westend wrote:
I will guess that you have some resistance in your connection cables, your battery is failing, or the charge controller is in an equalization mode with 16.8V at the battery terminals. If the battery has now been off charge current for a bit, connect a device to discharge the battery, momentarily, and observe voltage. It should be 12.6V or higher when disconnected from load.
After confirming that the battery is charged, reconnect charge controller in absorption mode and observe voltage. It should be around 14.8V. If the charge controller reverts to Float voltage, observe that. Should be 13.6V or so.
16 V isn't necesarily going to hurt a 12V battery but that voltage should come down as the battery reaches a fuller charge and then rise when very close to full charge. A corresponding change in current should be observed, also.
So I reconnected when I observed the Voltage was reading 12.9 and it immediately jumped over 15 and I could hear lots of gurgles and smell maybe a gas release. I turned it off, but I did see that the controller was reading 14.6 and was in float mode.
I think this battery was bad, but I still don't see why the controller is feeding it when the charge is so high?
