Electrical Cooking The Battery - nearly well done.

[Drover]

With all the chatter about batteries lately, this evening I made a scary discovery, my battery was cooking away. Went to tidy the front boot, it was warm with a certain smell and when I got to the section where the battery box is the box was damn HOT, shut down the 240, shut down the solar, opened the door to the battery compartment very carefully......it was not a pretty sight..
Raced into my shed and donned overalls, gloves, boots, beany and a full face mask.....a couple of towels over the battery and I undid the connections and was very, very scared......I had the hose running behind me just in case......it was still hot 20 mins after I shut it all down, grabbed it an set it down in the yard and hosed the towels down, came back 30 mins later for a quick pic, it was still very warm................

So I don't have an extra Deep cycle battery anymore, new battery put in van but all charging is shut down till I put meters on everything BUT this one was on my shed solar chargers and I have a feeling it may be the cause.....I found a small brown bit of stuff near a terminal when I put it in van, thought nothing of it but later found the same gloop on the clamp in the shed unit.........

I think someone was smiling on me as it was very close to Boom I think and hate to know what things would have been like.............................But then I have seen batteries fail for no apparent reason and you couldn't check as the battery box was full of wet, icky pieces.

So if you find your battery like this, shut down all chargers and cover everything up or shut down and run away.
They are very dangerous and some will condemn me for being stupid I know, I have a history of stupid, shot at, blown up etc.

PS: I later found out GEL batteries don't go Kabloomy, they just melt...

 

[Bellbirdweb]

Wow, dodged a bullet there @Drover

 

[NoWorries]

Jeepers that was close
Bullet Dodged

 

[Rockape]

Wow, I haven't seen a battery that bad before.i have seen them leak and swell a little. I wonder what caused it? Very lucky. Keep us posted after you check everything.
Cheers
Nick

 

[chartrock]

Hell, @Drover, puts my problems into perspective. I hope you can find a cause.

 

[bigcol]

D A Y A M

you is soo soo lucky mate

 

[Delano]

Verrrrrry lucky @Drover ,
Do you know what caused it?

Could have gone soooo wrong!!!......

 

[iadizajy]

Do you know how old the battery is @Drover??
Ours was about 4yo and did simular. Luckily was in a battery holder so didn't leak though the cupboard.
Walked into the van to a strange smell and couldn't work out what it was. Investigated and found the battery had started to melt down but not to the extent of yours with the expanding.

 

[Drover]

Battery only bought in 2014, going to check my charge system in shed today as it may have damaged battery before I put it in van.
Put meter over van set up later today and hope it wasn't the problem.........has a Projecta 7 stage charger as well as a panel on roof which has a Prostar 30 controller.

Of course looking like cloudy day.

I know one thing though, I'm going to fit a breaka switch to the damn thing, in fact one on the solar feed and one on the van feed.

 

[spiderpig]

 

[iadizajy]

Before mine let go the van was in the outlaws back yard stored for a few months without being plugged in.
Maybe our battery was on its way and having it off charge for so long then back onto the grid upset the system.
The Gel battery on the car was only 2 years old as well so wasn't happy when that on let us down.

 

[Base23]

Not good.
Hope you can find the cause of the problem.

 

[Drover]

I ran checks on my solar controller and the readings are what they should be and checked the charger in the shed, even checked out the Projecta unit all good, contacted Forbes Batteries in Toowoomba, a good mob to deal with and they reckon going on my pic and what I've done that it was more than likely a cell collapse, so I hope so.
So far the the new battery is humming along nicely and the meter readings and solar controller are all in harmony and showing green.

Been near one when it blew and it has made me very edgy around batteries when they are hooked up, I hate jump starting.

 

[NoWorries]

I ran checks on my solar controller and the readings are what they should be and checked the charger in the shed, even checked out the Projecta unit all good, contacted Forbes Batteries in Toowoomba, a good mob to deal with and they reckon going on my pic and what I've done that it was more than likely a cell collapse, so I hope so.
So far the the new battery is humming along nicely and the meter readings and solar controller are all in harmony and showing green.

Been near one when it blew and it has made me very edgy around batteries when they are hooked up, I hate jump starting.

I had one blow up in the back of the boat when a wave came over the transom and yes it is FFFing scary when they go bang

 

[Dobbie]

Totally agree that they're scary.

I now keep an eye on battery charger when on and don't leave it on overnight...scares me too much.

Does the recondition mode on the ctek charger work well for others?

I've just used it to charge a mower battery which was low and the ctek went into recondition mode and it ended up with a full charge but I'm not sure if it's held that charge ... I don't really understand the different modes so I need to do some reading, I guess.

Drover, I hope your problems are sorted!

 

[achjimmy]

Lucky @Drover

@Dobbie I used the recondition or Maintance mode on the projecta to revive the breakaway battery and it got it back to holding a charge. It's offsite this week and I have switched the newly installed trickle charger to the breakaway off so will tell how well the projecta has brought it back? But as per other post Iam told once a battery has run down its life's shortened considerable?

 

[Dobbie]

That sounds logical.

Mower batteries have a habit of dying the maximum distance from the shed and on a slope so I really should add a regular charge to my list of things to do.

Battery has lasted for a good five years so far but I don't want to get caught again or have a problem like Drover. He was lucky he caught it in time.

 

[dagree]

Found it at the right time @Drover !!

 

[Drover]

I'm still amazed that I found it, like who goes to tidy up the van boot at around 5 in the arvo with rain coming as well, someone is looking down on me for sure, cause my arse has been saved so many times .....................

 

[Steve1307]

Well luckily an AGM wouldn't have exploded like you initially think it might (ie build up of Hydrogen like a wet lead/acid battery that must be vented).

As sealed AGM batteries are charge close to the maximum they must trickle charge the last part.
The charger in the van should be doing this.

I think the trouble is when this type of battery heats up and gets too hot (maybe poor ventilation, or from overcharging with the wrong cahrger type) the battery actually will accept more current and this will enevitalby heat it up even more. I guess you can call it a "thermal runaway".


I've had the exact same thing happen about a year ago - with the Swan we had.I also split the casing and leaked. The cells had swelled and split but the casing had no gas or pressure in it, thankfully.

The first few seconds after i saw it were scary.


Posted about it in another forum.

cut&paste text due to lazy:

With sealed deep cycle batteries AGM/gel etc, It's important to have proper ventilation (for temperature control) whilst charging.


Here's my tale of woe and the lessons learnt


On Christmas Eve I cooked a 120Ah AGM battery whilst charging. Cost nearly $400 bucks to replace, very lucky to get one on the same day.

We were charging on 240VAC with the SETEC 240/12 unit standard in most Jaycos which is in the same compartment as the battery. The van (Swan camper trailer) was fully up but with windows closed and the fridge in the compartment adjacent to the battery was running on 240. There was also a Waeco in the van connected to the 12V.

It looks like the heat from the fridge condenser, "leaking" from the adjacent compartment combined with the heat rejection from the SETEC and the lack of ventilation overheated the battery. the max temp recommended by Century for AGM is 50C. It was significantly cooler than that in the van but in the battery compartment .. who knows?. The SETEC does not have temperature monitoring on the battery.

I noticed some excessive heat from that comparment and was horrified by the sight of a severely swollen and split battery casing. Forgetting that it WASN'T a lead/acid battery i dived clear pretty quickly and nearly pooped in my shorts

The battery itself was still functioning giving 12V no problem once it cooled.
The charger is fine we have tested it since.
The battery was only 2 y.o but we had not been keeping it charged up properly when not in use. I don't know if that had anything to do with the heating problem as it might have been pretty flat (< 10V) when stored for the previous months

The new $400 ! battery I intend to keep topped up with a small solar panel whilst in storage.

Anyway I improved the ventilation in the battery compartment by cutting and installing vents.
The SETEC controller we had checked out later and it was all OK so I figure it must have been the temperature inside the compartment and maybe that we hadn't maintained the charge in the battery in its short 2 year life.

Live and learn.


Pics:

Anyway