About ReVolt Research

ReVolt Research is the research and development division of ZTech4, LLC, focused on battery restoration technology. ReVolt Research is not itself a public entity. Any question about investment or other interests is directed to its owning entity, ZTech4, LLC, by contact form or at 775-525-6868.

Entity structure

A diagram showing ZTech4, LLC at the top, connected to three divisions: Sierra Business Mechanics, ReVolt Battery Exchange, and ReVolt Research — ZTech4, LLC and its three divisions.

ZTech4, LLC connects three divisions:

ReVolt Research, this division: the battery restoration technology behind the ReVolt product line.
ReVolt Battery Exchange, the Reno, Nevada retail and store-licensing business that puts ReVolt technology to work buying, restoring, and reselling batteries, and the source of the 10,000-battery record.
Sierra Business Mechanics, a further ZTech4 division.

How it started

ReVolt's founder had a long-standing interest in battery rejuvenation, sharpened by watching replacement battery prices climb. After running out of personal batteries to experiment on, the earliest tests bought dead batteries from the public, and testing them piled pallets of dead batteries in a backyard, some of which had sat dead in fields, yards, or garages for a decade or more.

An early, deliberately crude rejuvenation rig built from four light bulbs, a diode, and hand-wired clips — The baseline experiment: a lightbulb-and-diode rig, dangerous by design, kept only to measure against.

As a starting baseline, that crude lightbulb-and-diode method was tested first: dangerous to use, and successful on only about one in five batteries. From that low bar, the design moved through many breadboarded attempts before settling on the proprietary drive circuit that became ReVolt's method. The first cut circuit board followed, then a working prototype, sold to an aircraft repair business in November 2013 that was still using it years later.

The physical design was deliberate: a utilitarian, serious black steel box, with safety components that reset themselves and stay externally accessible, strong cooling, and a simple control panel.

From prototype to Kickstarter

A 2014 Kickstarter campaign turned the prototype into a production run. The project's own log from that year:

May 22: a parts shipment arrives, over 500 pounds of it.
May 25: parts unpacked and sorted into production bins.
June 11: the first 15 units complete, packaging designed, manual updated.
June 18: the first 6 units ship.
July 22: revised sheet metal for an international, dual-voltage version.
September 9: the first Model 1P built.
September 30: every Kickstarter unit built and shipped, the project funded and complete.

As of 2015, over 100 units had shipped worldwide. That original system, ReVolt3000, is discontinued today but still supported; its successors, ReVolt Pro-S1 and ReVolt AuGoose E4, are the current product line.

The motivation was never only commercial. A battery that lasts three times as long is a battery that costs its owner less and reaches a landfill later, and that matters most in places where a replacement battery is hardest to afford: rural and off-grid communities, where a single restored battery can extend the working life of whatever it powers by years.

A short video on the founding of ZTech4, LLC and the pursuit behind ReVolt Research is on YouTube: ReVolt Production Initiative (opens in a new tab).