Desulfator Engine, Heavy duty, DIY, Overnight results.

[Mosaic]

Hi all:
I'm starting a Hackaday project to open source my proven desulfator engine. This is a pulse charge engine for batteries outside the vehicle as it delivers 250W RMS capability to the battery with up to 800A pulses.
https://hackaday.io/project/25741-desulfator-engine-for-climate-change-mitigation

I am not open sourcing the whole automation project but I will support those who want to do it.
This is for the DIY folks who need a stable pulse engine they can add controls to and experiment with. The battery cell pics are a b4 and after of the same cell showing the improvements.

 

[Mosaic]

Ok, the first schematic and PCB layout are posted as are some ref. docs about design etc.

 

[dougy83]

Hello. The schematic presumably shows a 6.6mF capacitor bank switched across a lead acid battery. What voltage are the capacitors charged to, and how frequently are they discharged into the battery?

 

[Mosaic]

36V, 400 to 700Hz.

 

[dougy83]

36V, 400 to 700Hz.

Thanks. Wow, that's a lot of power. 36V discharged to 12V battery (say pulse cutout at 20V) at 400 Hz is >1kW. I might dial it back a bit and try with some dodgy SLA batteries I have needing treatment.

 

[Mosaic]

Well, it might seem so, but a substantial amount of the pulses are lost to parasitics such as connector & cable impedance as well as in circuit impedance. Capacitor ESR must be kept to a minmum, I tested a number of capacitors before settling on the suitable type.
Have a look at the 'scope trace for a pulse and you can see the actual power delivery. In reality I see around 33% efficency based on what the battery actually accepts when subtracting the associated heating losses from impedance inside the battery as well as the power delivery subsystems.

 

[shortbus=]

Mosaic Would it be possible for you to post a JPEG of the schematic here, please? I don't use Eagle and it doesn't open with other CAD software for me. Thank you.

 

[jpanhalt]

EAGLE exports directly to PDF too, which might be better.

JOhn

 

[Mosaic]

Mosaic Would it be possible for you to post a JPEG of the schematic here, please? I don't use Eagle and it doesn't open with other CAD software for me. Thank you.

Here's a 150
dpi schematic.
EagleCAD offers a free use license for viiewing and printing schematics and layouts

 

[shortbus=]

EagleCAD offers a free use license for viiewing and printing schematics and layouts

I thought they make you pay now? Unless you have a tie to a school. Like John said, a PDF would be good too.

 

[tomizett]

As ever, Mosaic, I tip my hat to your skill and hard work. It's heartening to see someone put this much effort into a project with such laudable goals.
it's also very satisfying to see something we've seen discussed so much here on ETO reach a stage of "completion" .

 

[Mosaic]

The hackaday project link in the 1st post now carries the PDFs of the toner transfer layouts for easy DIY and parts placement pdfs.

 

[flatfootskier]

I'm going to have to build one of these...

Many thanks for the effort you've put in.

 

[Mosaic]

The Drain and source traces require buttressing with solder braid or # 18AWG bare wire to carry the pulse currents.

 

[Mosaic]

The commercial desulfator just went global...first order out of West Africa, even before commercial product launch!
Prepaid, of course...

 

[flatfootskier]

The commercial desulfator just went global...first order out of West Africa, even before commercial product launch!
Prepaid, of course...

I am African Prince. My uncle has shipping container containing solid gold Rolls Royce stuck in shipping container in your country. If you send me free desulfator I bring you big reward....?

Keep up the good work. I'm hoping to build later this year.

 

[Mosaic]

This time the prince pre-paid me....
Jamaica recycler just prepaid as well, and the MoU with the local assembly form isn't done yet. I guess that means there is serious demand given 0 advertising other than a little tech blog.

 

[kiloamp]

Very nice project, only have one question what is the duty cycle at the 400-700 Hz.

 

[Mosaic]

Duty cycle is variable to throttle the overall current delivery to match battery size to pulse strength.

 

[kiloamp]

Thank you for the answer, makes sense I wasn't thinking of the battery size just time for the caps to charge.