House batteries exploded...

eagle19952 · June 17, 2017, 12:19:07 PM

Quote from: luvrbus on June 17, 2017, 05:42:45 AM
Looking at your photos you need to toss the converter charger and small inverter you are running the fridge on and buy a inverter with 3 stage charging capabilities ,DC converters are nothing but problems when it comes to charging house batteries.Sam's deep cycle batteries are as good as any for flooded batteries

if u are running lead acid...u want 4 stage charger to de-sulfate/equalize...

HB of CJ · June 17, 2017, 01:26:09 PM

Years ago we had a Nickel Cadmium 180 ah. stationary cell medium rate battery internal direct short out. Located in the forced ventilated dedicated battery box outside the old solar homestead cabin.

Put on quite a quick vocal noisy display complete with all the neat cool but potentially dangerous various shorting out noises. Finally had the finale with the top blowing off. Quite an event. Be safe!

Jriddle · June 17, 2017, 02:07:37 PM

Merle
Sorry to hear about your experience.
I had two batteries go on me in one year. The first was in my bobcat and the second was in our 182 Cessna. We were flying from Montana to Nevada and were about 30 miles from our destination. I felt a slight shudder in the plane. Then my mind wondered what it felt like when pilots planes were hit during battle. We continued to our destination without any problems. When on the ground I could smell the sulfur and when parked found leakage from the vent. Needless to say acid and aluminum don't mix well and I spent the next few hours cleaning. The case of the battery was deformed but stayed intact. The caps blew off. The batteries died due to faulty alternator on the bobcat and generator on the plane. The batteries were cooked to death. I would check the charging system before trusting it with your new batteries. The plane generator checked good immediately after but a short time later it failed.

My Experience
John

Billysurf · June 17, 2017, 03:31:39 PM

Can't thank you all enough for your thoughtful responses! Please know you were comforting in this process and we greatly appreciate you! We have removed the bad battery and are using a single (original) 12v temporarily. One reads 11.22 and the other 12.22. We connected the 12.22 battery and the generator started fine. can you help me understand something about our system that we don't understand. There's a breaker on the converter/charger that when on stops the inverter from beeping.
The fridge and a few outlets are attached to the inverter. I don't know why or if that's good or bad. What is that breaker? Is it charging the house batteries? Why does the inverter begin to beep if I turn that breaker off?

Zephod · June 17, 2017, 03:59:51 PM

Has anybody tried lithium batteries?

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muldoonman · June 17, 2017, 04:19:58 PM

Quote from: luvrbus on June 17, 2017, 08:50:12 AM
LifeLine requires spacing for air movement around the batteries and in a vented area now I just went through this and they said read the install instructions they do gas but in small amounts because it is regulated

Have my batteries spaced and a vent in floor with a fan I bought from Grainger sucking cool air in across Inverter and batteries blowing out gen set box. If it explodes and catches fire hope I'm not in it as I have it insured.

daddysgirl · June 18, 2017, 08:56:09 AM

Quote from: Billysurf on June 17, 2017, 03:31:39 PM
Can't thank you all enough for your thoughtful responses! Please know you were comforting in this process and we greatly appreciate you! We have removed the bad battery and are using a single (original) 12v temporarily. One reads 11.22 and the other 12.22. We connected the 12.22 battery and the generator started fine. can you help me understand something about our system that we don't understand. There's a breaker on the converter/charger that when on stops the inverter from beeping.
The fridge and a few outlets are attached to the inverter. I don't know why or if that's good or bad. What is that breaker? Is it charging the house batteries? Why does the inverter begin to beep if I turn that breaker off?

What type of inverter do you have? Charger? Where is the "breaker" on the unit? Are the connections on the converter/charger connected to the same battery? I believe you're supposed to keep all the batteries as close to the same charge as possible. You might want to connect the charger to charge all the batteries equally. I have a PD4590 (Progressive Dynamics, 90A it's the electrical "hub"...I love it) that has three stages for charging. When all four batteries are charged, it just provides a trickle so as not to cook them.

Stormcloud · June 18, 2017, 04:27:15 PM

Quote from: Zephod on June 17, 2017, 03:59:51 PM
Has anybody tried lithium batteries?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Technomadia has tried lithium cells and has a real good article about them. Likely others have as well.

buswarrior · June 19, 2017, 06:41:24 AM

Billysurf, Your 3 battery bank, the picture doesn't show the connection points that come off the bank?

If you have them coming off one end, you are killing batteries.

Electricity takes the shortest path. The battery out the end is doing little work and getting little charge. The close battery is doing all the work and getting all the charge.

The battery with the low voltage is the furthest one out, and the middle one exploded?

Your inverter is mad at you, the voltage is too low. The breaker you are turning on will be turning some charging source on, so the inverter sees good voltage and shuts up.

My guess is you need a whole new set of batteries, and you have to do some steep learning, and possibly replace the charging equipment, or you'll murder the new ones too.

What is the charging source for this battery bank?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

daddysgirl · June 19, 2017, 08:29:59 AM

Quote from: buswarrior on June 19, 2017, 06:41:24 AM
Billysurf, Your 3 battery bank, the picture doesn't show the connection points that come off the bank?

If you have them coming off one end, you are killing batteries.

Electricity takes the shortest path. The battery out the end is doing little work and getting little charge. The close battery is doing all the work and getting all the charge.

The battery with the low voltage is the furthest one out, and the middle one exploded?

Your inverter is mad at you, the voltage is too low. The breaker you are turning on will be turning some charging source on, so the inverter sees good voltage and shuts up.

My guess is you need a whole new set of batteries, and you have to do some steep learning, and possibly replace the charging equipment, or you'll murder the new ones too.

What is the charging source for this battery bank?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

EXACTLY...You said it much better than I did.
I learned that lesson, luckily without any explosion.
Could the condition of the short bank cables be the cause of the middle battery exploding, rather than the connected one?

Iceni John · June 19, 2017, 12:04:30 PM

The good folk at SmartGauge have a useful article about how to, or how not to, interconnect batteries: http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html You have your batteries interconnected as per their example 1. This company's technical articles have taught me more than almost any other single source of information. Their original focus was marine, specifically for narrowboats used on inland waterways, but a lot of what's good for them is also good for us bus owners.

Having an odd number of batteries can sometimes be problematic, and will make it impossible to use good ol' 6V golfcart batteries in series and parallel. Do you have space for a battery box large enough for four golfcart or Group 31 batteries?

John

Billysurf · June 25, 2017, 06:15:27 AM

Quote from: buswarrior on June 19, 2017, 06:41:24 AM
Billysurf, Your 3 battery bank, the picture doesn't show the connection points that come off the bank?

If you have them coming off one end, you are killing batteries.

Electricity takes the shortest path. The battery out the end is doing little work and getting little charge. The close battery is doing all the work and getting all the charge.

The battery with the low voltage is the furthest one out, and the middle one exploded?

Your inverter is mad at you, the voltage is too low. The breaker you are turning on will be turning some charging source on, so the inverter sees good voltage and shuts up.

My guess is you need a whole new set of batteries, and you have to do some steep learning, and possibly replace the charging equipment, or you'll murder the new ones too.

What is the charging source for this battery bank?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Thank you!!!

I think our charging source is a Paralaxx Power Systems Series 500 converter/charger.

Billysurf · June 25, 2017, 06:18:08 AM

Quote from: daddysgirl on June 18, 2017, 08:56:09 AM
What type of inverter do you have? Charger? Where is the "breaker" on the unit? Are the connections on the converter/charger connected to the same battery? I believe you're supposed to keep all the batteries as close to the same charge as possible. You might want to connect the charger to charge all the batteries equally. I have a PD4590 (Progressive Dynamics, 90A it's the electrical "hub"...I love it) that has three stages for charging. When all four batteries are charged, it just provides a trickle so as not to cook them.

Thank you Andrea!! We are learning...!

daddysgirl · June 26, 2017, 06:37:15 AM

I'm very glad If I was able to give you any information or a train of thought

And never forget...we are all learning.

daddysgirl · June 26, 2017, 06:59:40 AM

IDK from the pictures, and THIS MIGHT NOT BE YOUR UNIT.
I do NOT want to frighten you in any way.
That said, I always look for recall info for house power systems. This came up, but again, your unit might be different. But it's good practice to look for any recall information when you get something new to you.

https://www.saferproducts.gov/ViewIncident/1352438