House Battery on 5th Wheel Exploded

[RamTX]

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 compartment as well as residue from the battery. The explosion blew the battery compartment door open, preventing serious damage to the trailer's battery compartment. I am unsure about the cause, but it is quite possible that one or more cells was low on acid as I last checked them about three months ago. The terminals on the battery were tight so that didn't appear to be the ignition source. I am looking at different batteries including sealed batteries and agm batteries. I'm wondering if my on board charging system will properly charge agm batteries. I am also concerned that the charging system may have overcharged the battery and caused the explosion. Any suggestions on how to determine if the charging system is functioning properly and will it properly charge an agm battery. I have an 08 Jayco Superlite Eagle 5er.

[prstlk]

This happened to me when one of my 4 6v batteries exploded. When i say exploded i mean it blew the majority of casing off leaving only the fins. I did not discover it until I had a mobile tech come to my mh for another issue.
He explained that the given the coach had been siting for awhile and the Batts where 6 years old and the coach was on shore power what likely happened was this.
Older batteries use more water
As the water gets "boiled" off from charging it creates a gap between the top of the water and the top of the battery.
The gas that fills the space is very volatile
Starting the coach can cause a spark or even turning on a light.
Boom
Moral check your water level, keep the tops of the batteries and the cables clean.
A fire is a real possibility in these events.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

One hydrogen 2 oxygen atoms for water.

Perfect combustion occurs after combing two hydrogen atoms with one oxygen atom.

The AGE of the battery under discussion skews the relevancy of amount of overcharge present. A badly poisoned battery will bubble vigorously at 13.8 volts, or even fewer volts.

Converters SHOULD be selected via battery manufacturer's maintenance data, not by a converter salesman over the telephone. Absorbsion and float voltages are important.

Houston can get hot. For that reason, flow-through compartment ventilation should be made available for any type of battery.

[Chum_lee]

RamTX BTDT! There is a good chance your system overcharged the battery and the resulting off gassing mix (hydrogen/oxygen (H2, O2)) found an ignition source and the rest is history. A volt/amp meter is your friend. Check your battery manufacturers charging specifications. However, it is normal for wet cell deep cycle battery(s) to off gas during heavy use either charging or discharging. Make sure your battery compartment is well ventilated and the vents are clear. Most propane (hydrocarbon) detectors will also sound an alarm in the presence of excess H2. Without seeing it, if your storage compartment has ventilation issues, it might be a good idea to install one inside the compartment.

The fact that the explosion blew your storage area compartment door open makes me think you need more ventilation area, however, a little bit of hydrogen can go a long way. Think, . . . the Hindenburg zeppelin disaster.


Chum lee

[KD4UPL]

Many of the IOTA chargers have a device that you can plug into them to make them a smart 3 stage charger. It's the IQ-4. I don't know if your unit can use it or not.

[hedgehopper]

RamTX wrote:

jmckelvy wrote:
What brand and model is your converter? Some are not good battery chargers.

I checked my converter charger and it is an IOTA ILC3045 which I think is a two stage charger. The battery was an interstate 27 deep cycle battery which was about 5 years old.

Talk with Randy at Best Converter. Tell him what you have now and he will likely offer an upgrade suggestion, probably a Progressive Dynamics. I have been quite satisfied with the PD upgrade I bought from Best Converter. My wife and I installed it. We are not particularly knowledgeable about such installations. But it worked right away.

[RamTX]

jmckelvy wrote:
What brand and model is your converter? Some are not good battery chargers.

I checked my converter charger and it is an IOTA ILC3045 which I think is a two stage charger. The battery was an interstate 27 deep cycle battery which was about 5 years old.

[RJsfishin]

Quote:
Any suggestions on how to determine if the charging system is functioning properly and will it properly charge an agm battery. I have an 08 Jayco Superlite Eagle 5er.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, I'd suggest you tell us the make and model of the converter.
The converter charges the battery, not the Jaco Superlite !!

[RoyB]

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

[BCRacing24]

If you've still got the OEM installed charger then replace it with a Progressive Dynamics 4 stage smart charger. Factory ones are horrible when new and as crazy as it sounds mfr like WFCO/Parallax/Magnatek go bad in as little as a few years and will either boil/overcharge or undercharge batteries !!
http://www.progressivedyn.com/rv_products.html

Replace battery with a Interstate group 27 or 29 if you've got the room.....
http://www.interstatebatteries.com/m/category/rv/rv-deep-cycle

This will cover the occasional entry level Boondocker 😉

[MEXICOWANDERER]

A very likely scenario.......

As batteries age the negative plates become poisoned with antimony transfer from the positive plate. Too high of float voltage is the #1 culprit but repeated sulfation is also not uncommon.

Batteries that are aged, mistreated, that have a lot of antimony transfer can electrolisize TWENTY TIMES the amount of water consumed when new.

Electrolyte level goes down. The battery cells fill two to one with oxygen-hydrogen which is a marvellous fuel/air explosive.

A cell strap (to plate connector) erodes or cracks, allowing a tiny spark.

Sounds similar to the discharge of a .410 shotgun.

Before you proceed it would be wise to match the battery charger to whatever battery you decide on. If you boondock a lot and rely on generator power to recharge then that issue must be resolved as well - the matching of a method of charging that is not measured by length of time by changes in phases of the moon. I.E. reasonable length of needed gen runtime.

[KD4UPL]

Likely a poor charger that cooked the water out of the battery; combined with you're not having checked the water in the battery.
I'd replace the battery, upgrade the charger, and keep a watch on things next time.
Hopefully there was no other damage.

[jmckelvy]

What brand and model is your converter? Some are not good battery chargers.

[1492]

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