Bringing Dead Trojan Deep Cycle Batteries to Life
Had a big pleasant surprise this week. I had lent a friend my Electric powered golf cart to use a year ago. He called the other day to inform me the batteries were dead and wouldn't take a charge. I went to investigate the problem and found all 6 Trojan 12vdc batteries were dead alright. All of them were absolutely dry as a bone due to his "maintenance" program. I thought for sure they were goners and $200 bucks times six were the remedy. I filled each one with one gallon of DI water to bring them up to level. They wouldn't begin to charge after that. Another friend in the construction business who has a lot of equipment and lots of batteries told me what to try. Jump a full 12 volt battery to the dead one that won't take a charge and at the same time put a charger on the dead one, and then remove the jumper battery. It worked, and the battery then began to charge to full voltage. Each battery came up to normal charged level using this technique. The cart was then run around the golf course for two 18 hole runs and only needed a short charging cycle to come back to full, so I think the batteries must have been degraded but it doesn't look like much.I have disposed of many batteries in the past which I now wonder if they could have lasted a while longer. Has anyone else ever used this method? It sure is worth trying.
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