Electrical advice needed.

[Richard Birkett]

We had a funny smell in the motorhome and on investigating I found one of our Gel habitation batteries cooking.
I have disconnected the negative to the said battery and the cooking has stopped and it appears that all of the 12V electrics are still working and the BMV battery monitor is showing 14.4V (as is the Carthago panel).
My question is if I leave the battery disconnected as per the photographs (I will properly isolate the disconnected cables), will it be okay?
We are currently on hook up (not charging as far as I can tell) and have 320W of solar panel, 2nr 100W panels attached individually to the hab batteries via Victron MPPT controllers, which are both showing ‘float charge’ and an Alden Phenix panel connected via its own controller which is also showing ‘float charge’. We also have a Sterling BTB fitted but this only runs when the engine ignition is on.

Thanks in anticipation.
Richard

 

[Richard Birkett]

Sorry, I don’t know why all the photos are doubled up.

 

[MikeD]

dave newell lvs is probably the best guy to ask.

 

[Richard n Ann]

If you've just disconnected one of the parallel batteries should be fine, just reduced capacity. Our battery did the same last summer, disconnected it and (carefully) used the starter battery until we got home.
If you measure the voltage on the disconnected battery it might be 10v or so if it has a shorted cell.

 

[autorouter]

You need to insulate that loose negative terminal, so that it doesn't move around and come into contact with anything else. Wrap it with electrical tape, duct tape, a plastic bag and sellotape, an old sock, anything.

If you're feeling confident, you could move that big yellow thing (I think it's a battery temperature sensor for the Sterling B2B) onto the other battery negative terminal.

You are now running on one single leisure battery, so take that into account. If the solar controllers are good ones, they will not overcharge the battery. I'd keep an eye on the voltage in case there's a fault that's overcharged the battery and ruined it. If the voltage goes to 15V or more, it's probably a fault. But 14.4 or even 14.8 is probably OK.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[TerryL]

If it's just the one battery that was "cooking" I'd be pretty confident that it has suffered a terminal failure of some sort rather than a fault with the charging system - of which you appear to have copious amounts so I wouldn't worry about running on a single leisure battery for now.

But do get those contacts insulated asap or a battery failure is going to be the least of your worries..................................

 

[bigtwin]

If it's just the one battery that was "cooking" I'd be pretty confident that it has suffered a terminal failure of some sort rather than a fault with the charging system - of which you appear to have copious amounts so I wouldn't worry about running on a single leisure battery for now.

But do get those contacts insulated asap or a battery failure is going to be the least of your worries..................................

Especially if it’s another 200 Ah jobby!

Ian

 

[Richard Birkett]

Thanks everyone for your advice.
We’ll be okay on 1 battery until we get back to the UK but having to replace at least 1 battery leads to the question of whether to go the whole hog and change over to lithium?
Richard
Ps, I have now insulated the loose cable ends.

 

[bigtwin]

Currently a 15% discount from Tanya Batteries on e-bay.

SL200 Sonnenschein Battery (GF12160V / GF 12 160 V) | eBay

Because of this, we put all of our resources into getting you new battery out to you as quickly as humanly possible. In the vast majority of cases, yes it is! We will always help you to have a 100% positive happy buying experience.

rover.ebay.com

Ian

 

[Richard Birkett]

Thanks for the link Ian.
Richard

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}