I realize the irony of asking this question.
If a sealed lead acid (SLA) battery is at the end of its life, then it is done, right?
I have at least six 1500 VA uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units throughout my lab, studio, and house. Each UPS has two 12 volt batteries, so I have at least two batteries total. They're slowly starting to fail because the supervisor circuit has decided the batteries are at the end of their life. (Well, in fairness, they probably are!) Fortunately, drop-in replacements exist, so I can keep the UPS units running with a swap. $150 to replace all the batteries or $1200+ for new units. (Even with 2 hours of my inflated labor charge, that is a decent saving!)
Anyway.
While I'm sure they can no longer provide 10s of amps to a load, I expect they can work as a decent low-current battery backup option for one-off IoT stuff.
Is there anything I can do to recondition these batteries? Or do I just accept their current ESR and deal with it?
Or do I just take them to the recycling center and not even bother?
What would you do?
