Well here I am again. Went to check the 8ds and immediately found the inboard one hot to the touch. Shut off boost, turned of 12 volt at steps, turned off inverter, disconnected from shore power. Thought that would cool it to point I could remove caps. Three hours later it appears to be at the same temp. With no power to it what the heck do I do next?
Disconnect all cables from the hot battery, are these wet cells or agm.
Wet
Disconnected both. In doing search on this I noted that the redtops should not be used with wet house batteries. Wasn't aware of this as they were purchased by PO and I assumed they were correct. Negative was not as tight as it should have been. When I checked for looseness as routine checks the two wires straddled the cap and prevented movement when grasped.
Beginning to feel like Billy Crystal on the ranch. Now to figure out what that was about.
Is the water (electrolyte) topped off?
It was 5 weeks ago but hasn't been moved in the last two. The heat was discovered when I went to check them today. Small amount of electrolyte visible around rear caps. How significant is the red top/flood issue? Letting it rest while I run up and pick up specific gravity tester.
Apparently there are problems with this battery. Energizer commercial 8D wet and no longer produced. They used to be available at SAMs but no one carries them anymore. These are three years old. I am going to replace them. Still need to figure out what happened. From some of the posts this may have been the core issue with the throttle problem.
Good plan. Even if the other battery seems to be OK, you want to start out with two "matched" (age, type, size) batteries.
Once the new batteries are installed,
be sure to confirm that charging routine is optimized. Most common cause of premature battery death is over-charging...followed by over-discharging (below 50%) and letting electrolyte dry out (flooded wet cells).
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Thanks Chuck for your response. I will be moving 600 watts of solar over from our Fox in September. What battery are you using? Are Lifelines compatible with red tops? I will do a search on optimizing. Thanks again.
Also check to make sure the charger is set for wet batteries, instead of AGM or GEL
We have two 6-year old red top Optima start batteries. They came with the coach and are working great.
We have two 2-year old O'Reilly AGM8D house (coach) batteries. Highly recommended for combination of performance and price.
I know nothing about Lifelines - other members will chime in, or you can "search" the subject for prior posts on that subject.
The "optimization" of your battery charging is done in the setup menu of your inverter/charger. See your owner's manual for details.
My Lifeline AGM charging by solar is pretty much the same as wet cells. They are so close I do not see that is an issue.
Are your batteries getting air (vents) and were are they stored and what is ambient temps?
JohnH
John the temperature was high 90s near 100. We have been at this heat level for over a week. Unusual for mid Atlantic but not for other locations. Thought this might have contributed to over charging. Read old posts on setting charging sources and kill switches.
It has rested overnight and later this AM will check it out again.
Mine did the same thing last week.. took all night but it finally cooled down.. 10.7v after it cooled
Dead dead now. Mine was super hot and was venting real bad. Temps are way over 100 here also
Just out of curiosity were you plugged into 30A? I had one AC running, ice maker, fridge, HWH, inverter. Mine is also very dead.
I was driving with the generator on.. we had been on the road for about 2 hrs but I could smell the sulfur when we were at the camp ground plugged into 50amp plug
Batteries usually get hot when they are overcharged. As this occured while you were driving, there may be something wrong with the alternator. Normally when driving, although the generator may be running, the engine alternator does the charging as it produces a slightly higher voltage than the inverter/charger if everything is normal. The inverter/charger could be doing the overcharging or it could be the alternator. The generator does not have an alternator to directly charge the batteries, it just supplies 120v to operate everything that uses 120v and that includes the inverter/charger. And of course you could have a bad battery. Wet cell batteries are charged at a slightly higher voltage than gel or agm. One should either have all wet cell or gel/agm for both house and chassis so the charging voltage is set correctly. Charging voltages for wet cell should not be above 14.5 volts or 14.2 v for gel.
A bad cell in a battery will boil and put out excessive gas and heat the battery.