I agree 100% with Arild, Phil. I installed one of the PulseTech units on my other boat which had a pair of L-16s for the house bank and a G-24 for the starting battery. They give you an option for a "solar powered" unit but I used the standard one and just hooked it up to the house bank. The draw was minimal, especially considering that the pair of L-16s gave me close to a 379 ah house bank. Worked like a charm for many, many years.
The only reason I haven't put one on the new one (4 T-105s for the house) is I just haven't gotten around to it yet and these batteries are brand new. I fully intend to give them a call later this year and order and install one for Captiva. Come to think of it, I believe Sam Densler also mentioned them as excellent last winter or earlier this spring when this topic came up... Steve Weinstein S/V CAPTIVA 1997 Hunter 376, Hull #376 Sailing out of Oyster Bay, NY All outgoing mail protected by VIPRE A/V ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 8:58 PM Subject: [Liveaboard] Recovering supposedly dead batteries -( Was: TrojanBatteries) > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Philip Lange" >> Tested the Battery with a hydrometer today. One cell is flat, just >> bubbled its way to oblivion. The other 5 cells are well into the green. >> Spoke with a Trojan Tech this afternoon. Among other things he cautioned >> against using those battery re-conditioners. Jason said that Trojan had >> tested a number of them and none did what they were supposed to do. >> Trojan is of the opinion that all they do is take juice from the >> battery. >> Philip > > > REPLY > Did you really expect to get a rousing endorsement of a product that > might > cut into their sales? > > Pulsetech took out their patent back in 1985. They developed a product > exclusively for the US military. > It apparenly worked. After ten years of military use they got permission > to market the product and technology to the consumer market in 1995. I > was asked if I knew anything about the product in 2000. My initial > reaction > was "this must be snake oil! " but in an effort to at least give it the > benefit of the doubt I did look into it. > I worked for Xantrex at the time and I was given the go ahead to > investigate and see if it might be viable technology and perhaps > worthwhile > licencing the technology as a complement to our own charger products. > Despite my own scepticism I acquired some samples and began testing. We > had a lot of dead batteries in our engineering lab so I started with > them. > To my surprise I was able to revive about half. These were batteries > that > had been tested to destruction or left on the shelf for months if not > longer. In retrospect I suspec the recovered bateries wer likey the ones > left on shelf before ebeign totally desttroyed. I also began > disassembling > batteries to see how the platesd inside had been damaged. > > At about that time Xantrex had a major shift in corporate focus and the > project was abandoned. I continued on my own time. By this time several > copy cat products began appearing on the market. Battery Minder being one > of them. In one on one tests these did not always work as well. > However I was getting similar results of about 75% - 80% recovery of > sulfated batteries. > Batteries that were physically damaged from electrolyte depletion or > having bent and cracked plates did not respond to treatment. Sulfated > batteries that were physically intact did. > I began salvaging batteries from the disposal at marinas every spring. > After a winter of siting idle , sometimes without even being charged, a > lot > of batteries were declared dead by mechanics who did not bother to > test > them properly. > It is not snake oil nor is it rocket science. Pulsetech did at one time > publish tech paper but of late these have disappeard from public > posting. > Presumably because too many competitors were reverse engineering the > product and cutting into their sales. > > Don't take my word for it. do your own research. Puzzle out the physics > behind the claims. you'll see. > > Arild > > . > > > > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
