Sorry to hear about that Eric. Expensive problem! My Freedom charger/inverter failed last Fall. It overcharged my bank and boiled my 8-battery bank nearly dry. Just lucky I went down to the boat when I did or could have had a fire. It didn't have a temp sensor at the battery bank which would have shut it down. My replacement charger/inverter is a British made Sterling and does have a temp sensor.
As an aside, the Charles IMC smart charger was billed as able to charge both the 24v house bank and the 12v start battery. It has 3 programmable outputs and alternates between them when charging. It nearly boiled the 12v battery dry and read "Failure! Return to manufacturer for service". Charles couldn't assure me that a new one would do any better and sent me new 24v and 12v chargers at no cost. When the batteries are discharged enough to need bulk charge, I turn the 60A Charles and the 60A Sterling and get 100+A going into the batteries until bulk phase is done. When I see <60A going into the batteries I turn one off and finish the charge with only one charger.
I would have your charger tested to make sure it isn't staying in bulk charge mode, as I'm guessing that may be what happened. I didn't realize I had that problem until I charged my new set of batteries and found it charging at 55A when the batteries were at 13.3v.
Kent
SM243
Kristy
On May 22, 2013, at 5:12 PM, Sailorman <kimberlite@...> wrote:
Thank you Roque.
I was wondering if anyone else has had similar problems.
Fair Winds
Eric
Amel Super Maramu #376 Kimberlite
-----Original Message-----
From: amelyachtowners@...
[mailto:amelyachtowners@...] On Behalf Of Roque
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:10 PM
To: amelyachtowners@...
Subject: Re: [Amel] Battery bank problems SM with 13 batteries
Hi
1. Even the so called sealed maintenance free batteries need to be checked
from time to time, if they have a way to top the water (as most do). They
are in fact ¨low maintenance¨ ;
2. If you have a voltage regulator, it doesn´t matter if the charger is
small. In fact, the trouble is when you have a charger that is too big for
the bank (about 20 to 25% of the total amperage would be ideal). I guess
you have at least a 600A battery bank, so both the 100 charger and the 175A
nominal alternator would be fine
3. If you do have a voltage regulator, maybe it was set to charge a
different kind of battery. The alternator could also be a suspect, if the
voltage it delivers is out of range, (but it sounds like you don´t use it a
lot).
Rgds
Roque
Atica Amel 54
currently in Benalmádena- Spain
2013/5/22 eric <kimberlite@...>
**
On our trip home from St Martin last week, we discovered that most of the
liquid in all the sealed maintenance free batteries had boiled off. I did
not realize that under the labels there are plugs where water can be
added.
In any event all the house (12) batteries
have to be replaced.
We have a 175 amp alternator and 30 and 100 amp Dolphin chargers.
I spoke with Dolphin and they said that the 30 amp charger is too small
for the bank and it probably cooked the batteries as it saw the bank as
always needing a charge. I plan on having the alternator checked and then
speak again with Dolphin when I install the new batteries.
Kimberlite usually is in a marina somewhere and plugged in with the 30 amp
charger running.
Any thoughts on my problem?
Fair Winds
Eric
Amel Super Maramu #376 Kimberlite
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
--
I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
SPAMfighter has removed 1355 of my spam emails to date.
Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
Do you have a slow PC? Try a Free scan
http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
