Steaming Battery

[DavidMort]

We are in FL at private park. The power is not great. We have a Hughes power protector at the pedestal. When the power glitches it drops out until the power is good again. Minimum time off is 90 secs. The result of this is that the battery charger resets and starts it 3 stage cycle again. Not sure how many times this happened today but it was mid cycle when we got back in afternoon and reset once this evening. Voltages are in the settings range for the AGM batteries.

Started smelling sulfurish. Initially thought it was the mangroves. Got stronger, decided it was the batteries, only near the RV. Turned the charger to float to drop the voltage and looked around. Turns out the right front truck (chassis) battery was steaming and very hot. The mat around the battery is wet, I assume acid boiled out. Pulled the neg cable on the hot battery as it was easiest to get to in the dark. Turned charger off.

So what would cause this. I assume that the BIRD connects the batteries together when the coach are higher than the chassis to keep them charged. Would multiple charge cycles damage the batteries; either the AGMs or the flooded? Just a bad battery?

Notes:

When I received the coach the emergency start switch (#2) was programed to stay latched. Thought I fixed this.

Bulk/absorption voltage 14.6V, float 13.6V.

Let chassis battery seemed fine/not hot.

After 1/2 hour with charger off chassis voltage is different than the coach so assume the bird is disconnected.

[DavidMort]

Update: Pulled the offending battery this morning; did not crack so only a little acid to clean up. Checked the settings on Aux #2 and it set correctly. (momentary & source battery) The BIRD seems to be connecting the chassis and coach batteries together even with the the charger disabled. I enabled the charge but set the rate low so that if the power goes on and off charger will not reset and continuously try to pump a 100amps into the batteries.

At this point looking at replacing both chassis batteries. It is a 2015 chassis so 5 years old with 4 years of use on the batteries.

[milkman55]

4 years is about par for most OEM batteries. Given load for the 5500, I would say that’s pretty good.

[DavidMort]

Originally Posted by milkman55

4 years is about par for most OEM batteries. Given load for the 5500, I would say that’s pretty good.

Life of the battery probably not bad. I have never had a battery act like it was going to explode. Usually they just fade away and don't take a charge. Our next door neighbor in the campground said he had one explode on a boat.

[milkman55]

I read over on the RAM forum that the Mopar OEM are made by Johnson Controls in a factory in Mexico. Can’t attest to the facts, but that was the discussion about how bad were the Mopar batteries.

[Lifestylers]

Run like hell