Cheap stick welders

[fortee9er]

I am looking to buy a cheap (under $100) stick welder. I saw a video from Uncle Tony's Garage where he revived an old battery with a stick welder as charger.
I have about a dozen old batteries sitting around that I could use on my cars. Call it an experiment. I already have a Miller mig welder so this would not be my only welder.
I would appreciate hearing from you guys (and gals) who have experience with these sub $100 welders.
Thank you

 

[mark-NJ]

I have some experience with cheap welders....as welders

I have zero experience with cheap welders...being used to reconstitute dead batteries, so I realy can't help. That said, in my experience, once the electrodes are sulphated, there's really no coming back. I'm not sure zapping a sulphated battery is a great idea...

This kinda explains it better than I can:

Operation of Lead Acid Batteries | PVEducation

www.pveducation.org

As the above equations show, discharging a battery causes the formation of lead sulfate crystals at both the negative and positive terminals, as well as the release of electrons due to the change in valence charge of the lead. The formation of this lead sulfate uses sulfate from the sulfuric acid electrolyte surrounding the battery. As a result, the electrolyte becomes less concentrated. Full discharge would result in both electrodes being covered with lead sulfate and water rather than sulfuric acid surrounding the electrodes. At full discharge, the two electrodes are the same material, and there is no chemical potential or voltage between the two electrodes. In practice, however, discharging stops at the cutoff voltage, long before this point. The battery should not, therefore, be discharged below this voltage.

 

[seber]

The method requires a DC welder. That pretty much eliminates the cheap part.

 

[mark-NJ]

Is this the video?

At 1:36 his explanation is, in my experience, misleading. The "crusted over" plates doesn't "...prevent the acid from reacting with the lead".

The "crusted over" is a sulphur reaction with the lead [ 2PbSO4]. First, it's not really a "crust", it's a new compound that's part of the lead. Second, and more importantly, he doesn't mention that the source of the sulphur is the acid itself. As the 2PbSO4 is formed, the acid (H2SO4) is depleted to water (The chemistry is in the link in my previous post), so there's no acid (or greatly weakened acid) to react with the lead. Short of changing out the acid, there's not a lot of hope for bringing a deeply-sulphated battery back to life. You may bounce a 12V valence for a while, but reconstitute the battery to a fully useful state? My experience says "no"...

 

[Pontiac787]

Recycle the old batteries and use the cash to buy 1 good one

 

[mark-NJ]

That's a pretty good idea...

 

[mike93lx]

The method requires a DC welder. That pretty much eliminates the cheap part.

Took me less than 5 seconds to find a "250a" DC stick welder for $70 on Amazon...

 

[Zewnten]

So we had a fellow who used to be the battery guru, he worked at a battery recycling place. His thoughts were a hard charge to 80% over a few hours, 4 or 5 meant a battery could be saved. If not the crud from the plates and acid had piled up too deep and likely was causing a short between plates. If a battery passed his first test then he would low amp charge the remaining 20% for an equal amount of time to the first.

Obviously these batteries would never be as good as new and he said they usually on come back to about 3/4 of what they used to do but if you're broke why not. Smart chargers also have this feature though so why the welder?

 

[fortee9er]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I wound up buying one from Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0914S4D1T/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[fortee9er]

I have several project cars with no battery or dead battery. They are all different sizes. I would go broke buying new batteries for all of them.

So we had a fellow who used to be the battery guru, he worked at a battery recycling place. His thoughts were a hard charge to 80% over a few hours, 4 or 5 meant a battery could be saved. If not the crud from the plates and acid had piled up too deep and likely was causing a short between plates. If a battery passed his first test then he would low amp charge the remaining 20% for an equal amount of time to the first.

Obviously these batteries would never be as good as new and he said they usually on come back to about 3/4 of what they used to do but if you're broke why not. Smart chargers also have this feature though so why the welder?

 

[Walkers]

Unfortunately anything you are going to do with a welder is going to be short lived, and you have the bonus of a high risk ov exploding the battery by applying such high voltages.
There is a safer method of draining the acid and using epsom salt as the electrolyte. I have done it before, long time ago. It works, but does not last forever.

 

[fortee9er]

Unfortunately anything you are going to do with a welder is going to be short lived, and you have the bonus of a high risk ov exploding the battery by applying such high voltages.
There is a safer method of draining the acid and using epsom salt as the electrolyte. I have done it before, long time ago. It works, but does not last forever.

Neither do the batteries. I buy my batteries from Walmart because they usually expire before the guaranty period. Years ago I bought an Optima red top battery which did last a long time. Based on my experience I purchased a newer Yellow top which died prematurely. Fortunately I got a refund on that one. No more Optimas. Now I use battery packs to test my project cars while I try to get them running.

 

[fortee9er]

The method requires a DC welder. That pretty much eliminates the cheap part.

The welder I purchased is a DC wlder.