Dead House Battery

[DBA Forum (B) - Michael Walsh]

Our 855 Ah 24v Hawker Gel house bank unexpectedly died on Friday. It started from a 62% charge when we left the mooring, then showed a Low Battery alarm an hour later and refused to take a charge from any source. I have tried to feed it with our generator, with shore power through the Victron 24/5000/120-50/230-240v and with shore power through our portable multi-stage charger. No luck.

Connecting to shore power, the panel initially shows Bulk, then quickly flashes to Absorption. The meter shows 0.00 amp flow. With shore power connected, the battery reads 28.7v, with it disconnected, it now reads 1.4v (it had been 1.85v on Friday when this first occurred). There is no corrosion anywhere on the battery or the terminals, and all terminals are tight.

Any ideas?

[DBA Forum (B) - Daniel Boekel]

check terminals bij measuring over them, sounds like a loose connection somewhere!


On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 12:33 PM, DBA Forum (B) - Michael Walsh <dbabarges-pvYRptiajiAdnm+***@public.gmane.org> wrote:



Our 855 Ah 24v Hawker Gel house bank unexpectedly died on Friday. It started from a 62% charge when we left the mooring, then showed a Low Battery alarm an hour later and refused to take a charge from any source. I have tried to feed it with our generator, with shore power through the Victron 24/5000/120-50/230-240v and with shore power through our portable multi-stage charger. No luck.




Connecting to shore power, the panel initially shows Bulk, then quickly flashes to Absorption. The meter shows 0.00 amp flow. With shore power connected, the battery reads 28.7v, with it disconnected, it now reads 1.4v (it had been 1.85v on Friday when this first occurred). There is no corrosion anywhere on the battery or the terminals, and all terminals are tight.




Any ideas?

[DBA Forum (B) - Chris Green]

Post by DBA Forum (B) - Michael Walsh
Our 855 Ah 24v Hawker Gel house bank unexpectedly died on Friday. It started
from a 62% charge when we left the mooring, then showed a Low Battery alarm
an hour later and refused to take a charge from any source. I have tried
to feed it with our generator, with shore power through the Victron 24/5000/120-50/230-240v
and with shore power through our portable multi-stage charger. No luck.
Connecting to shore power, the panel initially shows Bulk, then quickly
flashes to Absorption. The meter shows 0.00 amp flow. With shore power
connected, the battery reads 28.7v, with it disconnected, it now reads
1.4v (it had been 1.85v on Friday when this first occurred). There is no
corrosion anywhere on the battery or the terminals, and all terminals are
tight.

It sounds like you either have a very bad connection somewhere or one
of the cells has died and gone effectively open circuit.

I would re-check all the connections, remove them and replace them,
tightness doesn't always mean the connection is good. Check the
other end(s) of the main battery cables too, both +ve and -ve.

If the connections really are all OK then you have a dead[ish] battery
I'm afraid.

[DBA Forum (B) - Geert-Jan Smolders]

Batteries usually do die this fast.

I agree with Daniel, clean all mating surfaces and check again.

But be very careful: this amount of energy doesn't just disappear, if your battery is shorted (unlikely, the voltage is to low for that) it may generate tremendous heat + gas buildup.

If one cell is shorted, voltage would go down a bit. In your case the batterie appears completely depleted.

You might have a broken cable due to vibration or pulling forces.

None of this is very likely, but then again: your readings are quite clear. Please do wear goggles around your batteries!

Can you hook up a charger to the battery terminals? What is voltage when measured straight at the battery terminals?

[DBA Forum (B) - Daniel Boekel]

Please measure first, if you pull off every connection to clean (99% of connections don't need cleaning and can only get worse) you might never know what the problem was.

Measure between all cells, but first over you're main battery fuse and than every cable, when you find an abnormal voltage you know you find somehing. you'll need a bit of load to find a 'leak'



On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 7:35 PM, DBA Forum (B) - Geert-Jan Smolders <dbabarges-pvYRptiajiAdnm+***@public.gmane.org> wrote:



Batteries usually do die this fast.



I agree with Daniel, clean all mating surfaces and check again.



But be very careful: this amount of energy doesn't just disappear, if your battery is shorted (unlikely, the voltage is to low for that) it may generate tremendous heat + gas buildup.



If one cell is shorted, voltage would go down a bit. In your case the batterie appears completely depleted.



You might have a broken cable due to vibration or pulling forces.



None of this is very likely, but then again: your readings are quite clear. Please do wear goggles around your batteries!



Can you hook up a charger to the battery terminals? What is voltage when measured straight at the battery terminals?

[DBA Forum (B) - Geert-Jan Smolders]

[quote="Geert-Jan Smolders" post=56067]Batteries usually do die this fast.

I[/quote]

Sorry, wanted to type batteries usually DON'T die this fast.