Battery Saver

[1BDPRECEDENT]

If you look closely in the right hand side of the picture you will see my BLS. I had an '08 set of Trojans that were doing pretty good and hoped adding this little gem would help me squeeze a little more out of them. After about four days of use it seemed after a full charge I had more torque. So initially I thought there was an improvement and then it seemed to level off. Within two weeks of use I was buying a new pack. I had about nine cells dead and it looked like something had oozed up between the plates and flowed across the top. Since I replaced the pack I have not used it again for fear of having to dump another $700 into a new pack.

[chicopopo]

Ive used a simular product for 12v batteries and after charging 8 batteries only 2 were not chargable. Thats alot of $ saved from getting new ones. Modified magazine did a big test this year with 3 diff brands and they all did very well. I dont keep it on the batteries, just maintain them every few months.

[trigger1937]

I have both of these technologies and I have not reached a decision on either of them. I purchased the BLS several years ago to try and revive 6-8volt US batts in my Yamaha. After 6 months I did not really see any improvement, but that was probably becuase my Yamaha charger kept failing to full charge the batteries. Then I found that the contacts that pass the current in the internal relay were burned and replaced it. By that time the Batts were getting week. Since my wife and I play golf so much we could no longer depend on those batts so I got a new set and switch the US batt to my backup cart which did not get much use. It was a good 1996 Club Car with a good charger. When I did the switch I took the BLS off and put it away because that cart got very little use and the BLS would suck power out all of the time.

The bad new is that the New Batts in the Yamaha started failing within 2 years and I lay it all on the charger. I finally got rid of both carts and got a 2008 Precedent. I should point out that after two year of very light usage on the US Batts and regular charging with the Club Car charger, they ended up with more power that those in the Yamaha,... and I had done nothing different. Only the charger was different.

Now for info on the technology. I still have the BLS unit (48 volt) and will probably do some testing on it. I also have a Vector 12 Volt auto charger that I purchase for our Boat and it has many functions such as charging at 2, 5, or 25 amp, voltage check, Alternator check, Battery cell Equaliztion, and Battery Desulating.

Several people have suggested that if Desulfation really worked then Trojan or others would just put it in the OBC or controller. The bad news is they would never do that. The desulfation cycle takes 24 hours non stop, and the Equaliztion process takes the same amount of time. The technology cost $$$ and the payoff may not be that great and golf courses would not go for it. I have not tried either on my Trojans yet but I have run the 12 volt charger on two batteries that where not coming up to charge via the Club Car charger. I set my Vector charger on one battery at a time at 10amps (isolated) and it ran all night and till 10am the next morning. The battery came up to 12.66 volts. However, the #1 cell was still not charged up to the green but all 5 other cells were very good in the green. Keep in mind these are 12 volt Club Car batteries (trojan) with a date of 5-2010. The came off a golf couse in the Palm Desert area and it is a 2008 cart so the batteries may have already been replaced once. I suspect they had received very poor care so I'm taking my time trying to bring them back up to good performance.

In looking into the cells I can see alot of sulfate on the surface and some of the platets have several inches of brown 'Sugar" covering,..which has got to be bad. If anyone has ideas on how to get rid of this let me know. When I get a chance I'm going to try the Desulfate function of my Vector charger.