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.