[Ozarkguy]

Forrest, the following is information on testing battery condition..
http://www.tekrispower.com/pdfs/xantrex/...urrent.pdf

[Sundance]

Sorry to hear about the battery issues.
Few thoughts from my buddy who I ran your issue by; he is 4th
Generation auto/truck battery dealer/ rebuilder of acid batteries
1) Motorhomes of Texas does a poor job inspecting and prepping if they sell a coach with Batteries 5 gallons low

2) If your batteries are weak/damaged a sound load test might finish them off

3) There must be another ground or circuit if some batteries were not so dry

4) Voltage reading alone tell only part of story on health of acid batteries

Hope it turns out to not have killed any batteries and he agrees that one sick battery can kill others
In the bank.

Keep us in the loop.

[folivier]

A little more info. Just looked at the batteries and the set of 2 house batteries are ok but the set of 4 are warm (2 are about 120 degrees, other 2 are 140 & 155 degrees) and when I removed one of the caps to check the water level it had a little pressure and the water level is down a bit. So I just turned off the charger.

[Chester Stone]

Forest, I wonder if all of the batteries were installed at the same time, or were they mixed. Is there any way to check the output of the charger? Next week we will check each battery at Spearfish if you can get by until then.

[Ozarkguy]

Here is a interesting read on multi battery banks and how best to wire them.
http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html
He is out of the UK. I used his info when I wired up my 6 8d bank.

jw

[Chester Stone]

Jimmy, plan 2 seems to be practical enough, but plans 3 & 4 seem to require too many cables. Which did you use?

[folivier]

#2 looks like I have enough cable to re-wire a set of 4, and maybe all 6. On my coach 2 batteries are behind the tag and the other 4 are in front of the drive wheels. I think the inverter pulls from 1 battery then connects to the set of 4 then a longer cable connects the other 2.

I turned off the charger last night so the only charge going into the batteries was from the engine alternator. Right now 3 of the batteries are about 135 degrees, 1 is 118, and the set of 2 are 88 degrees F. I had the inverter on which as I understand powers the refrigerator, a few receptacles, TV, sat. dish & receiver. I just turned off the inverter and will see what the temps are like in a couple hours.
My thinking is the inverter/charger may be either set wrong or just wacky and charging the batteries too hot. When it's charging it shows 14.4 volts. I noticed that the lo bat alarm is also flashing. This is just too confusing for a country boy like me. Looking forward to Spearfish to get some other eyeballs on this and do a load test on the batteries.
If it is 1 or a couple batteries I'm thinking I could just pull the wires to take them out of the system. That would at least give me time to decide my plan. Some good news the generator worked great today for 4 hours of driving since I found that loose wire on the fuel pump.

[Ozarkguy]

I used plan 4. I had 4 batteries close n 2 about 6 feet away.. It worked great. Bought a pile of cable n terminals n built the cables. I looks hard but not really once you get into it.

[Ozarkguy]

Forrest you need a hydrometer to really test the cells. It will show the individule state of charge on each cell. What brand/ model inverter/ charger do you have???

[Richard]

Forrest.

One potential cause is a bad cell in that bank. If you can by with the two good batteries, disconnect the bad bank......the same condition that is causing your charger to continue to charge will do the same to your alternator. End result new Alternator