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Old 08-08-2019, 09:27 AM   #1
Fairtax4me
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Default How do you know when a battery is dead?

More of a Story, not a question.

The other day I noticed one of my carts was driving pretty slow going up one of the hills here on the property. Not crawling, but seemed slower than normal. Had other stuff going on at the time and figured maybe they "forgot" to plug it in again, so made a note to check on it later that day.

Finally got freed up mid afternoon and went out in search of the slow poke. Found it sitting in its usual parking spot and plugged into the charger! (surprised, not really) I put the Voltmeter on it so I can take it for a quick spin.
Voltage showed around 50 after I unplugged it, but I knew it was in trouble as soon as I pushed the Go pedal it dropped to about 42V.

Took it across camp and started heading up the hill going back to the shop and the voltage starts falling, and falling... and now it has slowed to a near crawl, and the meter is showing 28V. I just stopped and turned the cart off at that point. Right then one of the maintenance guys was coming down the hill so we hooked a strap to it and towed it the rest of the way back to the shop which was really only another 150 yards or so.

I lift the seat up and can smell hot sulfur, and I start feeling each battery and cable for heat buildup. Cables are all slightly warm, but in no danger of heat damage by any means. 5 of the batteries are nice and cool, like nothings going on. Battery 3 in the middle of the pack is HOT, so I opened the caps to check the water level and there's literally Steam coming out of the vents. (and yes I actually lolled)

Test each battery with the Voltmeter and get about 8.45 across the board. Except the hot one shows 0.98v. (I lolled again) Removed the offending battery from the cart and set it around the corner of the shop in the grass so if it decided to explode for some reason it wouldn't be all over me, and all over the inside of my shop.

This is an older pack that is pretty well on it's last legs and was hoping to squeak it through the end of the season. So I went over to my stash of used batteries that still have some life left and found one that was sitting at 8.18. Swapped that one in the cart and stuck it on the charger for about 20 minutes. During charging the "new" battery had come up to about 8.96 and the others in the pack were 8.85~ish. Good 'nuff for now

Unplugged the charger and put the meter on the pack and drove back across camp, voltage at rest is now around 50 as before, but while climbing the hill going back up the other side of camp its holding pretty steady around 47.9V so I think it will make it the next couple weeks. Parked it back at the cabin and plugged it back in to finish charging.


Moral of the story: checking pack voltage with the pack at Rest will not tell you the whole story. Hook the meter up and drive the cart (if possible). Even going just a short distance should tell you if the pack is in trouble. Then checking each battery individually will show if any one battery is at fault or if all of them are just generally low on charge.
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Old 08-08-2019, 05:31 PM   #2
WalterM6
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

Since a battery uses a chemical reaction to produce electricity I would say test it with a hydrometer. Or better a refractometer that you can buy for $20 on Amazon.
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Old 08-08-2019, 09:06 PM   #3
sahkanaga
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

Or better yet test it with a conductance tester like those made by Midtronics.
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Old 08-09-2019, 02:52 AM   #4
yawood
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

The Victron BMV702 that I have has two inputs (the BMV712 also has two whereas the BMV700 has just the one). One input is connected to the pack and the other to the mid-point of the pack. It uses these to maintain a check on the delta between the two halves. If the delta starts to rise, or is beyond a default value an alarm is sounded. This means that I should be able to detect a battery (or cell) that is going bad well before it becomes noticeable.
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Old 08-09-2019, 09:52 AM   #5
alchemy
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

was driving on rough terrain in a little truck once, hit a bump and got stuck, shut it off to look how to get unstuck and the battery had 0 volts and no continuity. A connection broke off somewhere inside the battery. That's dead for sure.
Many literature sources state that if the volts deflect a certain amount under load from a full charge.
If you want to spend the time you can often get them back to working acceptably by various methods which are probably too much to get into discussion about outside of just charging the hell out of them maybe even over a few days with stand alone chargers of various types and amps. For me, that's with batteries that have discharged from sitting long periods.

Most people say a battery is dead when it just doesn't have enough juice from running it down. Maybe " no good" or "bad" would be better terms.
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Old 08-09-2019, 10:48 AM   #6
kgsc
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

The pic below pretty much proves this battery is dead
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File Type: jpg battery.jpg (473.9 KB, 0 views)
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Old 08-09-2019, 11:06 AM   #7
alchemy
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kgsc View Post
The pic below pretty much proves this battery is dead
blew up? Never had that happen yet but when I lived in apartment I heard a bang and a kid screaming and ran out and saw a hood up and jumper cables and he was running around holding his eyes. I rushed him to the shower. He recovered fully but was hurting for a while.
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Old 08-10-2019, 12:31 PM   #8
kgsc
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

I have seen 2 do this and haven’t witnessed either but was told it was quite loud

The one in the picture happened when my 350lb buddy was on the cart. Lifted his big azz in the air. Said it sounded like a 12ga went off under the seat.
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Old 08-10-2019, 06:02 PM   #9
alchemy
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kgsc View Post
I have seen 2 do this and haven’t witnessed either but was told it was quite loud

The one in the picture happened when my 350lb buddy was on the cart. Lifted his big azz in the air. Said it sounded like a 12ga went off under the seat.
Not meaning to just argue but I bet that battery would have still worked if you filled it with electrolyte and recovered/resealed it Maybe even fixed a connection that may have broke. I might have done that back when I was a major cheapskate and liked a challenge. Actually I did reseal a battery once that had a corner broken off. Can't remember how I did it but it turned out fine. I'm with you though. I probably wouldn't have even thought of that after it blew up.
I bet that was a mess. Hopefully you got it all hosed down fast before it ruined stuff.
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Old 08-10-2019, 06:11 PM   #10
alchemy
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Default Re: How do you know when a battery is dead?

Oh, and I did another one I forgot about. I switched my gf's battery with mine to check something and set it in front of the car and promptly pulled over it forgetting it was there. I traded her my battery and used hers after I fixed a big crack somehow.
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