battery boil

[madson95]

Hi was walking by my coach yesterday and could hear the battery hissing.pulled the tray out and the first battery was hot and hissing. shut off all switches and pulled the plug on the charger(old orig charger)waited for about 5 min and battery still hissing. i then disconnected the hot leads from the battery and after awhile it stoped hissing this am went back and connected the hot leads, everything else was off and the charger was unpluged. it started up hissing again . disconnect the battery .was wondering if the other batterys could be trying to charge the battery?and if it could be a short in that battery. plan on getting a new charger, (a smart one) so something could be smart. any sug. would be helpful
warren madson
85 40' wide body
vw bug toad
Bandera TX sept to may Calmar IA may to sept

[chockwald]

Do you have a single stage, or multi stage charger? If it is the old style single stage charger that is probably the cause of the battery boiling. Either way, once the battery starts boiling, or sulfating, it is probably not salvagable and will have to be replaced. Have you checked the individual cells to see if any are low on water, or completely dry?? If not be sure to check the cells on the boiling one, as well as the others. On my 1982 I ended up replacing 3 of the 4 8d batteries over several months, and finally changed my charger to a multi stage charger (Intelli Power). Have had no problems since.

[Richard and Rhonda]

If you have had a cell go out in a battery it will cause all kinds of issues. It is possible when you hooked them up that the good battery was now shorting through the bad one.

Unhook all the batteries from one another, measure the voltage of the individual batteries. Wait 24 hrs and measure them again. That will usually show you the bad one.

I'm a dang chemical engineer, and I can't ever get the hydrometers to work accurately, so I don't bother with the cell by cell measurement. If one cell is bad the battery is toast anyway, and it will usually not hold a charge.

I also agree that installing a multi stage charger is cheaper than continually cooking batteries.

[Wally Arntzen]

I have been told by many people in the know that you should not connect a new battery with an old battery especially if you do not not he history of the batteries. I agree with the other responderes that a multi stage charger is the only way to go.

It will be costly but a new charger and all new batteries is the right way to go. That is if you can determine that nothing is wrong causing the batteries to go bad other that age or a bad or and ineffective charger.

Wally Arntzen
88 Coach

[fulltiming]

Wally, you are correct. Putting new battery(s) in with old batteries that have deteriorated will bring the new batteries down to the voltage level of the old battery(s) in relatively short order.

[madson95]

thanks checked the one battery and it showed 2.8 volts will check all the rest ( 6 total)
tomarrow and see how they are. plan on a new cgarger all batterys were new 09- 2006

warren madson 85 40' newell wb 8v92
vw bug toad (DIESEL)