Batteries again

sailaboutvic

sailaboutvic

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Details .
Charger victron 45A ,
The Charger as two set of charging lead , one to the starter and one to the house battery
Three house battery , one starter battery ,
Seal acid.
Starter battery hasn't been used for some weeks , but the charger on has we charge the house battery each day ,we using then all the time , full time on board .
I notice the starter battery was hot to touch yesterday , once it cool down I removed it and tested , V 10.9 guess I can say good bye to that .
What I forgot to do is check if the house battery where also hot ( stupid ) as there are keep else where .
House batteries 12.9v this morning
The question is what would cause the battery to get hot , ( shorting of the plates , lack of water ,
Over charging ) ?
I would assume the charger would know the starter batter was fully charge and just charge the house batteries .
Don't want to stick a new battery on before I sure that the problem was the battery and not else where , any suggestion?.

Having to replace it what size battery for a 50HP engine would the panel suggest , it had a 110AH but it doesn't need to be that big , Volvo manual doesn't give size .

Thanks .
 
Last edited:
Think you will find the charge to the start batt is an in the region of 4amp trickle/maintenance charge. Would therefore reduce to virtually nil amps as the batt is fully charged per your common garden chargers as you would use in the garage at home. Sounds to me like the batt has come to the end of life, possible shorted cell etc. The house side of the Victrons however, provides a multi stage charge.
 
sailaboutvic said:
Details .
Charger victron 45A ,
The Charger as two set of charging lead , one to the starter and one to the house battery
Three house battery , one starter battery ,
Seal acid.
Starter battery hasn't been used for some weeks , but the charger on has we charge the house battery each day ,we using then all the time , full time on board .
I notice the starter battery was hot to touch yesterday , once it cool down I removed it and tested , V 10.9 guess I can say good bye to that .
What I forgot to do is check if the house battery where also hot ( stupid ) as there are keep else where .
House batteries 12.9v this morning
The question is what would cause the battery to get hot , ( shorting of the plates , lack of water ,
Over charging ) ?
I would assume the charger would know the starter batter was fully charge and just charge the house batteries .
Don't want to stick a new battery on before I sure that the problem was the battery and not else where , any suggestion?.

Having to replace it what size battery for a 50HP engine would the panel suggest , it had a 110AH but it doesn't need to be that big , Volvo manual doesn't give size .

Thanks .
Click to expand...

CCA more important than Ah capacity but a battery for a diesel car with a similar sized engine should do just fine. Probably be around 70 Ah but given the choice opt for a higher rather than lower CCA one in the 70Ah range.

I reckon the old one probably developed a shorted cell
 
third engines said:
Think you will find the charge to the start batt is an in the region of 4amp trickle/maintenance charge. Would therefore reduce to virtually nil amps as the batt is fully charged per your common garden chargers as you would use in the garage at home. Sounds to me like the batt has come to the end of life, possible shorted cell etc. The house side of the Victrons however, provides a multi stage charge.
Click to expand...

As far as i am aware there is only one model of Victron charger that has the maintenance output you describe (it's 3a). Vic does not have that model.
 
third engines said:
Think you will find the charge to the start batt is an in the region of 4amp trickle/maintenance charge. Would therefore reduce to virtually nil amps as the batt is fully charged per your common garden chargers as you would use in the garage at home. Sounds to me like the batt has come to the end of life, possible shorted cell etc. The house side of the Victrons however, provides a multi stage charge.
Click to expand...

I don't understand. :confused:

I'm sure that the Victron marine chargers have outputs for two sets of batteries but both sets are intelligent multi-stage rather than trickle.

As said above, it sounds like the deal cell which happened to my car driving back from Croatia in August. Car started perfectly driving onto Euroshuttle. 30 minutes later battery completely dead. Voltage measured 10.9V even after 200 mile drive back from Folkestone. :(

Richard
 
Almost certainly a shorted cell. That leaves the charger putting 14.x volts (or 13.x volts) into a 10v battery, hence the boiling. If there is nothing wrong with the domestic batteries there would have been no reason for them to get hot, they will be unaffected.
 
RichardS said:
I don't understand. :confused:

I'm sure that the Victron marine chargers have outputs for two sets of batteries but both sets are intelligent multi-stage rather than trickle.
Click to expand...

The two output Victron Skylla 2nd output is limited to 3a. I don't know of another model of Victron charger that does this.
 
sailaboutvic said:
The question is what would cause the battery to get hot , ( shorting of the plates , lack of water ,
Over charging ) ?
Click to expand...

If there is a VSR connected, it will make the starter battery see the same voltage as the domestic bank. This voltage might, depending on how intelligent the charger is, often rises to absorption level (14,4V) because of loads while living on board, such as fridge kicking in at regular intervals etc. Such voltages for extended periods can harm a battery that sees no loads, like the starter battery.
Regardless of VSR or not, if being hooked up to shore power and living on board for extended periods, I would disconnect the starter battery.
 
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PaulRainbow said:
As far as i am aware there is only one model of Victron charger that has the maintenance output you describe (it's 3a). Vic does not have that model.
Click to expand...

In which case, it's most likely the same as most other multi output ones - single charger with diodes to split output with all batteries getting same regime. As his house bank is OK and charger hasn't gone high output, it just looks as if engine battery is time expired.
 
third engines said:
Obviously not very familiar with Victron products. Try reading some data sheets, Phoenix, Skylla i etc. All charge at 4A to start batt.
Click to expand...

Hi
Don't think that the case with the Victrom you can connect the leads both way to the batteries I can only imagine that some how the victrom know one battery bank is full and start to trickle charge that bank while still putting in a full charge into the other .
I agree with most here , I think that battery was at the end of its life .
Shop around for another one over the next few days .
 
third engines said:
Obviously not very familiar with Victron products. Try reading some data sheets, Phoenix, Skylla i etc. All charge at 4A to start batt.
Click to expand...

I believe that even the Phoenix high current chargers have 2 intelligent outputs as well as a trickle charge output. However, the 40/45A Victron is a Centaur and that does not have a trickle charge output so Vic cannot be using that. :)

Richard
 
third engines said:
Obviously not very familiar with Victron products. Try reading some data sheets, Phoenix, Skylla i etc. All charge at 4A to start batt.
Click to expand...

I'm not intimately familiar with every detail of every model and variant of Victron charger. I already said the 2 output Skylla had the engine battery trickle output, i wasn't aware that the Phoenix had it too. No other model or variant has the feature and of those that do, none could possibly be the charger that Vic is using, so your claim that "Think you will find the charge to the start batt is an in the region of 4amp trickle/maintenance charge. " was incorrect.
 
Hi Vic
I agree with others that the engine battery has simply reached the end of it's life.
Think I sent you pictures of my starter battery for the same engine as yours. An Odyssey 27AH but with very large CCA. It's an AGM battery, very small and light, and installed outside the main battery box which means that all 4 in the box are for domestic systems.
I rarely use the battery charger. Solar panels are only connected to the house bank and keep them full even through most of the winter. Wind charger is connected to both banks and keeps the start battery full.
Regards
Peter
 
Pasarell said:
Hi Vic
I agree with others that the engine battery has simply reached the end of it's life.
Think I sent you pictures of my starter battery for the same engine as yours. An Odyssey 27AH but with very large CCA. It's an AGM battery, very small and light, and installed outside the main battery box which means that all 4 in the box are for domestic systems.
I rarely use the battery charger. Solar panels are only connected to the house bank and keep them full even through most of the winter. Wind charger is connected to both banks and keeps the start battery full.
Regards
Peter
Click to expand...

Hi Peter
Yes I remember google themat the time , the problem we live aboard have is getting what we want where we are at the time of needed it , although there som e good batteries sellers here in Malta non do them type of battery's , so back to getting what we can .
We changed all the house batteries last year but didn't bother with the starter lucky for us we in no rush to replace it .
Still trying to find out the right CCA I need as it also operates the bow thruster which isn't used much .
 
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