I have a Trojan J185G, 12 Volt flooded lead acid cell battery with 1 dead cell in it.

The dead cell is the one connected to the negative terminal post.

I would like to know if it is possible to bypass this dead cell and was thinking along the lines of the following:

Option 1: Drain the elctrolyte out of the dead cell. Tap a new post through the casing and into the connecting busbar on the positive side of the dead cell.

Option 2: Replace the electrolyte with a conducting medium such as salt water. (further research needed)

Option 3: Scrap the battery. (48Kg, R10.50 / kg = R504)

Option 4: Other suggestions from Power Forum would be appreciated.

The battery was manufactured sometime in 2015 and only sold in June 2017. It was used in a traditional Axpert solar inverter system.

Why do you want to go to so much effort on this one battery?

Does a thread get so old that you can't make any further comments? It's not a bad idea..

Anyway Carl, what did you do?

I had a deep cycle wet battery recently that had one cell shorted. I've been informed that the reason for this is due to sulfation.  My question is why is only one cell sulfated??

I read an article once where they did exactly that in one of our neighbouring countries - reviving dead batteries by replacing only the cells that went bad. In order to do that you would need some donor cells, so it only becomes viable once you have multiple dead batteries.

53 minutes ago, P1000 said:

I read an article once where they did exactly that in one of our neighbouring countries - reviving dead batteries by replacing only the cells that went bad. In order to do that you would need some donor cells, so it only becomes viable once you have multiple dead batteries.

How did they open the battery??

3 minutes ago, Richard Mackay said:

How did they open the battery??

I was wondering that myself, but that was not really discussed in the article. Come to think of it - it must have been in a Car magazine many years ago...

 

My best guess is that they only butcher the cell in question, and close it back up by any means - being rural Africa...

Edited February 28, 20205 yr by P1000

I saw one recently and for the life of me I can't remember where, but basically they had cut the top out replaced the cell with a donor one then literally had sewn it up and sealed with fiberglass resin! 

1 hour ago, P1000 said:

I read an article once where they did exactly that in one of our neighbouring countries - reviving dead batteries by replacing only the cells that went bad. In order to do that you would need some donor cells, so it only becomes viable once you have multiple dead batteries.

 

 Raylite batteries used to sell rebuild batteries 1960 s . I don't now when it stopped . I can remember the was 2 battery stands . New  and rebuild . The older tipe of battery case was better for rebuilds .

1 hour ago, P1000 said:

My best guess is that they only butcher the cell in question, and close it back up by any means - being rural Africa...

One would like to see a YouTube video of this..