Reconditioning an aged battery is quite easy. Reviving or rejuvenating a battery, which to all intents and purposes is dead, can be successful up to 70{27e8b423779a20fcbf3b0e5b78622daa9462ccff634cf59ab338bb6c41129d17} of the time. Obviously you need to learn how to recondition and rejuvenate a battery, but with the right instructions it doesn’t take very long. And the great thing is you don’t have to spend a fortune on testing and repair equipment.
Battery Reconditioning Is Cheap
Battery reconditioning will normally cost you a few cents of electricity per unit, frequently nothing at all. Apart from saving money on batteries you use yourself (which can amount to certainly hundreds if not thousands of dollars), battery reconditioning is actually a good small business opportunity. Some people do it just part-time and turn a very tidy profit. Supposedly dead batteries are thrown away, so even if you can only rejuvenate one in three, you are making good money for free, and with a minimum of effort.
Do It As a Business, If You Want, Full-Time or Part-Time
Should you decide to make money (rather than just saving) from battery reconditioning and rejuvenation, it is really just a matter of finding sources and/or spreading the news. You can find good sources of defunct batteries, revive or overhaul them, and sell them for a good sum on ebay, to your local garage, auto parts dealer or the like. (By the way, you will always be able to offload seemingly ‘dead’ batteries from garages and mechanics for free or for very little.) Option two is to find customers – you will probably need to advertise – and fix their batteries for them for a service price. Or do both!
Cordless Power Everywhere / Batteries Need Fixing
So many appliances are cordless nowadays there is no end of business for a battery doctor. Cell phones, Blackberries, iPods, laptops, power tools, fork lifts, golf carts, and so on, all rely on cordless power. Then you have automotive, motorcycle, marine and motorized wheelchair batteries. And new batteries are expensive; take a look at your local store or online. Often the battery is the most expensive part of a power tool. (In the not too distant future it is likely that hybrid cars will become a mass product. Think about it.)
Recovery Success Rates
Some batteries really are beyond recovery. Lithium batteries are notorious for being non-correctable if left too long without attention. Once they reach a certain point there really is no return, so it depends on whether you catch them quick enough. Other batteries have a much higher success rate for rejuvenation and reconditioning. Nickel based and lead acid batteries are usually winners.
Costs
A professional battery reconditioning guide will set you back around $45. They are available for download via the net. On top of that you should anticipate an outlay of about $150 for a computer controlled battery analyzer. You can make do without, and just use a voltmeter, if all you want to do is mend one or two batteries of your own batteries from time to time. More than that, and you really will have to consider investing in an analyzer.
Customers
The International Battery Federation estimates three quarters of batteries are unnecessarily thrown away. Offering a battery doctor service will never see you short of customers, even if it is just family, friends and friends-of-friends. The word will spread quickly. One of the great things about battery reconditioning is that you can analyze precisely how much of the battery’s original charge you have restored and pass that information on to the customer. So it is never the case of: ‘Might be alright. Give it a try and see how it goes.’ Customers find it very impressive when you can tell them exactly what you have managed to achieve, like: ‘Back to 95{27e8b423779a20fcbf3b0e5b78622daa9462ccff634cf59ab338bb6c41129d17} of full capacity.’
Of course, you may just want to save money reconditioning your own domestic batteries. Forty or fifty dollars for a manual will be money well spent.
