'Nother Boring Battery Question

[PP]

I'm stumped and could use a little help here from some of you intelligent folks. I put all new batteries in my coach about 6 months ago. (4-6v house and 2-12v D's starter) I have a Heart 2kw inverter/charger and a 60amp Lester converter/charger. This worked great for the first 5 months with the new batts but now my batts are being cooked to death. I check them monthly and add distilled as needed. Never needed to add more than a quart total until this time-almost 3 gallons!
First thing I did was take the Lester out of line and checked the charge level on the Heart. It dropped off (less than 10amps) for about 12 hours and then started charging up (20-30amps). I checked the batts and their cooking big time so I shut off the charge and am running strictly through the inverter (wife's got to have her TV and I need to get online). When I put the Lester Converter/charger back in line, it starts charging like crazy. Any ideas? It was working fine, or so I thought. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks and hope you're all having a great 4th!
Will & Wife

[belfert]

Why both the inverter and converter?  Most Heart inverters will charge your batteries and provide your 12 or 24 volt when you are plugged in 110 volt or running the generator.

Most converters will run a constant bulk charge rate and not a float rate unless they have a three stage controller.

[PP]

Belfert, I'm not sure why it has both. The Lester appears original to the build and the Heart was added later. The first and only PO was an electrical engineer that felt a need to show off his talents. That's why I took the Lester out of line first when the problem became apparent. I figured the Heart would do everything I need it to do without the Lester. But it cooks the batts just like the Lester. FWIW, except for the new batteries, nothing else was changed.

[PP]

I forgot to add that I searched through all the battery threads here first and couldn't find anything that pertained to what I'm experiencing. Thanks, Will 

[jjrbus]

I'd start with the simple things. Are there any battery bank size, charge rate settings that could have been accidently changed?  HTH Jim

[Len Silva]

I suggest you disconnect all the batteries and load test them individually.  One bad battery in the string could cause the problem.

[Hartley]

Keep in mind that once you damage/cook or sulphate a battery it will degrade
rapidly after that.

The converter probably has little or no regulation or charge controller.
It is most likely what damaged the batteries because it doesn't have the
smarts to shut off. ( I disconnect the charger inside the converters because of that.)

The Inverter/Charger is smart but expects to see a certain amount of charge and float voltage. If it is not seeing that properly due to another charger or leaky/bad battery in the circuit it may not be able to adjust properly.

My Heart 3,000 sends a huge charge into the battery bank and then monitors the voltage drop over a period of time. If the drop is within the control range it will then apply the proper charge rate. If the voltage doesn't come up to the needed levels the charge controller will attempt a bulk charge.

Check your batteries.. You probably have one or more that is going bad....

Dave...

[PP]

Jim, I checked everything simple first. Since I only go into the battery compartment once a month, nothing was accidentally changed.

Len, Testing each battery individually is going to be my Monday project. I've shut off both the Heart and the Lester in the meantime. Since I have a good 50Amp connection right now, I've moved all my electronics over to the mainline.

Dave, The Lester Converter states right on it that it's a 3 stage charger and will maintain a battery bank with as little as a 2 amp charge coming on automatically every 3.5 days if no load is present. I have a sinking suspicion one of my batteries went defunct and so both chargers are attempting the bulk charge on the bank of batts but only cooking the others. It makes sense. Right?

I'll let you all know what I find on Monday. Because of the holiday, I've had to work this weekend. Yeah, I came out of retirement to buy fuel, it's a sad story  But that's another thread....or two 
Thanks for your help. Hope you're having a great weekend!!

[Sojourner]

Are you charging 2 banks with one charger? If so, it a no, no. One rated voltage charger per bank or a charger to each battery.

About why battery being over charge with automatic or 3 stage charger. Whenever the specific gravity is less than 1.265 @ 80°F...charger will try bringing it up. However, whenever specific gravity quit rising to 1.265...charger will continue try to bring up but it does not know that the acid has been weaken due to over fill with water that cause to run over. Or been over heat via charging to damage the plates.

Sulfation of Batteries starts when specific gravity falls below 1.225 or voltage measures less than 12.4. Sulfated battery can cause charger to over charge as well.

I assumed all batteries are in equal condition or no one cell or battery weaker than other.

http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/hweb4.pdf

The bottom-line is to never, never add more water than to cover the top of plate until it fully charged. Otherwise you will be experiencing the over charging problem.
The reason is that water will expand while being charge.

FWIW

Sojourn for Christ, Jerry

[PP]

Okay Jerry, Like I stated earlier, the PO was an electrical engineer and suffered from an inferiority complex or something. He did good on most things, but not all. But that's half the fun of owning a bus, always changing something  The Heart/Lester setup is charging 3 battery banks, not just 2! One is the 4-6volt house batts, the second is the 2-D cell starter batts, and the third is 2-Golf Cart batts for starting the generator. I didn't replace the Golf Cart batts as they seemed fine. But I'm wondering now if maybe I should rewire the lester to the start and cart batts and use the Heart just for the house batts. Or maybe put my little battery tender in the system just to keep the golf cart batts peaked up and separate the others. Then there is also the possibility that the system worked for as long as it did prior to the new batteries because they were all showing equal needs  to the Heart and Lester.
At any rate, I'm pulling it apart tomorrow and one way or another all will be good when I'm done LOL 
Thanks for your help Jerry. Now I might have added too much water also, something I hadn't even considered. I'll use my turkey baster and suck em down before I turn the juice back on to them.
Will

[Sojourner]

Charging 2 or more battery banks from one or two charger together without a secondary controller such as Echo~Charge unit will guarantee overcharging and overheating.
Dual bank charging:
http://www.rvpowersupply.com/echo_charger.htm
Manual...read page 8:
http://www.rvpowersupply.com/images/tech_sheets/echocharge.pdf

A point to remember you cannot charge more than one separate bank, because all automatic & 3-stage chargers need the feed back from battery's state-of-charge condition to determine when to finish charging to full state-of-charge. However, by adding a secondary controller (Echo~Charge or similar), you can add bank to be charging while the main bank is taking charge. Another point to remember is whenever the main bank is fully charge, the other bank will not longer getting more charge if it still not fully charge.
For every each banks after the main bank, you need secondary controller for each additional bank.

Otherwise, get a charger for each bank or battery.

A rule of thumb...always treat a bank of batteries as one battery. Which mean they are same dated, brand and size with one size heavier cable connection links.

And never add more water than to cover the plates until it reach it full state-of-charge. Only than you fill to the battery's spec.

BTW...by now your new batteries may never be up to par due to the pass history. Also you should clean the outside battery case with caps on using 1 part baking soda to 5 part of water to brush on & rinse after few minutes. Otherwise it will cause to overcharge and power drainage in time.

FWIW

Sojourn for Christ, Jerry

[PP]

Problem solved all the way around! I sold the bus. Not really, my wife would shoot me first. She loves it almost as much as I do, though it took her a little while to warm up to it. I think she just likes the comments we get when we're out with it LOL.
Anyway, one of the new 6-V house batts went defunct. The others are all still fine. I must have caught them when they first started overcharging. I rewired the Heart into 2 of the good house batts and connected the Lester to the Generator Golf Cart batts. Then I hooked up my little battery tender to the starting batts so everything is on its own circuit now and all the batteries seem happy. They just didn't want to play together any more, I guess. 
Since I'm going to be parked here for a while, I'm going to stay with just 2 6V house batteries for the time being. When I go out to replace the defunct one, even if I buy the same thing again, will I have a problem? Or is it best to replace the whole bank at once, or two of the four? If I need to replace all at once, I'm going to run on the 2 until I need more juice. I have room for 6 altogether, if push comes to shove.
Thanks for all your help out there, especially you, Jerry
Will