Recovering batteries with Da Pimp
Before
we hauled
the golf cart back to our core homestead, we were hoping the only
problem with it was bad batteries. As I wrote this winter, we
originally bought the golf cart used, and the batteries have had some
hard days' work since then, so it's not surprising they
weren't holding much of a charge. Rather than splurging
hundreds of dollars on replacement batteries right off the bat, we
decided to see if we could recondition the ones we have.
Da Pimp is a battery-saver dreamed
up by half of the Holy Scrap Hot Springs
duo (who, in the interest of full disclosure, I consider
e-friends). I have a hard time wrapping my head around
electricity, so you'll have to go to their site to read how the unit
works, but suffice it to say that Da Pimp will extend the life of
problematic rechargeable drill batteries, golf cart batteries, and more.
We gave the unit a try
on a drill battery that Bradley had pronounced dead --- it wasn't
holding a charge like he wanted. However, it turns out the
battery wasn't really dead. It started out at 16.6 volts, and I
charged it to 120% of its rated voltage (per instructions) with 
Da Pimp. The next day,
the battery had only dropped to 19.5 (above its rated voltage of 18),
so it seemed to be holding a charge pretty well. I gave it
another charge with Da Pimp just to be on the safe side, and two weeks
later, the battery is holding steady at 19.4 volts.
Mark plans to give Da
Pimp a real test and workout with our problematic golf cart batteries
soon, but I'm already happy with the unit. It's an elegant little
device, easy to use even for electrophobes like me, and I figure if it
simply extends the life of our drill batteries, it will pay for itself
in a few years. Plus, I love microbusiness products, especially
those produced by homesteaders. So I have no hesitation giving Da
Pimp two thumbs up.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Thank you for the write up on Da Pimp.
Nice work bringing back the drill battery. You can do multiple at a time if you want to chain them in series. I often charge 4 18v packs at a time for my partners electric weed wacker.
Please watch the lead-acid video I put out last month before starting the golf cart. When working on a golf cart I like to find the weakest battery first. There are two ways to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JIzSxqWids&feature=share&list=UUMWPAE9QtcLAYhyc6Qdssfw
1) Put Da Pimp on each battery one at a time (they can still all be connected together). Note the voltage before charging begins and after. The voltage jump is indicative to how beat down the battery is. A small jump is a good a big jump is bad. Charging will reduce the jump.
2) Open the caps on the most suspect batteries and dip the volt meter probes in each cell. You want to see if each cell is roughly 2v - 2.5v each. You'll want to see the video to understand this better, but it's possible you have a single dead cell in there and you want to get that battery out and trade it with a local auto shop for another (maybe from their dead pile of "cores").
Measuring all the cells and charging the batteries one-by-one is a good idea, since every battery is different. You need to make sure that none of the batteries is defective. Have you checked that the batteries haven't been frozen over the winter?
You can find guidelines and background info about charging lead-acid batteries here.