House Battery on 5th Wheel Exploded
The 12 volt deep cycle marine battery on my 5th wheel exploded while my trailer was hooked up to shore power. The top of the battery had three holes in it, and there was some acid in the battery comp...
Forum Discussion
I installed four 85AH Interstates in 2008 when I first got my off-road POPUP setup. This converter/charger used the ELIXIR ELX-30 single mode 13.6VDC 30AMP Battery charger. I knew this was going to be changed out for a smart mode larger AMP capability to support the additional batteries.
I also wanted to have many 120VAC Circuit breaker and 12VDC circuits and picked the WFCO 8900 series unit to replace the ELIXIR unit with. The ELIXIR unit only supported three 12VDC fused zones.
I did get my five large circuit breaker spots and eleven 12VDC fused positions and got everything all wired up using the WF8900 sries power distribution panel setup. I ended up using a combination of one full size 120VAC 30AMP breaker in one full size slot and then eight half size 15A breakers in the remaining four full size slots. Then I rewired all of the 12VDC circuits using the two conductor 12 GAUGE "boat cable" for all my 12VDC circuits. Only took a couple of hours to rewire the original 12VDC cables as all of the 12VDC circuits were already available to use but I eventually replaced all of the 12VDC circuits using a larger conductor size with the marine two conductor "BOAT CABLE"
Right away after leaving my camper sitting on shore power I ended up getting one of the single 12VDC Interstate battery really hot to touch. It was producing less than 5.0VDC and was demanding a full 45AMPs from the WF8945 converter charger unit.
After further investigation I found I was never going into the SMART MODES the WF8900 series was spec'ed to do. It always stayed in the 13.6VDC mode from what I could measure and was boiling out the fluids of all four of the batteries. One battery did eventually short out two internal cells doing this. It was most likely shorted out using the original ELIXIR unit.
I replaced the WF8945 Converter/charger module only with a PD-9260C 60AMP Smart mode charger and could not recover the one shorted battery but the other three came right back up to normal after a full 12-hour charge period... The PD9260C converter/charger module did go into all of the 14.4-13.6-13.2 VDC charge modes right away as specified.
The shorted out battery got really hot when I tried to charge it using the PD9260C unit. I just took it out of service and disposed of it at the local dump battery recycle place.
I have been running the remaining three 85AH batteries ever since early 2009 to present time.
I probably was very close to blowing the top off of the one shorted battery. I could not touch the top of the battery case because it was so hot.
This is when I discovered from reading other posts that the WFCO products did not always go into smart mode charging. I tried every thing I could think of to get the WF8945 to go into smart mode charging and one time I did see 14.4VDC coming from it for about 30 seconds when I was connected about one foot away from the battery with 4AWG cable hook ups. My test was to run the batteries down to around 12.0VDC and then try to recharge them back using the WF8945 unit. Never had any luck doing this using the WF8945 unit.
The PD9260 Unit goes into 14.4VDC smart mode when first connected. If the battery is already charged up to the 12.6-7VDC level then the PD9260C reverts to the 13.6VDC mode right away after a few seconds.
When I run down my battery bank to the 12.0VDC level the PD9260C charger will go into smart mode charging when being powered up by my Honda Generator providing shore power to the trailer and run 14.4VDC for about an hour and then drop down to 13.6VDC mode for an additional two hours of run time and finally go to 13.2VDC after that. When I start demanding current from the batteries then the PD9260C will revert back to the 13.6VDC mode and then eventually go back to the 13.2VDC mode after a bit... I have never seen any boiling out of battery fluids since changing over to the PD9260C converter/charger unit. The batteries are very warm to touch when doing the smart mode charging but never too hot to touch.
Roy Ken
I also wanted to have many 120VAC Circuit breaker and 12VDC circuits and picked the WFCO 8900 series unit to replace the ELIXIR unit with. The ELIXIR unit only supported three 12VDC fused zones.
I did get my five large circuit breaker spots and eleven 12VDC fused positions and got everything all wired up using the WF8900 sries power distribution panel setup. I ended up using a combination of one full size 120VAC 30AMP breaker in one full size slot and then eight half size 15A breakers in the remaining four full size slots. Then I rewired all of the 12VDC circuits using the two conductor 12 GAUGE "boat cable" for all my 12VDC circuits. Only took a couple of hours to rewire the original 12VDC cables as all of the 12VDC circuits were already available to use but I eventually replaced all of the 12VDC circuits using a larger conductor size with the marine two conductor "BOAT CABLE"
Right away after leaving my camper sitting on shore power I ended up getting one of the single 12VDC Interstate battery really hot to touch. It was producing less than 5.0VDC and was demanding a full 45AMPs from the WF8945 converter charger unit.
After further investigation I found I was never going into the SMART MODES the WF8900 series was spec'ed to do. It always stayed in the 13.6VDC mode from what I could measure and was boiling out the fluids of all four of the batteries. One battery did eventually short out two internal cells doing this. It was most likely shorted out using the original ELIXIR unit.
I replaced the WF8945 Converter/charger module only with a PD-9260C 60AMP Smart mode charger and could not recover the one shorted battery but the other three came right back up to normal after a full 12-hour charge period... The PD9260C converter/charger module did go into all of the 14.4-13.6-13.2 VDC charge modes right away as specified.
The shorted out battery got really hot when I tried to charge it using the PD9260C unit. I just took it out of service and disposed of it at the local dump battery recycle place.
I have been running the remaining three 85AH batteries ever since early 2009 to present time.
I probably was very close to blowing the top off of the one shorted battery. I could not touch the top of the battery case because it was so hot.
This is when I discovered from reading other posts that the WFCO products did not always go into smart mode charging. I tried every thing I could think of to get the WF8945 to go into smart mode charging and one time I did see 14.4VDC coming from it for about 30 seconds when I was connected about one foot away from the battery with 4AWG cable hook ups. My test was to run the batteries down to around 12.0VDC and then try to recharge them back using the WF8945 unit. Never had any luck doing this using the WF8945 unit.
The PD9260 Unit goes into 14.4VDC smart mode when first connected. If the battery is already charged up to the 12.6-7VDC level then the PD9260C reverts to the 13.6VDC mode right away after a few seconds.
When I run down my battery bank to the 12.0VDC level the PD9260C charger will go into smart mode charging when being powered up by my Honda Generator providing shore power to the trailer and run 14.4VDC for about an hour and then drop down to 13.6VDC mode for an additional two hours of run time and finally go to 13.2VDC after that. When I start demanding current from the batteries then the PD9260C will revert back to the 13.6VDC mode and then eventually go back to the 13.2VDC mode after a bit... I have never seen any boiling out of battery fluids since changing over to the PD9260C converter/charger unit. The batteries are very warm to touch when doing the smart mode charging but never too hot to touch.
Roy Ken
