Batteries
Apr 22, 2024 8:43:20 GMT
Post by blade on Apr 22, 2024 8:43:20 GMT
Hi all,
I hope you don't mind me posting this here, I was previously a Jeanneau owner (as Malcolm knows) which was sold 2 years ago and replaced with a more racer/ cruiser boat - perhaps delete the cruiser bit. Last summer we had an issue with our batteries that we really haven't got to the bottom of and know that there is a lot of knowledgeable people on this forum. Our boat originally came with 1 starter battery and 1 house battery, we had the factory install 2 extra house batteries as we wanted to use the boat for extended cruising in the summer, the original house battery was already installed and then 2 more were added. The house batteries are Victron 110Ah AGM's, the starter battery is also Victron AGM. The house batteries are wired so that the positives and negatives are each connected to a bus bar feeding to each of the 3 house batteries. For the summer we installed our 250W solar set up that we had previously used for 7 years on Blade. All was working well over the summer. Unfortunately circumstances meant that we had to return to our marina and the boat was parked up for most of August. The fridge was left on as we were using it for day sails, anchoring out etc the solar kept everything charged up. Towards the end of August there were some cloudy days, not so much sunshine. I arrived at the boat on a Friday morning and on checking the voltage found it to be getting a little low and decided to connect the shore power to give the batteries a good top up. 2 days later (Sunday morning) I returned to the boat, opened up, immediately detected a lot of heat and smell, went straight to the battery compartment, found 2 of the batteries (the additional 2 house batteries installed) red hot and the casings distorted, the original house battery was also hot but not as hot and also has some minor casing distortion. Everything was shut down and ventilated. The 2 badly distorted batteries were removed and we have since been using the boat with the remaining 1 house battery, only for day sails and regattas.
I contacted Victron and the MAT factory (boat is MAT 1070), not so helpful. Victron said the fact that the cable lengths to the 3 house batteries were not the same length was not good, factory said this was not so important. We also usually removed 2 of the house batteries when we did a regatta, this was generally for about 3/4 days about once a month, Victron also said this was not good for the batteries. Basically we got no where. Someone has also said that not having a temperature sensor from the solar MPPT could have caused the problem, although we used the same setup on Blade for 7 years without problem. I have recently discovered that the shore power charger (Quick SBC250NRG+ charger) was set on the Quick factory default setting of 'open' rather than AGM, and have obviously read on this forum and on facebook how even a wrong battery charger setting can kill your batteries in less than a year.
We have ordered 3 new replacement AGM batteries for the upcoming cruising season and will keep the original Victron house battery for when we are in regatta mode. So the big question is - what has been the cause of the battery issue so that we can prevent the same thing happening to the new batteries. Apologies for the long description but wanted to make sure all of the facts were detailed.
Just to add that the batteries were just 1 year old when we had the problem.
I hope you don't mind me posting this here, I was previously a Jeanneau owner (as Malcolm knows) which was sold 2 years ago and replaced with a more racer/ cruiser boat - perhaps delete the cruiser bit. Last summer we had an issue with our batteries that we really haven't got to the bottom of and know that there is a lot of knowledgeable people on this forum. Our boat originally came with 1 starter battery and 1 house battery, we had the factory install 2 extra house batteries as we wanted to use the boat for extended cruising in the summer, the original house battery was already installed and then 2 more were added. The house batteries are Victron 110Ah AGM's, the starter battery is also Victron AGM. The house batteries are wired so that the positives and negatives are each connected to a bus bar feeding to each of the 3 house batteries. For the summer we installed our 250W solar set up that we had previously used for 7 years on Blade. All was working well over the summer. Unfortunately circumstances meant that we had to return to our marina and the boat was parked up for most of August. The fridge was left on as we were using it for day sails, anchoring out etc the solar kept everything charged up. Towards the end of August there were some cloudy days, not so much sunshine. I arrived at the boat on a Friday morning and on checking the voltage found it to be getting a little low and decided to connect the shore power to give the batteries a good top up. 2 days later (Sunday morning) I returned to the boat, opened up, immediately detected a lot of heat and smell, went straight to the battery compartment, found 2 of the batteries (the additional 2 house batteries installed) red hot and the casings distorted, the original house battery was also hot but not as hot and also has some minor casing distortion. Everything was shut down and ventilated. The 2 badly distorted batteries were removed and we have since been using the boat with the remaining 1 house battery, only for day sails and regattas.
I contacted Victron and the MAT factory (boat is MAT 1070), not so helpful. Victron said the fact that the cable lengths to the 3 house batteries were not the same length was not good, factory said this was not so important. We also usually removed 2 of the house batteries when we did a regatta, this was generally for about 3/4 days about once a month, Victron also said this was not good for the batteries. Basically we got no where. Someone has also said that not having a temperature sensor from the solar MPPT could have caused the problem, although we used the same setup on Blade for 7 years without problem. I have recently discovered that the shore power charger (Quick SBC250NRG+ charger) was set on the Quick factory default setting of 'open' rather than AGM, and have obviously read on this forum and on facebook how even a wrong battery charger setting can kill your batteries in less than a year.
We have ordered 3 new replacement AGM batteries for the upcoming cruising season and will keep the original Victron house battery for when we are in regatta mode. So the big question is - what has been the cause of the battery issue so that we can prevent the same thing happening to the new batteries. Apologies for the long description but wanted to make sure all of the facts were detailed.
Just to add that the batteries were just 1 year old when we had the problem.