Leisure battery redddd hottttt and bad smell of eggs

eurodat

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I opened the door of my Ford Tribute 626 this morning to be greeted by the foul smell of bad eggs. I thought it must be something to do with drains or water so did the usual things but it still stank. I happened to notice it was more pungent around the leisure battery area.

On investigation I found the leisure battery was red hot and that was where the smell was coming from. I'm wondering if I actually caused this by what I had done.

A few days ago I had found the actual engine battery flat so I had put a trickle charger across it.. I did not disconnect anything on the battery as this charger is OK to use like that normally (On cars etc.). Just to be safe and ensure a full engine battery I decided to leave it on as we will be using the van this coming weekend.

All through this period I also had the van on hook up to charge up the leisure battery. I think this may be what caused the issue.

Was the leisure battery now being charged from 2 separate sources over a long period of time maybe? It was all OK before I did this so I'm wondering if this is the cause.

Will the leisure battery be ruined now? I removed it as soon as I found it was the cause. If so can we get a discount on batteries on the forum ?

Any help gratefully received
 
Hello Eurodat,

it sounds as if your leisure battery was seriously overcharged but I doubt that your trickle charger would cause that, assuming that your van battery is not connected to the leisure battery except if the engine is running.

Do you know what charge current you have to the leisure battery from the hook up and if it's electrolyte level was O.K. I suspect that the battery will now be ruined but there is no harm in checking it to see if it will charge and hold a charge? Obviously you will need to check your charging system when you put the battery back especially if new as you wouldn't want to fry another.

Good luck

Alec
 
Thanks. I've bought a new battery from Alpha which hopefully will solve the problem. I couldn't enter the discount code but called and they assured me they will apply it manually.
 
Hello Eurodat,

do make sure that the charging system is working correctly, is there an ammeter in circuit or do you have a meter to check it? You don't want to damage the new battery.

Alec
 
Sounds very, very similar to a problem we had - turned out the elektroblok was faulty.
 
Hello Eurodat,

yes that's it, mine has an ammeter built in so it's easy to monitor, or if there's a voltmeter it shouldn't read much above 14. 4 volts, if much higher you have a problem.

Alec
 
eurodat said:
To check the charging system I just measure the current to the leisure battery I guess.. ?
Click to expand...

That is just a part of the deal. Don't know the specifications for your on-board charger, but regardless of whether it is a three-stage charger, or just some sort of basic converter, the final part of the battery charging sequence must be that the voltage ends up dropping down to around 13.5V - plus or minus 0.2V depending on the type of battery and the setting of the charger. Provided the battery doesn't have a shorted cell, this voltage will ensure that the current into the battery is small enough that no harm is done long term.

What can happen is that a battery develops a shorted cell and this can trick chargers into thinking the battery is a long way from being ready to go into float mode, so it keeps pumping bulk charge current into the battery and this will result in way overcharging the good cells with the result you observed.

I doubt whether the trickle charger you put on the starter battery had anything to do with it, but ...

Put a new battery in and connect shore power. Current should not exceed the rated charging capacity of the charger while the battery voltage is less than 14.4V. Once that voltage is reached, the voltage will stay constant and the current will gradually decrease over the next couple of hours (or longer depending on settings).

Once the current has dropped to a couple of amps, or perhaps some hours after the 14.4 point is reached, the voltage should drop to float voltage (approx 13.5V) and the current should be less than 1 amp.

Anything significantly different could mean the charger is busted.

BTW this sequence is for a three stage charger. Yours may be different. The vehicle manual should give you some info on the expected charge cycle, or you can get it on-line.

BTW. Starting an engine from any battery that has CCA rating as part of its specifications isn't going to hurt the battery.


If you want to check the existing battery, disconnect shore power and let it cool. Wearing goggles, check the electolyte level in each cell. If 5 are way low and one is much higher then look no further. That cell is shorted. Battery is US.
Check the voltage. If higher than 12.4 then may be worth checking further
If all levels are similar but very low (meaning plates are uncovered), add distilled water to JUST COVER THE PLATES and leave it for a couple of hours. Could be worth putting a charger on it for a couple of hours just to stir things up a bit. Leave it for a couple of hours and measure the voltage. Put a 5 amp load on it (headlight bulb or reconnect to the MH and switch all the interior lights on. If voltage takes a big dive then we are back to the shorted cell or all cells wrecked.

At this stage there probably isn't a lot of point perservering unless you are desperate.
If you put a new battery in and you aren't familiar with the expected charging cycle, then you may just end up wrecking two batteries. Minimum testing equipment is a digital voltmeter. Ammeter capable of measuring rated charger current is nice but not essential. ANY form of traffic light charge indicator is generally there only to give the owners something to look at rather than indicate anything useful in these situations.
 
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Thanks for all the input.

I've just read Tony's very comprehensive post and can confirm that 2 of the cells are still full and 4 empty so it looks like I may have had 2 shorted cells? No wonder the charger wanted to boil it to a crisp. When the new battery arrives I will make sure all is charging as it should. I'm thinking this could have ended very badly if I hadn't happened to look in the van this morning.

Again, thanks to all for you help..
 
Putting two chargers connected together is probably not a good idea - not sure what damage it would do though. Connecting a charger to the starter battery would most likely raise the voltage to a level that would operate the split charge relay therefore connecting the batteries together which would also link the chargers together.
 
exploding battery

It's a little known fact, and a friend has the scars to prove it, that batteries really can explode ! , don't underestimate the power of a car battery.
 
Hello Sparrks,

two chargers feeding the same battery won't increase the charge current significantly (not at all if both charger output voltages are identical), a battery takes what current it needs depending on charging voltage.
I'm not that familiar with split charge systems but don't they also need the ignition on to operate rather than just a charge level voltage?

Alec
 
Very common to have two and sometime three different charging sources for one battery and about the worst that can happen is that one or more chargers will be confused by voltages produced by the other source that they cycle between charging modes. Can look a bit alarming to those who can't keep their eyes off the control panel displays, but otherwise pretty harmless.
Examples are solar regulator + mains charger; solar regulator + engine charging; and even likely to have all three on at the same time if you are in the driveway on shore power and have the engine running.

DO make sure you monitor the operation of the battery charger for a while because my "suggestion" that full cell = shorted cell and empty = good cell isn't guaranteed and it is still possible that the charger went crazy and overcharged the whole battery and that cause warping of plates or whatever and that became a short in two cells and then different water levels came later.. Not easy to tell which is cause and effect. Any sign of the battery voltage going much over 14.4V for any significant time would be good reason to double check the charger.
 
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piman said:
Hello Sparrks,

two chargers feeding the same battery won't increase the charge current significantly (not at all if both charger output voltages are identical), a battery takes what current it needs depending on charging voltage.
I'm not that familiar with split charge systems but don't they also need the ignition on to operate rather than just a charge level voltage?

Alec
Click to expand...
Some do, others of the type I was thinking of were the 'smart' relays of the voltage sensing type.
Tony Lee said:
Very common to have two and sometime three different charging sources for one battery and about the worst that can happen is that one or more chargers will be confused by voltages produced by the other source that they cycle between charging modes. Can look a bit alarming to those who can't keep their eyes off the control panel displays, but otherwise pretty harmless.
Examples are solar regulator + mains charger; solar regulator + engine charging; and even likely to have all three on at the same time if you are in the driveway on shore power and have the engine running.

DO make sure you monitor the operation of the battery charger for a while because my "suggestion" that full cell = shorted cell and empty = good cell isn't guaranteed and it is still possible that the charger went crazy and overcharged the whole battery and that cause warping of plates or whatever and that became a short in two cells and then different water levels came later.. Not easy to tell which is cause and effect. Any sign of the battery voltage going much over 14.4V for any significant time would be good reason to double check the charger.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more along the line of say, if the leisure battery was fully charged but was requiring a 'float' charge and the starter battery was flat and in need of a much bigger charge would it be possible that the rapid charger on the starter result in an overcharged leisure battery (via the split charge relay) or would the starter battery tale all the charge?
 
sparrks said:
Some do, others of the type I was thinking of were the 'smart' relays of the voltage sensing type.


I was thinking more along the line of say, if the leisure battery was fully charged but was requiring a 'float' charge and the starter battery was flat and in need of a much bigger charge would it be possible that the rapid charger on the starter result in an overcharged leisure battery (via the split charge relay) or would the starter battery tale all the charge?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting point you raise. The vehicle battery was completely flat so would have been demanding lots of amps.

The worry for me over all of what's happened is that it seems that if a couple of cells went short in a battery it could easily lead to a fire. Often there would be absolutely no indication that the scenario was about to unfold.
 
Interesting thread, I know someone who had a fully charged auxiliary battery connected to his van, but a flat van battery, which he didn't realise, and when he tried to start the van it tried to draw cranking amps from the auxiliary battery via the link wire on the split charge, obviously this completely overloaded the link wire and instantly fried and set fire to the van. Luckily he was able to put it out quickly enough to save the van but it made a right mess. Investigations led us to believe the split charge system had stuck open somehow, even though it was meant to be an intelligent system that wouldn't allow that to happen. He junked the lot and we installed a second alternator and isolated the two systems so it can't happen again.
I've since wired up my own van and have also kept both systems isolated to avoid this possibility. I know most vans run a split charge without any issues and they are generally safe but I'd sooner not take the risk
 
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