catastrophic battery failure !

[RichardS]

Re: catastrophic battery failure ! update 11/11/2015

the suspected anchor windlass demanding of power was not the case , it was the starter motor trying to engage !
I took it out to find the solenoid had totally burned out .
collected the rebuilt motor complete with new solenoid from a local car guy for a very reasonable 60 e
and its going back in tomorrow .
Was this the cause of the battery failure or one of the symptoms ?
The duff battery was replaced and
all remaining batteries are now fully charged 1290/1300 , just using the solar panels , luckily we have had full
days of sunshine for quite a while so good for recovery .
the dud battery is less than a year old and it has swollen sides ? what does this represent ?

thanks all ,

Swollen sides means that it's either a wet cell type with a blocked vent or a sealed type with a failed catalytic thingummyjig that re-combines the hydrogen and oxygen back to water. Get rid of it because if it keeps swelling and bursts you will have acid spraying everywhere which is good for neither man nor beast (nor boat )

Richard

 

[sailorman]

Re: catastrophic battery failure ! update 11/11/2015

the suspected anchor windlass demanding of power was not the case , it was the starter motor trying to engage !
I took it out to find the solenoid had totally burned out .
collected the rebuilt motor complete with new solenoid from a local car guy for a very reasonable 60 e
and its going back in tomorrow .
Was this the cause of the battery failure or one of the symptoms ?
The duff battery was replaced and
all remaining batteries are now fully charged 1290/1300 , just using the solar panels , luckily we have had full
days of sunshine for quite a while so good for recovery .
the dud battery is less than a year old and it has swollen sides ? what does this represent ?

thanks all ,

Heavy / fast discharge, you were lucky it didnt split or worse :disgust:

 

[tcm]

imagine your battery's as huskies in a sled team, you buy ten puppy's with a working life expectancy of five years you couple them to your sled and off you go - after five years one of them dies and your other huskies are now dragging his ass along AND coping with the weight of the sled - they are working harder so another one dies

so you buy another puppy and put it in with all those old dogs - the puppy wants to pull that sled and work hard but the old dogs hold him back, so he plods along at the same speed as the old dogs - as more old dogs die you slowly replace them with puppies now all at different ages and never working that sled as well as the matched team you started with

once my five year old battery croaks I KNOW the others aren't far behind - if they have all been boiled dry and internal plates exposed my experience is filling them with water and recharging them is a short term fix and one that will bite you on the ass in the not to distant future.

my preferred method is to shoot the old dogs and buy all new puppies

but that's just me.

This is interesting. I remember that my ole physics teacher used analogies all the time for this and other things, not always so appropriately. But of course, once you start using husky dogs as analogous to battery banks, well, one might consider using something else for the analogy, maybe?

So I appreciate the analogy and it explains things very well BUT suppose that instead imagining that the batteries are husky dogs, one instead imagines that they are hose pipes with water coming out of them, hm? I know that they aren't hose pipes of course, but they aren't husky dogs either, and at least hose pipes are inanimate.

With the hose pipe analogy, all the ten hosepipes combine to form a lovely powerful fountain, and if one of them dies - no big deal at all, it's just 90% of the original fountain. Hm. Likewise, if instead of husky dogs or hosepipes, imagining the batteries to be cream cakes would also mean that with one mouldy cream cake, it's still quite a lot of cream cakes to be enjoyed. None of this explain the dead battery, but then explaining things using husky dog analogies is perhaps merely another way of pandering to an increasingly dumbed-down world.

I'm mainly trying to liven up a very boring thread where someone has advertised that his batteries suffered "catastrophic" failure and actually they're just dead. Total washout. "Catastrophic failure" of a battery should surely include a fabulous explosion or at least a bit of a fire and perhaps a slightly-charred boat. I suppose that to transpose this sort of catastrophe to the husky-dog analogy, one would imagine that the entire pack turns around and devours you. Pretty bad eh? Likewise a catastrophe with hosepipes would mean that the boat fills with water, and cream-cake catastrophe starts with poisoning the entire crew and builds from there.

So all in all I suggest that the OP re-evaluates what can truly be considered a catastrophe. Or of course, make something up to entertain us all.

 

[vyv_cox]

With the hose pipe analogy, all the ten hosepipes combine to form a lovely powerful fountain, and if one of them dies - no big deal at all, it's just 90% of the original fountain. Hm. Likewise, if instead of husky dogs or hosepipes, imagining the batteries to be cream cakes would also mean that with one mouldy cream cake, it's still quite a lot of cream cakes to be enjoyed. None of this explain the dead battery, but then explaining things using husky dog analogies is perhaps merely another way of pandering to an increasingly dumbed-down world.

Unfortunately neither the hosepipe nor the husky dog analogy is correct. In each example the power produced is in parallel, whereas battery cells are in series. So if the huskies were pulling one behind the other and one died it would effectively destroy their ability to pull the sledge, what with dragging a corpse around with them.

Not quite so easy with hosepipes, I suppose if they were in a line in series, firstly filling buckets and then siphoning on to the next and somebody trod on one of them that would do it.

Sorry, can't think of one for cream cakes but personally I would prefer a Marmite sandwich. Can't think of an analogy for them either.

 

[affinite]

Unfortunately neither the hosepipe nor the husky dog analogy is correct. In each example the power produced is in parallel, whereas battery cells are in series. So if the huskies were pulling one behind the other and one died it would effectively destroy their ability to pull the sledge, what with dragging a corpse around with them.

Not quite so easy with hosepipes, I suppose if they were in a line in series, firstly filling buckets and then siphoning on to the next and somebody trod on one of them that would do it.

Sorry, can't think of one for cream cakes but personally I would prefer a Marmite sandwich. Can't think of an analogy for them either.

Vyv
The batteries are in parallel
Steve

 

[vyv_cox]

Vyv
The batteries are in parallel
Steve

My analogy is for the cells

 

[affinite]

My analogy is for the cells

I know but I do like the Husky story

 

[Cariadco]

another Husky Theory...sort of...

I know but I do like the Husky story

Nothing to do with the OP, but years ago, technical institutions used to try and explain VAR and Power Factor theory by using an analagy of a Horse, towing a Barge down a Canal......Took me years to really understand it.

It always made me smile...!

 

[halcyon]

Re: catastrophic battery failure ! update 11/11/2015

the suspected anchor windlass demanding of power was not the case , it was the starter motor trying to engage !
I took it out to find the solenoid had totally burned out .
collected the rebuilt motor complete with new solenoid from a local car guy for a very reasonable 60 e
and its going back in tomorrow .
Was this the cause of the battery failure or one of the symptoms ?
The duff battery was replaced and
all remaining batteries are now fully charged 1290/1300 , just using the solar panels , luckily we have had full
days of sunshine for quite a while so good for recovery .
the dud battery is less than a year old and it has swollen sides ? what does this represent ?

thanks all ,

That's what I said in #7.

Sounds like a battery with a internal short, thus generating a low voltage and low / no charge to other batteries.

Remember the battery generates the charge voltage not the alternator.

Brian

 

[ribrage]

This is interesting. I remember that my ole physics teacher used analogies all the time for this and other things, not always so appropriately. But of course, once you start using husky dogs as analogous to battery banks, well, one might consider using something else for the analogy, maybe?

So I appreciate the analogy and it explains things very well BUT suppose that instead imagining that the batteries are husky dogs, one instead imagines that they are hose pipes with water coming out of them, hm? I know that they aren't hose pipes of course, but they aren't husky dogs either, and at least hose pipes are inanimate.

With the hose pipe analogy, all the ten hosepipes combine to form a lovely powerful fountain, and if one of them dies - no big deal at all, it's just 90% of the original fountain. Hm. Likewise, if instead of husky dogs or hosepipes, imagining the batteries to be cream cakes would also mean that with one mouldy cream cake, it's still quite a lot of cream cakes to be enjoyed. None of this explain the dead battery, but then explaining things using husky dog analogies is perhaps merely another way of pandering to an increasingly dumbed-down world.

I'm mainly trying to liven up a very boring thread where someone has advertised that his batteries suffered "catastrophic" failure and actually they're just dead. Total washout. "Catastrophic failure" of a battery should surely include a fabulous explosion or at least a bit of a fire and perhaps a slightly-charred boat. I suppose that to transpose this sort of catastrophe to the husky-dog analogy, one would imagine that the entire pack turns around and devours you. Pretty bad eh? Likewise a catastrophe with hosepipes would mean that the boat fills with water, and cream-cake catastrophe starts with poisoning the entire crew and builds from there.

So all in all I suggest that the OP re-evaluates what can truly be considered a catastrophe. Or of course, make something up to entertain us all.

Yeh the hose pipe thing seems ok but how does the hose pipe reduce its output - the huskies were getting old and slowing down so the younger pups had to help pull the old huskies along.

Beaides everyone likes huskys , mind you I quite like cream cake too.

 

[ribrage]

Unfortunately neither the hosepipe nor the husky dog analogy is correct. In each example the power produced is in parallel, whereas battery cells are in series. So if the huskies were pulling one behind the other and one died it would effectively destroy their ability to pull the sledge, what with dragging a corpse around with them.

Not quite so easy with hosepipes, I suppose if they were in a line in series, firstly filling buckets and then siphoning on to the next and somebody trod on one of them that would do it.

Sorry, can't think of one for cream cakes but personally I would prefer a Marmite sandwich. Can't think of an analogy for them either.

The husky analogy isn't perfect but it conveys an image of stronger dogs pulling along the older dogs .... I thought it was ok - not perfect if you reduce it to battery cells maybe but I'll work on the marmite idea it's pretty boring out here and I have little to do right now.

 

[ribrage]

I know but I do like the Husky story

affinite

thanks and and I can assure you no huskies were injured in the making of that analogy

( unlike the cream cake analogy )

 

[tcm]

affinite

thanks and and I can assure you no huskies were injured in the making of that analogy

( unlike the cream cake analogy )

Thanks for this - yes I noticed that you very thoughtfully gave the huskies a working life of five years...

 

[grafozz]

affinite

thanks and and I can assure you no huskies were injured in the making of that analogy

( unlike the cream cake analogy )

very good !