NiCad Recondtioning Secret for sale: Gimmick?

chesspupil

10 µW
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NiCad Recondtioning Secret for sale: Gimmick?
I am curious if anyone knows a about these sold called rejuvinators that are sold on ebay

Claims over 90% effective.
seller is "mr._money_saver"
Repair Fix For RYOBI 9.6 12 14.4 18 Volt Tool Battery seller is "mr._money_saver"
Repair Fix For MILWAUKEE 12 14.4 18 Volt Tool Battery

Here is another seller
seller is "plansmon"

This one Promises a 100% moneyback guarantee:

EZ BATTERY FIX 4 Milwaukee 9.6 12 14.4 18 24 volt v 18v
note you can but justabout any battery name in the search strings above.

Im suprised I didnt see anything related to this at the battery university site.

Dispite the dangers has anyone tried this?
 
" Make money $$$ sunday sunday sunday.... here only.. bling bling " yeah.. right.

But on a serious note, nothing secret about it.. most people with nicad power tool batteries who use them once a year just need to cycle them a few times.

Some techniques relating to " shorting " the cells with a voltage boost to burn off deposits something something ... but not worth the money.. just look around on google and you will find the secret explained ( ie: someone puchased it and posted it online i'm sure of it )
 
http://advice.thisoldhouse.com/showthread.php?t=3623

Quote "

One of the characteristics of a Ni-Cad cell is a tendency to create "dendrites", which are tiny build-ups of metallic particles inside the cell which effectively create a short circuit that gets worse with time. Excessive charging or discharging(especially the cheap cells)aggravates the situation. Dendrites can be burned off by 'flashing' a higher voltsge and current across the cell. This is the 'repair' method you hear so much of and it works for this condition. Observe correct polarity and use a car battery but don't apply the current for long, just a few brushes like you're striking a match. Too long and the cell can explode. Remember we're talking cells, not the entire battery, and each cell must be flashed indivudially. And keep your distance and sparks far from the hydrogen at the car battery; remember the Hindenburg? Nuff said!

Which brings us to the actual repairing and rebuilding of Ni-Cad packs. If you have one or two bad cells you can replace them with like cells from another old pack, thus restoring it. If several are bad replace them all(saving the good ones for the above purpose later on if you wish). From the factory most batteries are connected through stainless steel ribbons which are spot-welded on. This is done as overheating a cell will ruin it or cause it to explode. The spotwelding is done so rapidly no heat buildup occurs. Soldering is possible here but it takes a lot of heat applied quickly and removed quickly, as well as a good flux. Roughening the surfaces with sandpaper seems to help. As a Ham radio nut I've soldered extensively and this is the toughest soldering job I know of. The internet has plans for making your own spot welder but I haven't built one so you're on your own there. The specialized spot welders for ......... ....................... "


Google Ruwlz ( hey.. i just made a word !! )!!!!
 
chesspupil said:
NiCad Recondtioning Secret for sale: Gimmick?
I am curious if anyone knows a about these sold called rejuvinators that are sold on ebay

Claims over 90% effective.
seller is "mr._money_saver"
Repair Fix For RYOBI 9.6 12 14.4 18 Volt Tool Battery seller is "mr._money_saver"
Repair Fix For MILWAUKEE 12 14.4 18 Volt Tool Battery

Here is another seller
seller is "plansmon"

This one Promises a 100% moneyback guarantee:

EZ BATTERY FIX 4 Milwaukee 9.6 12 14.4 18 24 volt v 18v
note you can but justabout any battery name in the search strings above.

Im suprised I didnt see anything related to this at the battery university site.

Dispite the dangers has anyone tried this?

Chesspupil,
I was also curious about these "reconditioning" techniques for sale. I could not find any credible support for "zapping" of NiCd cells. I did, however find this 2001 article that had support from the US military and decided to try out :

http://www.buchmann.ca/Article10-Page1.asp

Read about the differences between "exercising" and "reconditioning".

I tried the reconditioning recommended on several NiCd cells showing barely ANY voltage. I took a good 1.2v cell and jumped the weak one to over 1v. I then hooked a tiny light bulb up to the weak cell and very slowly let the cell go down to .6v as recommended (the bulb was almost not even glowing). The discharge took several hours. Then, did another recharge of the weak cell up to 1.2v. I ended doing this same treatment to 8 (almost dead) cells to rebuild my Makita 9.6v stick pack. My Makita charger now recognizes the stick pack and will charge it as normal. After a few exercising cycles (after doing the cell-by-cell reconditioning), the stick is now THE STRONGEST I have. I did side-by-side tests with this reconditioned stick pack in my driver drill, screwing and unscrewing in a whole box of 3 1/2" wood screws.

This procedure is FREE, and is utterly amazing! This really works and I was very pleased. :mrgreen:
 
Added---------I actually took the cells down to .4v, as recommended by the US Army to recondition.

-- Tom_D
 
Tom_D

I am curious how the processes mentioed on ebay used a car battery.

Your link was still very informative.
 
chesspupil said:
Tom_D

I am curious how the processes mentioed on ebay used a car battery.

Your link was still very informative.

Well I've never paid for the info on ebay, but I've seen a similar technique using a car battery where the cell was just zapped in pulses with 12v.
Like I posted, I went with the US Army and Navy recommendations and it worked.

Tom_D :mrgreen:
 
What was the reconditioning discharge current in mA in taking the voltage down to 0.4V/cell?
 
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: Wow, this thread is over 3 1/2 years old, but the info is still relevant! All I can tell you is that I took the cells down to .4v using a tiny light bulb, then brought the charge up to 1.2, using another healthy cell. Once reconditioned, I then "exercised" them by charging and discharging, once built back into an 8 cell stick. I have done this several time since. The only cells this doesn't work for is cells that have a dead short.
-- Tom_D
 
Hmm, sounds like you discharge to 0.4V at less than 0.2C rate if I can trust the following from another blog:
I'm cross posting this comment here too: http://www.instructables.com/id/Revive-Nicad-Batteries-by-Zapping-with-a-Welder/
I've seen the zapping approach mentioned before, but I wonder if anyone has compared this with the simpler method used by most NiCd battery reconditioners: for more severe crystalline formation, discharging to 0.4V/cell at a 0.2C rate, or applying a periodic exercise cycle to the cells every <3 months to minimize new crystalline formation
More information can be found here:
http://www.buchmann.ca/Chap10-page2.asp
The US an Dutch military (among other groups) have studied this quite a bit:
http://www.buchmann.ca/Chap10-page3.asp
Pictures of the crystals can be seen here:
http://www.buchmann.ca/chap10-page1.asp

I have seen 'zapping' used for slightly increasing performance (voltage rise) of cells used in RC racing communities, but am not aware of any quantitative evidence. The zapping is likely breaking up some of the crystals, but I wonder if it does as thorough a job as a deep discharge (?). New batteries have ~1 micron crystals, a battery in need of conditioning has crystals of ~10+ microns, an a deep discharge 0.4V/cell can break crystals down to ~3-5 microns - but I'm not sure what the high voltage pulse methods are providing (?)
more information on zapping here: http://www.buchmann.ca/Chap10-page4.asp
Zapping with a welder or a flash unit certainly sounds cooler than deep discharge with a load, but may be more trouble an less effective.
 
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