Coach smells like a rotten egg factory!! Suspected tanks!

[GM0406]

But no, it was my Walmart maxx-29!!  I have two.  One on the top shelf and one on the bottom shelf in the '04.  Guess which one smelled up?  The bottom one.  So here is what happened.  Dummy bus driver here was convinced that his Iota converters were majic and would not allow trouble!!  Hello!!  Yup the lower battery was way low on water!!!  No wonder George had a bottle of dist. in there and a straw bulb!!  I have orbitals in my '06 and never have to worry about them, but these Wallys need attention I am going to say once a year.  These batteries are now almost 4 years old.  Interestingly the lower battery was hot and the upper one was not.  So, I disconnected them and checked the voltage.  Upper one was over 12 volts almost 13 volts.  The lower one was 11 volts.  So I got the dist water and made sure both of them were full.  Over a quart later the lower one was full.  Then I removed the lower one and put it on my Vectra charger in the desulfate mode.  The garage stank for a while and it ran in that desulfate mode all day yesterday and all night last night and then I was getting suspicious that the charger was no good.  But then I looked at it late today and found it charging at 2.7 volts.  I suppose it will take another day or two to fully charge.  Anybody here want speculate if it will recover or not?  Meantime I bought another maxx-29 just in case.  Also got two jumper cables so that I can tie all three together if the patient recovers.  Now here is the $64,000 question.  Why did one battery do this and not the other.  I had to put very little water in the upper battery.  Bill T.  P.S.  I still didn't do the pics on the '04 yet, but I will.  How do you like the depression substitute bus below???  LOL!!

[Sojourner]

Show us how your cable hook up is in drawing or photo.

FWIW

Sojourn for Christ, Gerald

[GM0406]

Hope this works.  I don't have datacad on this computer and I used Google Sketchup.  Boy what a tricky program.  You can keep autocad and Google whatever, if you try datacad you won't use anything but.  Anyway I hope this works.  Bill T.

[junkman42]

My recent battery troubles!  Like You My coach started to stink before Arcadia.  I discovered one of eight group 31 batteries was hot and boiled dry.  After cool down and I disconnected the offending battery.  After recharging the remaining seven I went to Arcadia and everything seemed normal.  Yesterday I entered the coach to a carbon monoxide alarm and rotten eggs. Now two more batteries are hot as hell and I am waiting to allow them to cool and I will replace all of them.  I will then ascertain if the inverter which is a heart has decided to overcharge or what.  Hope that Your problem goes away and I wouldn't wait for the offending battery to recover.  My battery's are a little over four years old.  Regards, John

[GM0406]

Just so those of you know who visit here, you have to click on the little bus if you want to see the scooter run it.  The advantage to the scooter motor is that you don't have to run the rack on it! 

Anyway, looks like my Wally maxx-29 is toast!!  Just went out to check my charger in the garage and after almost 3 days, desulfating and slow charge at 2.7 amps. the total battery voltage is 11.3!!!  Unless someone here has some magic I can perform, this baby is a goner!  I better go back out there to the '04 and visit Iota city and see if the two in the coach are charged and peaceful.  Be right back to report the voltage there.  14.0 VDC and all seems to be well.  If the other one flames out I will report back here, but so far OK.  I am set up to be able to run another maxx-29 in there.  Any thoughts on that.  That will just add to my total use capability right?  Each one of these is 675 cold cranking amps.  I could actually add two more for a total of four.  I wonder how these would compare to two 8Ds?  By the way, my 8D experience was exactly the same.  One of them cooked and the other was fine.  These are just a lot easier to handle.  But two of them might weigh as much as one 8D? 

Very interesting to hear your responses here.  That's why I gave you guys a toy as an incentive to respond!  A lot of people looked at it, but no one said anything.  Maybe you guys don't like it?? 

Bill

[Sojourner]

Thank you for the schematic.

Your schematic shows to be parallel hook-up 12v system. However, the grounding cable (to the chassis) should be from the other battery negative post to balance out the charging and source load via equal resistant thorough the cables.

Is your bus a 12v or 24v system?

What the Iota unit say for voltage on the label?

What is the voltage meter at positive terminal with it on?

About how many feet of wire between Iota and battery?

What your voltage meter at the alternator plus + post with the headlamp and heater blower on at the same time?

Sojourn for Christ, Gerald

[NJT 5573]

A good battery puts a serious load on the alternator until it tops off. An inferior battery will boil all the water out before the good battery lets the alternator back off. This kind of forces us to replace all the batterys at the same time and with all exactly the same rating. Some trucks use 6V group 4 batterys and they seem to allow only replacing one bad battery at a time, I don't know why. 12 volt batterys never seem to be that forgiving and once they have a weaker partner it always boils the water out. 

[John316]

We have four Trojan deep cycle, 8D, and they have done great, coupled with our two four thousand watt Xantrax inverters. We are planning to get another four, as soon as the $$$ is there . Even though they are heavy, we have loved those. And they are sealed, so no more boiled water...

God bless,

John

[pvcces]

GM0406, a shorted cell in the bad battery could cause these symptoms. And a runaway thermal effect could get you there if the charge profile does not drop a full volt from the acceptance voltage.

When I get a hot battery from overcharging it, I've never had a good recovery, so I expect that your battery is junk. It might pay to find out how the WalMart charger does on a known good battery before you throw it out.

From your description, it sounds like your profile is not falling enough to float voltage. For flooded lead acid batteries, the following will work pretty well.

If you have batteries in good condition and the temperature is in the range of 70 to 80 degrees, acceptance voltage should be in the area of 14.3 volts to quickly recharge batteries to most of full charge.
When the charge current drops off to 2% of the amp hour ratings of the batteries, the charge voltage ought to drop to about 13.3.

Failure to drop to float voltage will cause a battery in mediocre condition to generate heat, which will cause the current to rise some more, until it gets into a thermal runaway. This is one reason why the better setups will include a temperature probe.

Try studying the profiles some inverters use. There is a definite connection between temperature and charge voltage. Most of the year, the WalMart charger does not perform well for us, because the batteries are not warm enough for it's profile. It works pretty well in the warm part of the year.

Good luck!

Tom Caffrey

[GM0406]

Tom,  Remember you suggested I check out Iota converters.  That is what is in charge of those batteries.  So should I be seeing 13.3 if I go out there tomorrow and check?  I think the pronouncement of junk for the Wally that I took out is pretty descriptive of the one that overheated.  The question is did I do any damage to the Iota by letting the damaged battery get too low on water?  I'm sure it was sitting there and cooking for several days before I noticed it.  Bill

[pvcces]

Bill, I don't have any idea about the Iota converter, but if you check the voltage on a battery that the Iota is connected to and the temperature is around 70 to 80 degrees and find 13.3, I would guess that it is working fine. If you find 12 anything or 14 anything, the voltage is out of range from some cause.

I would not be surprised if the Iota survived that overload. I think that they are conservatively built.

For what it's worth.

Tom Caffrey

[GM0406]

Well to bring this up to date a little more, my system is 12 volt and there is about 2 feet from the batteries to the converter.  One question I forgot to ask is this.  Is it necessary to turn off all coach service from these batteries when the coach is not in use?  If there is a 12 volt load running, I would expect that the converter cannot maintain accurate battery maintenance?  I will go out there today and check the voltage.  Also what if I put two more Wallys in there?  Probably won't replace two 8Ds.  Each one is 625 amps. and 825 cc amps.  Bill