resting voltage of at least 1.8 Volts/cell and no cells are shorted, desulphation of its plates can be done. This circuit is an add-on and part for a modification of a normal charger and it takes care of the sulphate problem. Pulse Charger for Reviving Tired Lead Acid Batteries Circuit diagram: CAUTION: Before you begin a project like this remember: mains voltage is dangerous so if you are not 100% sure of what you’re doing consult a friend who has the skills or, don’t do it at all ! The project: get hold of an old charger, big or small it’s your choice depending on the size of batteries you normally handle (bigger is better). There are some tricks to boost the performance if you need it. Start by ripping out everything except the transformer and the rectifier. Some older chargers are equipped with fin rectifiers, which have high voltage drop and must be replaced. Replace with a rugged bridge rectifier that can cope with the amperes. All wiring on secondary should be short and heavy wire. The rectifier should be bolted to the chassis to keep cool. If the charger have a high/low switch it’s a bonus, if not you can in some cases add a few turns of wire on the secondary winding. The circuit; a 14-stage ripple counter and oscillator IC 4060 produce a pulse, which is the heartbeat of the circuit. The pulse is feed to the 555 timer that deicide the length of the active output. With the switch you can select long or short pulse output. The output of the 555 timer triggers the zero-cross optoisolator triac driver MOC 3041 via a transistor. This gives the charger transformer a soft start via the triac and the snubber circuit. A small power supply is necessary for the circuit and consists of T1 a transformer 15V 0.1A secondary, a bridge rectifier, a regulator and two caps. Because this project include a charger that is (X) the outcome can differ in performance from one case to another. However this do not mean that your project doesn’t work, but the efficiency can vary. Some notes the snubbercap is a high voltage AC type (X) and the resistors on the mains side is at least 0.5W type. Use a triac that can take 400V+ and 10A+, I use BTA 25.600 but this is overkill in most cases. No PCB sorry! How it works: Well the short version. The object is to get the cell voltage high enough for the sulphate to dissolve without boiling or melting the battery. This is achieved by applying higher voltage for shorter periods and let the battery rest for a while. The pulses on short range is about 0.5s on / 3s off and the long pulse range is 1.4s on / 2s off. These times can vary depending on component tolerances. Start on long pulse and if you discover “boiling” (more than with normal charging) in the electrolyte switch to short puls. Don’t leave the process unattended, at least until you know how your specific version of this project turns out. I built ver.1 of this circuit some 10 years ago and have experimented with it but I’m sure someone can improve it further.

Good Luck! Ante
Ante135@hotmail.com

This schema was created for digital cameras. Its known the digital cameras have considerable power consumption. For example my camera Minolta E223 requires approximately 800 mA. In practice a mains power supply or high capacity NiMH accumulators (batteries) can satisfy this demand. Batteries Charger & PSU Circuit diagram: This schema consists of two parts, charger and adapter. The transformer, rectifier bridge and buffer condensator are common. Adapter is quite simply its main part is an adjustable voltage regulator LM 317 according to usual setting. Output is a suitable for camera jack plug. Voltage can be adjusted in range 2-9 V. In the charger schema a 7805 fixed voltage regulator works as current generator assured constant current during charging. This charging current can be adjusted with the 100 /1W potentiometer in range about 50-300 mA indicated by a small current measuring instrument. From one to four batteries can be charged simultaneously. The switch must be set according to number of batteries, and charging current of batteries given by manufacturer must be adjusted. This schema doesnt measure charging time and charging condition of batteries. Manufacturers give charging time, usually 14-16 h. I solved this problem with a simply, cheap mechanical mains timer. I think its accuracy is sufficient.  

Sandor Dobany from Hungary
dsandor@minimail.hu