Hello Gurus,
I have a chassis battery that has been "boiling" when hooked up to shore power. It's sister battery on the other side of the chassis is doing well, as are the two house batteries. Am I correct in assuming I have a problem with the battery? If so I understand I should replace both chassis batteries? They are charged by a Progressive Dynamics PD9270, which looks to be a recent install.
BTW, this was Todd Flickema's coach. If you read this Todd, am I correct that the Progressive Dynamics is fairly new? {It' 57 degrees here today. We are freezing
)
Happy new year to all.
If you have the batteries merged and only one is "boiling" then in all probability you got yourself a bad one. If it were mine here is what I would do; turn off the merge to isolate the chassis batteries from the coach batteries and then disconnect the ground wires from the chassis batteries to electrically isolate each of them, check the voltage across the posts, wait awhile and check the voltage again. If you have a bad one you will know. All this checking just ensures that you do indeed have a bad one, I would kick myself if I replaced an OK battery, I prefer to check prior to writing a check.
Guy, the Progressive Dynamics is pretty new.
Guy,
A bit of explanation may help. When a cell goes bad in a battery, the battery will not come up to it's fully charged voltage, which tricks the charger into continuing to pump amperage into the battery. That is usually what causes the battery to boil. It is being overcharged because the charger thinks the voltage is low. The really bad news is that undetected, one bad battery can cause the charger to fry all of them in that bank. Glad you caught it early.
Yes, you definitely have a problem with the battery....be sure to disconnect the boiling battery from the system so the charger won't damage the other batteries, too.
Dittos on what Richard and Clarke said. I once left my coach parked for a month and when I came back all 6 were almost empty of water. IIRC it over 10 gallons to fill them. And of course all but 2 were bad.
Went 8D battery shopping today, Was surprised to find that Sam's Club stocks 2 versions of the 8D battery. They are discontinuing the Energizer brand of wet cell battery, not a deep cycle battery. They are selling existing stock for 120.00 each. The ones I saw at the local Sams were 6 months old. Made in Mexico. 1 year exchange
The new stock are Duracell , not deep cycle, less than 30 days old, wet cell. The adverting shows a sealed battery, but not true, they have caps. This battery is made in Pennsylvania. It is made by East Penn Manufacturing, the same company that producs the NAPA and DEKA batteries. 189.00 each. 1 year exchange.
Any thoughts on the East Penn Manufacturing batteries for chasis batteries? These batteries are too heavy for me to experiment with the made in Mexico Energizers.
(01-02-2017, 03:54 PM)Guy Wrote: [ -> ]Went 8D battery shopping today, Was surprised to find that Sam's Club stocks 2 versions of the 8D battery. They are discontinuing the Energizer brand of wet cell battery, not a deep cycle battery. They are selling existing stock for 120.00 each. The ones I saw at the local Sams were 6 months old. Made in Mexico. 1 year exchange
The new stock are Duracell , not deep cycle, less than 30 days old, wet cell. The adverting shows a sealed battery, but not true, they have caps. This battery is made in Pennsylvania. It is made by East Penn Manufacturing, the same company that producs the NAPA and DEKA batteries. 189.00 each. 1 year exchange.
Any thoughts on the East Penn Manufacturing batteries for chasis batteries? These batteries are too heavy for me to experiment with the made in Mexico Energizers.
East Penn/Deka is a respected company and make batteries for many private labels. Have used batteries produced
by them for years with no problems.
Ouch! I just bought 2 new Interstates for engine. $260.00 ea. Wish I had seen post for Sam's club. The ones I replaced were Energizers and 7 yrs old. I did add my 2 oz of mineral oil to each cell. Since I have been "oiling" my 8d's, the water consumption has been dramatically reduced and the corrosion on terminals is almost non-existant.
I replaced the Chassis (engine) batteries, and it cleared up several other related issues. I had been ignoring anything related to low battery voltage since we were not on the road, but in storage. I ran the generator for several hours and brought house and chassis batteries up to full charge. We have no power in our coach storage area. Today when I turned off the master switch for the chassis batteries, the inverter low or no voltage alarm came on. I had the merge battery switch in the off position. Shouldn't the inverter be fed from the house batteries?