Battery Explosion

[egaito]

Pressed start this AM to warm things up for an oil change and BANG!

Looked all over the boat and ER's for something that fell, tried to restart and got "click, click"

Opened up the genny space, and the fumes were horrible. No smoke thank god, but I could feel it in my throat immediately.

A quick glance with breath held told the story...the top is gone off one of the batteries.

Any tips for cleanup? Lots of fresh water is a given. I hate baking soda in an enclosed space as it gasses so much.

Also, any sources for batteries that might be open on a Saturday in the Miami or even Lauderdale area......yea, I'm searching, but if someone has a name it might save some aggravation.

Thanks,

 

[Pascal]

s...t!

which one, one of the new one? or older one? trying to remember which one was real low last month or so... port side, forward inboard? remember, there was some acid in the box.

lots of fresh water but some baking soda is good to netralize the acid.

i wonder why you guys are having so many battery issues, it has to come down to the charger.

8v batteries on a week end, that has to tough... is that on the house bank? you might have to take one from the other bank till monday.

 

[Angela]

My first unintended explosion....

 

[egaito]

s...t!

which one, one of the new one? or older one? trying to remember which one was real low last month or so... port side, forward inboard? remember, there was some acid in the box.

lots of fresh water but some baking soda is good to netralize the acid.

i wonder why you guys are having so many battery issues, it has to come down to the charger.

8v batteries on a week end, that has to tough... is that on the house bank? you might have to take one from the other bank till monday.

One of the older ones....that bank doesn't run dry like the other. Thankfully, it's not the house batteries.

I'm on my way out. I was able to convince our battery guy (who knows us all too well) to come in from home and meet me at the shop, so we'll have 4 fresh one's as long as I can get the mess cleaned up enough to get in there.

I guess I should use the opportunity to install that new battery box that's sitting on the aft deck.....

Wanna come help? LOL

 

[Angela]

Where's my "Pascal" button...Oh, this time, its right next to the "Oh Sh*t" button.

Hey Pascal...There a 12-pack of Fosters in the fridge if you wanna come over and help. LOL LOL Well, I guess the good news is (1) it didn't happen on your watch; (2) it didn't happen on the hook; and (3) it didn't start a fire. I'll take those as blessings.

 

[Trojan]

Holy Shit! Sounds like an over charging condition. They make a real simple automatic battery water monitor and re filler. Never run out of water again. Your lucky day . You need to play the lotto. Lucky the explosion stopped there. They all could have went up. If you don't like baking soda, then lots and and lots of fresh water. Good luck.


BILL

 

[SoKeen]

well, you have an Ed button these days... i bet he wishes he had gone back to Atlanta (although i was told it snowed there this morning!)

you have to do something about the charger... it could be a faulty battery but you've had just too many battery issues. Remember the acid i found in the other battery box last month.

Pascal
(too lazy to log off Naomi's login)

 

[Genesis]

Baking soda - you need to neutralize the acid or it will keep eating things.

As for the reason, explosions are almost always a bad connection inside the battery (eg. mechanical failure) that causes a spark inside. Hydrogen + Oxygen + spark = BOOM!

If your charger is one of the old Sentry units get it out of there. I put a Charles in my 45C and liked it. My recommendation is to charge the house off the charger and use combiner(s) to charge the starting batteries from the charger, with the alternators connected directly to the start system (the combiner will echocharge the house when the mains are up)

I do not like the "multi-bank" setup for chargers; I find that the combiner system works much better, gives priority where it belongs, and doesn't boil the banks.

 

[egaito]

OK, old batteries out, new batteries in, most of the shrapnel is cleaned up and everything is rinsed down (sounds simple, doesn't it?).

In the process, one of the lugs came off of a cable.

Found a crimper, but with no extra lugs (I KNOW there are some on the boat SOMEWHERE), we're stuck for the night.

The question at hand is can I turn on the charger with only one bank hooked up to it?

Our charger is a LeMarch....

 

[SKYCHENEY]

I never had a problem charging one bank with my MajorPower charger, but I donlt know about the LaMarch. If it is truly a 2 bank charger, then it should monitor each bank separately and adjust the charge rate for each bank accordingly.

 

[egaito]

Reading up on the LaMarch site, to see if it was OK to run the charger with only one bank connected, I noticed that output levels could be tweaked within the chargers, and it gave me an idea.....

I opened the cover on the charger and found the attached. Notice at the bottom of the image, is a bar with a slider on it. A poor man's POT or variable resistor, I guess. there is a black band painted by the factory, and the slider is outside of the "clear spot" that the band might have left during that spray job.

Off to the left, is a vertical slider, also adjusted out of the "band" painted at the factory.

I'm now left wondering if the PO, who had put 12v 8D's in here, making for 36v banks, didn't have the charger "adjusted" to work with those batteries, which would surely cook our 32v banks.

Does anyone know enough about these chargers to confirm or dispel this? I'm going to dig for the owners manual on this thing, once I get power restored of course!

 

[REBrueckner]

Don't know the details of La March chargers...
but you can leave it on an hour or so and then check voltage at the batteries...if it's higher than you like, just adjust the slider.....best to turn off when your'e not there as a start battery doesn't need constant monitoring/charge...And or if you run your engine compare the output voltage from the alternator with the Batt LaMarch voltage...

Anybody know if batteries can explode without a spark??..in other words from overcharging alone?? I would guess it's possible but unusual...

I know they can experience thermal runaway..overheat from over charging..dry out..catch fire potentially....I was helping a friend two years ago ...he needed a LOT!!!....and discovered one of his batteries was HOT...not warm HOT!!!...to the touch...I disconnected it and we replaced it a week later..it was dried out and shot...other batts were ok so it was likely very old...

Good idea to keep a log book record of battery change dates and brands...then you know how long they last....And always check cable terminals ...over time battery acid can creep into ends causing poor contact as the wires deterioriate....that's one reason I like to solder mine...reduces wicking of moisture/acid....

 

[Trojan]

Egaito, I would check the 3 resisters with an Ohm meter end to end to make sure its not open. Just lift one end connection and check. That's a standard very high wattage resister with a slider tap. If the connections around the tap area look dirty or bad. You can reverse the resister end for end providing its good and readjust the tap in a new area. That will give you a new clean area to make your connections and adjustments. Don't get carried away cranking down on the slider adjuster. Its just wire your clamping on and you can crush it. You can easily break a wire in the resister. The slider area is known to get corroded and dirty on that type of resister. Don't try to adjust the slider or make the above checks with the power on. There are some nasty capacitors in there that could hold a killing charge. Turn off the power, short each end terminal of the resistor to ground for safety, adjust, then power on, recheck with volt meter and readjust if needed. Be careful that resister may be quite hot. Also check that the battery is not back feeding into the charger. That resister tap may be voltage hot from the battery. I don't know that charger circuit, But I'm guessing you have three charger outputs. One resister per output. But be safe. That voltage can kill you.

Bill

 

[Nonchalant1]

Ed & Ang,

Maybe you need to do my "fix", which worked perfectly for years and 6,000 NM of cruising. The starting bank is designed to never be used except for starting one engine. Then, it can be recharged from that engine's alternator, because after you start it, you're usually going to run it enough to fully recharge, which actually doesn't take that much. Plus, your engine alternator won't overcharge the bank (if it's set right), like a bad charger will.

You just put a very heavy duty switch in the starting bank positive wire and leave it turned off forever. The only time you'd use the switch is if you have let it sit for a long period and want to charge the bank with a charger. If you're using the boat much, you never run the charger and the starting bank stays fully charged all the time.

Doug

 

[Finalee]

This makes a case for having a blower in the engine rooms of a diesel. In fact I have been contemplating installing a 110 volt blower. After a long run it should help cool things down in the er.

 

[egaito]

This is ultimately what I'll end up doing. I'm pretty sure the latest episode was a spark based on Pascal's findings that several terminals had loosened up.

There are vents and hoses in the generator space already, but no blowers. Just need to find a quiet 110v blower of some type with a 100% duty cycle rating.

 

[MikeP]

There's no DC blower in the genny space? Seems unusual, our 53 has them as original. I would have thought that to be normal.

 

[TopHattandTails]

egaito - I tweaked my LaMarche a few years back. Best thing I did. I had a friend actually move the slider - so I can't tell you which one (but I think it may be the horizontal one across the bottom)... But we set it so the LaMarche does not "blast" the batteries and acts more like a trickle charge than a rapid charge. Make sure your batts are good and stable before tweaking the setting. I dropped the amperage about a half ohm or so. here is the old link with the fix - but the very last post mentions it: <http://www.samsmarine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10074&highlight=Blowing+Fuses>

Just watch yourself while in that box!

 

[egaito]

There's no DC blower in the genny space? Seems unusual, our 53 has them as original. I would have thought that to be normal.

Was there one there at some point? Who knows!

I'm thinking along the lines of a low-flow, constant running 110 volt blower, maybe just a muffin fan or two, magnetic drive, to keep the air moving. The gassing problem typically occurs during the charge cycle, when 110v is available. I don't want a blower drawing on the house bank when the charger isn't running, and gas isn't being produced.

 

[REBrueckner]

I've previously posted about several effective and in expensive ways to cool down an engine room.

On my 1972 48 YF when cruising I always left the engine room access door open while cruising....the one under the steps between the galley and head, lower level....while running this gave the engines more cool fresh air. And I could quickly get in and out to make quick engine room checks while underway. I kept a flashlight right by the door outside....
By opening the forward stateroom hatch [about six feet forward of the door]when anchored, any sea breezes would push outside air into the engine room thru that open access door and natural convection would help move warm out both sides of the engine room vents. You can test for free flowing air evacuation by placing your hand outside the engine air vents at your topsides...you can really feel warm air moving from within the engine room. The interior breeze prevented any hot air from coming out the access door into the interior,


On calm days or hot weather, after shutting engines down I'd activate a 12 volt fan in the engine room access door and blow cool air into the engine room...on cold days, I'd turn the fan around and blow warm air into the interior of the boat for free warmth. I used to run the fan on hot days with no breeze for maybe two hours or so after engine shut down.....two ampere hours way less than 2% of my daily 12 volt power consumption while at anchor....

Although I did not realize it at the time, my practice of running a generator and charging batteries only when remaining at anchor also helped avoid the type of spark ignition discusssed in this thread. Any day I was using my main engines for cruising, I would not charge via a generator since my typical main engine run time with smart regulators and 120 AMP Powerline alternators easily brought my battery banks up near full charge.