My experience with the respected Batteryminder 12248 was not not different than if I had applied a regular charger for the same amount of time. I was not so militant about taking specific gravity readings then, all I can say is that after leaving it on for a week, I could detect no change in voltage held under load for the same amp hours removed.
I've certainly read the reviews by those who claim to have restored useless batteries to 'like new' performance, but My experience says otherwise.
I'm sure any efficacy depends on the battery condition. My battery might just have shedded plate material and no amount of pulse desulfation is going to restore plate material that has fallen to the bottom of the cells.
Perhaps on a battery which has been chronically undercharged and left in that state for a period of time, this pulse desulfation might indeed restore the hardened sulfate back into the electrolyte.
Whether it would do it better than an equalization charge would, is certainly arguable, and would need unbiased scientific testing, and relying on the manufacturer's claims is unwise, as there is no truth in marketing and no consequence for outright false claims.
The batteryminder 12248 I used was a friend's. He bought his to restore some badly neglected, unused but shelved for years batteries, and it did not work. I tried it on more than one set of my batteries that took a nose dive in performance, and despite really wanting and expecting to see a change, I did not, and was battery shopping soon after.
It is a good 2/4/or 8 amp charger, but unless you have days to plug in so that such a slow rate is beneficial and effective , I think money is better spent on a larger amp charger.
A charging source that can take a flooded battery to 16V, when the operator chooses to do so for a true equalization, is probably where money should be spent instead. Not many charging sources can do this. I have to reprogram my solar controller for this, and 6 to 7 amps are required, after a regular "full" charge cycle, to bring the battery upto and hold it at 16 volts.
Figure 5 to 6 amps needed for every 100 amp hours of capacity to achieve 16v.
Only initiate 16v after the battery has been held at regular absorption voltage for 2 to 2.5 hours. You do not want the charging source to bring the battery upto 16v until after the battery has had time to absorb the charge at 14.5+ ABSV
16v should not be done too often either. it is hard on the battery. but it is a requirement every so often on daily cycled flooded batteries, and more important on batteries that rarely get to spend ~2.5 hours plus at ABSV every recharge cycle.
Figure once a month for an EQ when cycling daily. I do my USbattery group 31 every 15 cycles or so, but will go as long as 30 cycles, and performance after an EQ is notably better, in terms of voltage held under load overnight.
Proper battery charging should make these magic and questionably effective pulse chargers, unneeded, but they might have some merit on batteries slowly discharged and left discharged for an extended period of time.
