Battery banks seem to be like sports teams. One
battery fails and the whole team comes crashing down?
My
boat is kept on a
mooring, plenty of sun, regulated
solar panels provide ample charge. So it was a surprise one morning when I discovered the whole bank had an output of <11v from the previous night's 12.6v. Eh? Two 80AH
Marine Deep Cycles and one 70AH high CCA starting battery... all were apparently drained. A 'short' is the obvious culprit, but where?
Have learnt 2 lessons here: a) use all your senses to find the problem, b) low
maintenance batteries have drawbacks.
There was a 'hot smell', one battery was pretty warm. There was a crackling sound from the end of the same battery. The visual window indicator on the battery showed "white" i.e. replace. There was my short caused by a dried out wet cell lead acid battery.
I have since found all the 'Low Maintenance'
batteries I have (tractor etc.) are likely to fail from dehydration, not cholesterol like sulphation. So I neatly drilled holes into the tops of the cells, topped up with d.water, stage charged all & fitted sealable caps.
Advice suggests adding magnesium sulphate to older batteries. Am I doing the right thing? What do you think?