Cooked battery

Hi Ross,

the Delkor seems to have suffered a shorted cell and the remaining 5 cells got over-charged by the alternator which made the battery smell and get hot.

Because this battery isn't a real deep cycle battery, it would have shed a lot of active material which would have piled up at the bottom of the battery container. This pile is conductive and as it touches the bottom of the electrodes they consequently get shorted out.

Most flooded batteries you put under the bonnet are prone to this, under the same adverse operating conditions.
Shedding of active material can be delayed by glass mat separators between the electrodes.
There are some flooded type batteries around which have this additional barrier.

cheers, Peter

Hi Ross,
How old is the Delkor, possibly you could get a warranty claim. I use a Delkor for a start battery plus another one for an auxillary battery (running engle mainly). Both are a couple of years old and working fine. Vehicle is a Disco which runs at 14.4v and I have found the Delkors give the longest life with this high voltage.

from Marty.

I had a similar problem with 2 Optima batteries. Each one vented and blew up like a football. Both only about 3mths old at the max and both replaced under warrenty. Auto sparky said he'd never seen anything like it. Battery supplier said that the Optimas aren't biult where they used to be and aren't to the same quality as they used to be?

lets not over complicate the issue.

You have had a battery failure.....it happens.

I Doubt very much that changing the batteries arround would have helped anything.

Normal lead acid batteries have a design lifespan of arround 2 years, anything you get after that is a bonus, particularly if you are stressing the battery some how, like deep cycling, heat, vibration

I gather you have checked you charging voltage?.

The dis-simmilar batteries issue realy only comes into play when the batteries are permenently joined together......if they are seperately discharged like in a dual battery system, they will act as dis-similar even if identical.
But that should not be a worry.

My view is that going to a rugged construction battery such as a marine, 4wd or truck battery is very worthwhile.

As mentioned most of these will have glass mat between the cell plates which greatly reduces the effects of vibration.
( this does not make it an AGM battery)

Personally I am convinced that modern rugged construction, wet, sealed maintenence free batterys are good value for money and that old style screwtop batteries realy arent any more, they are just cheap.

The addition of calcium to some of the plates ( and other stuff) allows them to seal the battery but it also improves the performance and life span.

I run two cranking batteries because I expect to winch off both and because a deep cycle or more exotic battery will cost a lot more and in my situation I don't see the benifit V cost.

so when buying a rugged construction battery don't worry too much about the marketing on the label.

century for instance market a yellow and a blue battery, one labeled boating the other labeled 4wd...appart from the colour and the sticker they are identical.

Supercharge do not market a 4wd battery, but their "marine battery" is just as applicable in a 4wd.

Personally I like the "Supercharge Seamaster Gold", they have a pretty good rep among boaties.
The good thing about the gold, is that it is a sealed battery BUT, once it is out of waranty, you can peel the sticker off the top and this reveals the vent/valves which are screwed into standard screwtop fittings, so you can top the battery up should it have lost any electrolite.


The accounts in this post realy show that we should not be putting batteries of any type in non-vented locations, and we realy have to think twice about fitting any battery inside a vehicle.

cheers

Thanks to all that replied ,especiall Battey Value and Bantam.