Battery Failure

[recumbent615]

I've been down in Hershey since Thursday - And for the past two days I've been smelling what I thought was sewer gas, so today I went down to the office and asked them what was up. They said they had had a few complaints from my area of the CG so they sent someone up to look to see if any one was discharging gray water ...

When then started to focus on my site - the guy said it smelled like propane so I immediately shut off my DS tank and them stated to duck under the Pin Box aream to shut off the ODS tank when I Saw Steam, YES STEAM coming out of the Battery Vent!! My Battery was COOKING ( Boiling and off gassing ). I immediately switched the Battery out of the system - and took the cover off - it was hotter than **** ( the cover ) and there was steam coming out of the Battery!! I disconnected the Battery and pulled it out of the RIG!

What could Cause a Battery to Fail like that? I have had batteries fail but never BOIL!!


I have replaced the Battery with another 12V Deep Cycle - Could something in my RIG have caused the Battery to fail? Keep in mind that this battery has not been holding a charge well for quite some time. and I was all set to replace with 4 6V batteries and that is still the plan.

Kevin

 

[TeJay]

If the battery was low in water and the plates became exposed that might contribute to a possible shorted cell. If the cells were full then a cell simply shorted probably due to material breaking off the plates. At any rate a cell somehow someway became shorted and then you have a snowball effect. The cell shorts, internal resistance goes down, greater current flows, heat increases then the electrolyte begins to boil in that cell and the other cells are also effected because of the heat and higher current flow. I've seen it happen a few times while someone was charging their battery. One would think that the charging system (on-board converter) would limit the charge rate but I'm not familiar with the set up of the converters in situations like that.

It would be a good idea to check the charging rate at your batteries following the battery replacement. Your battery (s) will measure around 12.6 volts across the battery posts when you are not plugged in to shore power. They may be lower than that and that's OK. It just means that they need charged. After you plug in read the voltage again. The charger should charge at a rate of about 1.5-2 volts greater than the open post voltage of your 12-V battery. If your batteries read 11.5 before plugging in and 13.5 after you're OK. If your charge rate is in excess of 15.5-16-V then your converter is charging at to high of a rate and that's what caused your battery to overheat.

TeJay