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Roy
 
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Default Battery fluid bubbles while being charged. Is this normal?

Jürgen, Thanks for your reply. The batteries are Trojan-105 golf cart
6V. Wired in series to produce 12V and 217 amp. The regulator charges
at 14.1 and so does the alternator (so they say in the manuals). No
diodes are installed and the max output of the solar panels is 3.8 amp
(6 small panels of 0.64 amp each). I never thought that the regulator
may be damaged. But even if it is the max output of the panels, 3.8
amp, (which is not realistic since there is always one panel under
shade) is not capable to overcharge the batteries by much. Should I go
immediately to the boat and disconnet everything till I perform all
the measurements or can it wait till Saturday? We got a lot of sun
around here already (I am in Texas). Once again thanks for your
attention. Roy

"Jürgen Spelter" wrote in message ...
Hi Roy,

bubbling batteries normally say, that they are overcharged!
If Charging voltage reches 13.8 V or max. 14.4 V, the cells begin to produce
oxygen and hydrogen, a very explosice mixture.

Be sure to make the next steps without a cigarette.....

Reason of overcharging could be a malfunction of that Morningstar regulator.
You should check the charging voltage of the batteries in full charge mode,
means with full battries and much sunshine. Voltage at the batteries should
not reach 13.8 V or 14.4 V (depends of kind of battry, normal or gel).
If voltage is higher , your regulator fails.

Another possibility is a malfunction of that battery, that bubbles so nice.
If one of the 6 cells of that battery is bad (maybe short cicuited by broken
lead plates), then this battery works with only 10 V and it is overcharged
by the regulator. Disconnect this battery from the other ones and measure
the voltage. If it is 10 V ore less, you found the reason for bubbling.

Last possibility: multi battery systems often have diode modules to connect
them when charging and to disconnect them when discharging. If one of that
diodes is short circuited, one battery gets too much voltage. Check this by
measuring all batteries when they are charged. All should have the same
voltage.

For measuring use a digital meter, small differences can be measured more
exactly than with analog meters.

much success

Juergen


"Roy" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
m...
I recently noticed that when my solar panels are charging the
batteries that the acid/fluid inside the battery bubbles up (something
like boiling water). Is this normal? I have 4 Trojan 105 batteris
wired to produce 217 Amp at 12V. The total maximum solar output is
3.84 Amps. I also got a Morningstar regulator (max 4.5 Amp). The
charger is wired to only one battery positive pole. The installation
is working just fine but when I opened the plugs to check the fluid
level I noticed the bubbling of the battery fluid. I also noticed that
the bubbling takes place only at the battery that is wired to the
regulator. I measured the voltage of the other batteries and they
were all being equally charged. BUT I did not notice any bubbling in
the other 3 batteries. Only the battery that receive the charge
directly does. Is this normal? Is this set up about to blow up? Am I
suppose to wire the charge of the regulator to the 4 positive poles of
the 4 batteries? Any explanantion about the bubbles is mostly welcome.
Thanks, Roy