Battery Smells and Sounds

[valterra]

I have 2 Golf Cart batteries from Sam's Club.  They are "Energizer GC6" models.  6vdc and 220 AH.

Until recently they've never seen a standard "battery charger."  They've only been hooked up to my solar (3 Amps max) and Wind (6 Amps on a REALLY rare stormy day).

I've read about boiling and gassing, so I am familiar with both concepts.

When they were brand new, sometimes I would hear anoise that I figured was boiling.  It is a faint sizzling sound, like the sound a can of soda makes, but at a slower rate.  When I peeked inside, I could see maybe a bubble or two, but certainly not "simmering" or "boiling" like in the traditional stovetop sense.  

Also I would ocassionally get a whiff of an off-colored smell, if you will.  Slightly like that smell they put into propane.

Recently while checking my water level, I got a closer look at the finned plates inside.  They're  hard to see while covered with water, so I shined a ligh into it.

They all have a greyish tint to them, and the ends don't look straight any more.  They look a sort of warped and mangled.

I've read about buildup on the plates, and I'm not sure if that is what I am looking at here.  It looks like you'd expect lead to look if it dissolved in water.

The smell is stronger now, and the sound is more constant.

These batteries have only gotten down to around 11.7 volts one time, which according to my chart is about 35% charged.  

That was after a windless sunless week.  I immediately disconnected all of the constant loads (my Internet stuff, which is approximately 2 amps.  I left the night light (20 mA) attatched, but that was the only load.

I let my solar stuff charge it, and the wind picked up some, and charging took forever.  I have a chart from US Battery (who supposedly may have manufactured these) and they say at 5A discharge, the batteries will last 45 hours, so I wasn't surprised that my PEAK (read: Rarely) 6A system would take over a week to charge them up!

I got impatient and bought a 2A / 10A battery charger from Harbor Freight.  According to its meter and my own meter, it started off by kicking in about 12A into the batteries and then tapering off over the next several hours.  Once it said it had finished, I tested the batteries and they were in the high 12s, like 12.9 volts.  

Over the past several days, my wind and solar have brought the voltage up to over 13 volts.

That bubbling sound is constantly present, and that rotten egg smell is stronger.

I read a post at this site that says if your battery smells like rotten eggs, it is toast.  I've also read that the smell is hydrogen gas.  I've read that hydrogen is odorless.  I read DamonHD on here say that the rotten egg smell can kill you.

So I am all confuzled now.  I have the Sams receipt, and I think they do a load test on it, and if they're  bad, they'll honor the warantee.  

BUT - does anything in my long winded explaination sound out of the ordinary?  Besides running a drill ocassionally or 7 Amps of fluorescent lights maybe 20 minutes total, I don't see that I have abused these batteries in any way.

The slow 3A or so discharge over several days shouldn't have hurt them as far as I know, and I've never shorted them (ok, an occasional spark here and there).  And they've never seen more than 12 Amps into them.

Any thoughts, guys?  

Also, I have a hydrometer (?) from Walmart - one of those floating-balls-in-a-medicine-dropper jobs.  When I peeked inside them before in the story, one of the four balls kept sinking. The water looked low to me.  The plates weren't exposed, but the water level had dropped.  So I added some distilled water.  Tested again and the ball still dropped.

I figured that I'd let them "boil" for while and test again.  I will do that again before I post this message.

Stand by...

Okay, I'm back.  Sorry I took so long.  

Voltage is 13.2 volts.  On one of the batteries, the water in all three holes makes all 4 balls float.

In the other battery, it depends on where I pull the water from.  At some angles I get 1 dropped ball.  At others I get 1 sinker.  At other angles the ball sort of half sinks.

So what the heck, guys?  Hopefully amongst all my ramblings there is enough info for you to use for diagnosis.

If this post is too long, I can just re-post something like, "Are my batteries okay?"   lol.

 

[wpowokal]

Age and chronic undercharging, get a source that can raise the voltage to 15V and hold it there for 6 hours. Current will need to be only that necessary to hold them at 15V so as not to over heat. Then use them then repeat above several times.

Cheep hydrometers are just that, but what you experienced was stratification of the electrolite, ie the added water had not mixed with the acid/water solution.

I can not smell them from here so can't help there.

There is an old saying "most batteries don't wear out they are murdered"

allan down under

[valterra]

The only 15 sources I may have are wall warts (low amperage) so I will try that.

RE Age - these are only a few months old!  And I've heard that expression before about them being murdered.... but has anything I've described here sound like murder?

[ghurd]

I know you have not beat them up as much as we do.

I can't believe they are bad yet.

Maybe stop at Sam's Club.  Have a flashlight look at new ones.

G-

[valterra]

Roger that.  We're going to Sam's tomorrow, actually.  I never did buy a "load tester" like they have at Harbor Freight for about $40.  I never saw the need.  I'm thinking that if I just take the batteries to my nearest O'Reiley Auto Parts store, they can tell me if the batteries are "bad" or not.

The only thing I can think of to do is put a known load on it, like a bunch of light bulbs, and then watch it drain the voltage while I time it?

I dread the idea of driving down to Sams and lugging them in, just for someone to tell me that they are "fine."

On the new ones, those fins inside looks straight and clean, if I remember right.  Also when I got them, they both measured 11.x volts, again if I remember correctly.

One thing that I definitely have NOT done is run them through several charge / discharge cycles.  In fact, they floated at 14.45volts for at least a couple weeks when I first got them, just on my occasional wind power and no constant loads.  

Should I try some serious charging and discharging, and the 15v boiling thing first before lugging them in?  They "seem" to work okay, and we hit Sam's about once a month, so I will have more chances to return them.

I just want to try exercising the warranty while they're still in stock.

[ghurd]

I don't 'think' a standard load test will tell anything about deep cycles.

I think that is for starting batteries.

G-

[valterra]

hmm.  I wonder what Sam's does to test, then?  They told me that they'd "hook them up if they're bad, we'll replace them."

lol?  grr?

[Jerry]

I use Excide 6 volt, 220 AH golf cart batteries in my EV. When I get home at about 6:30  to 7:00 I plug the onboard pulse charger in.

I have 20 of these batteries wired in series for 120 volts. The initial amperage reading is about 13. By 8:30 the following morning amperage has droped to about 3 or 4 and total voltage is around 150 to 152.

There is also much bubeling going on. The SG reads very high. Try to find one of the SG meters with the swing neddle.

I drive to work, plug in the truck and at 6:00 is back up around 150volts.

Plates look very straight, acid is clear and I'm on the road again.

Took a 13 mile round trip today no problems.

I'm tipicaly drawing around 100 to 150 amps on the road.

These are great batteries. I'm on my second year with them now and they are going strong.

                           JK TAS Jerry

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Thanks for remembering me in conjunction with bad smells!  B^>

The 'bad egg' smell is Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S), not plain Hydrogen, and is very poisonous and though I guess the amount you might get from one slightly-abused battery is unlikely to kill you, you are right to be careful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide

Rgds

Damon

[zeusmorg]

 Some "bubbling" is normal in a battery, what it really sounds like is a case of undercharging. Also the smell comes from the acid, not the hydrogen, and a bit of it is nothing unusual, either.

 A fully charged battery will read 14.8 v (7.4 v for a 6 v battery) so it may be a good idea to put a good charge on them. It really doesn't sound like at this point you've abused them too much only going down to a 35% charge, which generally isn't a good idea, it still shouldn't "kill" a good deep discharge battery.

 You really want an input voltage greater than 15 v of course, connected to a battery this will show as the current battery voltage. Solw charging isn't bad for a battery, either. My suggestion is get them up to a full charge and hold them there for a bit without any discharge and then load test. Your hydrometer readings sound like what you've described, approx a 90-95% charge. (last ball almost floating)

 I personally prefer the float type hydrometers which have a temperature correcting chart with them. They really don't cost that much more!

 Any time distilled water is added, you do need to wait to make sure the solution is properly mixed before taking a hydrometer reading, or you'll get false results (usually a full charge will do it)

 Warpage of plates also isn't unusual, as long as there's no major deterioration, or shorting between them.

[Flux]

As the others have said, they are not being fully charged and your 3A will probably not fully charge them is you are using any load at all.

There are a lot of confusing things here despite your efforts at a detailed explanation.

Negative plates should be grey and positives chocolate brown and both should be straight. There will be separators between them and these may not be straight depending on how they are made. If you only see grey plates then it seems likely that the positives are badly sulphated from being in a low state of charge for a long time, or you may have missed them and are looking at the separators.

Discharged to 11.7v on heavy load may be 35% charged, if discharged to that level on light load or virtually no load they are DEAD FLAT.

Similarly there is confusion about your charging voltage. If left to stand for several hours after charging  your 12.9 will be full charged, but with the charger on and the batteries gassing then think more in terms of 15 to 16v and anything below 14.4 will not be charged.

Batteries working normally hiss a bit at the end of the charge cycle and you will see the occasional bubbles, there is often a slight smell from the acid. If boiling during an equalising charge they will gas violently, there will be lots of burping noises and constant bubbling on the surface of the acid. There will be a significant acid smell and likely the tops will be damp from a constant spray.

The stink is from the acid, there is some sulphur contamination in battery acid the way it is normally produced. I suspect that there is a hint of hydrogen sulphide from this source but you will never be producing H2S in quantities to become dangerous.

Floating ball hydrometers are little use, you need a decent one with a calibrated float, but all sg should be the same so you may have a lazy cell.

You have treated these very badly, if you can fool someone into replacing them then you are on a winner. If they are wise enough to realise that you have killed them then you should try a good gassing, discharge to 50% and gas again. Then try a load test to see how long they take to fall to say 11v at 10A discharge and if it is way below nominal capacity then they will probably never return to decent capacity.

It may be partly that you are not describing the plate appearance correctly and you are quoting voltages in the wrong state. In which case they may still be working ok.

The only true test is a timed discharge at constant current.

Flux

[Norm]

It seems that you have done this:

http://www.insideline.net/1996/puckett-1112-96.html

I think most will agree batteries have to be worked...

you have killed these batteries with

kindness....

on one hand and then at other times,

just when they needed it you let them down,

just as the person on this link has

suggested for failure.

  You should have a good schedule use x amount

of watts daily, recharge daily, if the solar or

/and wind can't handle it....then use the charger,

  I really think you may have too much battery

for what you use.

  If you only use 10 amp/hrs a day for example,

you have too much battery.

IMHO.

[valterra]

I guess I had the wrong idea.  I figured that slowly using the batteries was okay - that daily full charging wasn't necessary.  

Flux, they've been off charger and off load for a full day now.  I will let you know what it reads.

As far as having too much battery... I plan to have bigger loads and bigger generation capabilities.  Before my batteries were too small (7AH) and now they're  too big?  I guess I don't get that.  I thought th idea of a big battery bank was that they can discharge "forever" on relatively small loads... you know, last several days if it isn't  windy or sunny?

What's wrong with my impression of that?  I am NOT arguing - just trying to understand.

I will also post some pictures if I can get a good shot.

[AbyssUnderground]

You need to match the battery to your charging methods. If you have a huge battery and a small charging method then the self discharge of the battery might exceed that charging method. I have 36w of solar on my 90Ah battery bank. I can use about 2-5Ah a day depending on how good or bad the weather has been, but it can easily keep it charged. 1w wouldn't charge it though, for example.

You need to size your battery bank to the load. So work out how many days reserve you want, and then get a charging method that can keep up with the load AND the charging of the battery. It should be able to charge it in 1 good day if sized properly. It gets expensive but thats how its done properly.

[AbyssUnderground]

I should add that my 90Ah bank is floating on 330mA at the moment. Its not -quite- charged but its not far off. I only use a few CCFL's (0.4A each) on an evening and occasionally my laptop.

[Capt Slog]

I was once told that there is an additional problem with hydrogen sulphide in that if the concentration goes up, we can no longer smell it, and its outside this smell range that it starts to get really nasty  

It looks like this could be correct because the Wiki article you posted says that this occurs after 150-250 ppm.

.

[valterra]

You said:

So work out how many days reserve you want, and then get a charging method that can keep up with the load AND the charging of the battery. It should be able to charge it in 1 good day if sized properly.

Okay - so the part that I was missing was that when you DO charge it (via wind or whatever) you need to charge it up as quickly as possible.  The small, almost parasitic loads that I have on the battery are okay - but only when my main charging method fails?

I just thought that slow, steady discharges and charges OR a combination of both that never fully discharges it nor charges it would be a happy medium.

That's what I was thinking incorrectly, right?

[valterra]

Here are some pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jehmobile/BatteryPlates

These are uploaded very large - look for the magnifying glass on the page, and you can view them full-size and see lots of detail.

Please let me know what you think - we'll be heading to Sam's pretty soon.   lol.

[Norm]

Yes I use to think that also....but such is not the case. You already have the potential for

bigger generating capabilities....the battery

charger and a bigger load...a couple of CFLs

running off of your batteries for some of your

lighting needs or your TV from an inverter....

some of your regular on grid stuff...it is still

on grid indirectly....

Another good source of generating....YOU ! if you

don't already....an exercise bike hooked up to a generator...it's a terriffic idea....You make

electricity...you get in shape...you'll find you

have less of a craving for junk food....so you're

using less gas at drive-thru fast food places...

I'll tell you it's just a win win situation

that's part of the fun in NE Ohio!

[valterra]

Also, I'm getting that without constant charging sources (e.g. Wind doesn't blow solid all the time) that I also shouldn't have constant loads?

Instead of running things like my Internet connection (solid, constant load), I should be running stuff like lights or even a freezer or fridge.  Something that discharges at a "good" rate and then is able to be charged up by my sources in the mean time?

And ignore the fact that I only have 5-6A of sources right now.  I have an automatic battery charger that I can use to cheat if necessary, and my next wind genny project should produce higher numbers.  So that's what I'm trying to plan for.

[Flux]

The bent bits are separators, that is nothing to worry about.

Sorry  I can't see the colour of the plates and thus can't comment further.

Flux

[valterra]

I can also hook that charger up whenever I anticipate a larger load.

It has a 55 Amp "Engine Starting" setting.  That in combination with at least 33 Amps of load keeps me within the 22AH "10-hour" rating.  But I think at 55 Amps that charger won't last very long!  

lol, and it sure doesn't look like 55A wires that came with it.....

[Norm]

IMO....hope you have a very forgiving warranty

still ....I've seen people return lawnmowers

that quite evidently hit something like a 2"

water pipe ....and got another new lawnmower

no questions asked???

I think you've learned a lesson....

and deserve a break !

Good Luck !

[DamonHD]

Hi,

As I understand things, if you must actually have constant loads (rather than using energy only on demand)...

You can have constant loads as long as (a) they over time take LESS energy than is going in from the charging sources and (b) you have a low-voltage-dropout (LVD) to protect the battery from overdischarge if the battery gets too low/empty and (c) that the load (current) is small enough compared to the available charging current that the battery can be given a good full charge from time to time.

Rgds

Damon

[valterra]

It's hard to get color in a dark space like that!   :-)

I'll take a peek at the brand new ones in the store and report back.

Thanks Flux

[wooferhound]

I don't see anywhere that you talk about doing Equalizing charges where you take the batteries up around 16 volts for a while on a weekly to monthly schedule ?

[wooferhound]

oh . . . take a look at this FAQ on getting the longest life from a battery.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2008/4/22/142649/842

[valterra]

Haven't ever really done that, Woof.  But I will in the future.  I have a 15vdc (actually 15.5 vdc - closest I could find) 1 Amp wall wart on them now.  I'll check the voltage periodically.  

lol - just remembered that I have GHurd's dump load controller on it - if I don't disconnect that, it'll never get above 14.45V.  

This has NEVER dumped ONCE since I stuck the loads on it.  I should scale UP my production and DOWN the loads so that I am dumping on a regular basis.  At least that's what I understand now.

[valterra]

For anyone watching this thread - the NEW ones look EXACTLY like my "warped" ones.

Another point goes to you, Flux!

Now to see if the 11.7 volt discharge did any damage.

[valterra]

That's good.  :-)  Of course, I associate you with actually having measurable hours off-grid in a residential setting.

And the laptop charger circuit.   :-)