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Talking about battery tenders. It seems like a good idea when your batteries are not used for years or whatever time. Have you heard of Battery reconditioners? Where I work we use a lot of those industrial electric cars to move around in this large facility. Every now and then some one stores a car too long, months and/or years and kills all 6 batteries (deep cycle) and they could no longer charge up . When this happens we take the car or the batteries to our vehicle facility and give them to the mechanics who place them on battery conditioners, this restores the batteries to operational condition. I read about what happens to the batteries especially our non-deep cycle batteries; when a lead acid battery is discharged, the sulfur in the sulfuric acid forms on lead plates to make lead sulphate. This latter compound forms a hard shell around the plates when a discharge cycle has past. To break this sulphation the battery must be recharged, sulphation breaks down and returns to the water to make sulphuric acid again. When many discharge cycles have past especially deep cycles, several deep discharges or one long painful drawn out discharge (long storage) sulphation will be thick and hard , the surphur will almost not be present in the battery "acid" and most of this liquid will be pure water. That is why when you use those densometers on a dead battery it gives you the density of "pure" water, that is when the battery is deamed as dead and no longer rechargeable. The addition of new battery acid usually has no effect on reviving the battery. The used battery shops use very powerful battery chargers or small battery conditioners to break down sulphation from the plates of "dead " batteries, after this the battery has clean plates and full power (current) to drive the things it was designed for. The conditioners pass current that is oscillating at 1000 hz pulses to break the sulphate down, kind of like a sonic cleaner but with vibrating electricity instead of sound waves. This will not work if the plates are shorted or worn. Throughout the long life of a battery the plates will wear by corrosion of the charging and discharging and eventually a piece may break off thus causing a short circuit between two plates. The deep cycle battery has less plates but they are very much thicker (also have less current (amp hours)) but they can take many deep discharges and charges. These are used in boats, mobile homes, tractors ,electric cars etc. Our batteries are of higher current and can take very few deep discharge cycles or on long one. These plates are thinner and many more in quantity. If good long life (always charged) or harsh vibration (off road) is experienced, the plates will break pieces off and short out. The spiral winded sandwich lead acid battery design prevents this breakage by using spongy material in between each plate that is winded up in a spiral sandwich form. These act like a solid piece and does not suffer from shorts. The military started using these in their off road vehicles many years ago. With our regular type batteries you can use a battery conditioner if you wish to save your dead "new" battery . Conditioners are on the internet and range from 90 bucks to hundreds. LEON MARTINEZ 1969 SQUAREBACK SAN DIEGO AND TIJUANA ------------------------------------------------------------------- List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list or mailto:help@vwtype3.org