Arctic Fox 860 Boiled the batteries?

I haven't seen those. Have to look into it thanks.

The really good chargers come with a temp sensor that you attach to one of the batteries (or between them). It is mostly meant to correctly charge in colder weather but can be a nice failsafe too.

Grit dog wrote:
Ya, that's what I suspect happened is one battery kicked the bucket and the charger sensed low voltage and overcharged the batteries.

I suspect the same thing.

I am familiar with the smart chargers. Use them on my boat and other implements. Never looked this one. I believe it has a voltage sensing float mode. Been plugged in 24/7 for the 18 months I have owned it without issue and not boiling the electrolyte out of the batteries, but I will certainly verify the type of charger in it when I get back up to the camper.

You really should make sure your older ARTIC FOX gets equipped with a good smart mode converter/charger unit. These smart mode converters if you don't have one will almost take care of your batteries for you...

The older converter/chargers only put out 13.6VDC and over time this alone will cause your batteries to boil out small amounts of fluids. If you are not in the habit of checking for this then once the fluid levels gets below the cores then possible battery cell short occurs demanding all the power your converter can muster eventually doing alot of battery damage requiring replacement.

When a battery gets real hot it is even prone to exploding which you don't want to have especially if the battery setup is inside your trailer...

I installed four each 12VDC Interstate batteries on my off-road POPUP when I first got it in 2008 and lost one battery due right away due to boiling out the fluids. I installed a good quality PD9260C converter/charger unit replacing my single voltage older converter and still check my batteries every couple of weeks looking for low fluids which doesn't happen anymore but I still check it... The original 2008/2009 Interstate 12VDC batteries are just now starting to drop off on performance.

I have done alot of camping off the power grid since 2009 with my 255AH capacity Interstate Battery Bank.

The other thing that has really helped me over these few years is NEVER let my batteries get discharged below 12.0VDC which is close to being 50% discharge state before re-charging back up to their 90% charge state..

Roy Ken

Ya, that's what I suspect happened is one battery kicked the bucket and the charger sensed low voltage and overcharged the batteries.

Could be anything-need to check battery voltages. Should have disconnected the batteries, if only one dumped good one feeding it, they both will be dead.

Thats what ours did, one of two batteries dumped a cell, solar controller sensed low voltage went into perpetual charge mode.