yellow top blowing up ?

[MUSKYMAN]

wow...just saw this thread

steve...what a bummer...but if you think back I warned you about this a ways back...I have a friend that had one melt down in a boat I sold him.

I swore off optima's right then and there.

glad it didnt take your house with the truck

Thom

 

[DiscoNomad]

SYOUNG,

Hey man I also have two yellow tops in my 04 Disco.

I am very sorry for the loss...just terrible. I am extrememly concerned about this happening to my Discovery. I to have had some small issues with my Optimas particularly the one that runs the electronics like the computer, radios, lights, etc. Anyway the symptoms I was having was that the second batter wouldn't really keep a charge. It would start dropping voltage quickly as if it had a bad cell. Of course they were all replaced for free but it still concerns me. It always seemed to start happening after I drained them hard and then recharged them on an automatic black and decker charger at 2 amps over night. I always replaced both when one started to go bad so that they would be of the same age. Now my latest pair, now about 3 weeks old, are giving me trouble. The AUX battery seems to not want to put out more then 11.6 volts. Every other optima atleast when new would hold at 12 volts for atleast a few days with no draw. I have checked the wires throughly and find no problems. I have a painless solenoid that works perfectly. The main battery is perfect also. Does any of this sound familure to you before the fire happened...if so I just might shit can these damn things and modify my truck for some odyssey batteries which I hear are amazing quality.

Thank you and sorry again,
Nomad

 

[syoung]

Thanks for the kinds words- my family is very upset. It's strange how we can get attached to a vehicle, but it really has so many good memories that I hope to save it from being junked. If I get a chance to bring it back to life I'll be far more careful about the batteries I choose.

Nomad-
You have described, word for word, exactly- and I mean exactly- the symptoms I had for the last two months or so. I had the batteries isolated with the Engel and the GPS only connected to the aux battery. Using a TJM IBS battery manager, they were separated 3 minutes after shutdown and charged together. Because of a short commute to work, the aux battery would fall behind in a charge but catch up eventually. If I left the stereo on and truck off- the main battery would die in about half the time of a stock battery. Both batteries seemed to suck. Early last week I put the batteries on a Schumacher charger designed specifically for deep cycle/AGM type batteries and charged each at 2amps to capacity (individually).
Based on your description- just take them out and go anther way with batteries. I'm really starting to think that possibly just a couple of plain old Interstate regular batteries might not be a bad way to go. Going exotic seems to have bitten me in the arse.

 

[fs_discoII]

Nomad I am seriously worried about you and your truck after reading this thread. I remember you telling us about the battery problems you were having with your truck at the last SOTEX meeting at the Saucer. Has sean been having the same problems??

 

[sean]

no the only thing that ever gave me problems was one of my my 1st red top, and i think i killed it from too many deep cycles.
i do notice my spare doesn't charge all the way if i'm only doing short trips around town. but a drive to work puts it at full charge.

 

[syoung]

It might be too many deep discharges that weakened mine- but isn't that what we pay extra for? The ability to take 'em down and still recover ok?
I think I might do a low voltage cutoff on both batteries in my next project to protect them. Twin Odysseys are what I'm thinking. I kinda dig that HUGE one, but I really like being able to push a button to jump the truck if I leave the stereo and/or other stuff on a long time. A jump box is ok too, but you have to get it out, pop hood etc- then you also have to check and charge the jump box to make sure it will work when needed.

 

[D Chapman]

Be interesting to see what comes of this. I have a hard time believing a battery just self destructs.

I say it had to be a short in either the wiring or within an installed component.

If you look at that heavy wire (4ga??) all the insulation is burned off. This is not the case on anyother wire within the picture. That heavy wire got super hot for some reason or another. That is what caused the fire. Put money on it.

 

[sean]

i agree if it shorted and vented, a spark under the hood could have ignited the venting gas.

 

[syoung]

Wrong- insulation is burned off all the wires, especially the one from the alternator to the fuse box... but the ground wire that connected the two is probably in the best shape. There's an additional ground wire on the left side that looks more intact than the others- but it was a braided style and maintained its shape even though the insulation is gone. All the wires were cut and removed by the fire dept. - the only ones not melted were the ones that went to the winch. The hot spot is obvious based on the forensic evidence- one can tell the hottest part was over the corner cell of the aux battery- the damage to the hood tells the tale...
The guy who looked at it today said the alternator made him suspicious- possibly heating the big hot wire from alternator to fuse box, melting and then shorting out- causing the battery to blast a cell.

 

[sean]

was it the corner where the gas valve is? i'm still wondering if it was the escaping hydrogen that was ignited and blew the battery.

 

[DiscoNomad]

You know maybe our problem stems from charging the batteries at 2 amps. Maybe they like to be charged at 10 amps and trickle down. Maybe they just don't get a full charge starting at 2 amps. I guess I will give it a try with these but I am watching these damn things like a hawk. I am still not sure if the same group Odyssey Batteries will fit in my carrier because they measure about a 1/4 inch longer in all directions. I am not saying that the charging would have anything to do with them developing an internal short but maybe it caused some cells to go bad from crystalization??? Try and take some more high res pictures...I think we are all curious.

 

[maxyedor]

Holy crap! That's bad times for sure. Like somebody else said thank god it wasn't parked in the garage, of if it was thank god the fire was isolated to the truck. All things considered it happened in as good a spot as possible, could have been while driving, way out in the woods, or while you were leaning over the engine to change the plugs, all would have sucked for their own reasons.

I too would like to see some more hi-res. shots and hear about any sort of new datails as to why that happened. I'd bet on the battery for that kind of spontainious combustion, a short would either have happened when you parked it, or when the fridge kicked on. You didn't say if you had the fridge hooked up or not, but in the time it was parked the fridge would have to have kicked on a few times, and with a still truck not much could have chnaged. I've heard of Optimas going bad before, never quite this catastophicly though.

DiscoNomad, check all your local autoparts stores they will all carry a high end spiral core battery, I run the Exide, I've heard good stuff about the NAPAs also. Also check the amp ratings of the Odyssey batteries, they tend to run significantly smaller per amount of power than a conventional battery, so you may actually be able to squeeze more power into the same space.

 

[antichrist]

When my dad was stationed at the Argentia Naval Air Station (my place of birth BTW) one of his duties was rebuilding batteries, for PT Boats, Subs and the like. So he knew a fair bit about batteries, a small amount he imparted to me. One thing he taught me was when charging a dead battery the correct way is a hefty charge at frist, on the order of 50 amp hours, then tapering down until it's about 2-5amps or so until charged.
Of course, this was with the lead/acid plate style batteries, so I don't know if that translates to the spiralcell type. Worthy of investigation.

 

[syoung]

When I decided to 'match' the charge on the two- the charger was in percentage mode, so I'm not sure what the voltage was- but the charger said the primary was in the high 80's and the aux was in the low 70's. I figured a nice slow charge would be the way to go- I use a lot of high end batteries for R/C airplanes etc and all the technology there claims that the slower the charge, the better. Of course, they are NiMH, NiCD and Lithium Polymer which is a different story altogether. Of course, that was several days- maybe even a week before the fire- I don't recall exactly which day that was.
The Engel was turned off- the only draw would be the alarm and the cell phone charging through the power port I added. The wire from the power port was fine- no sign of a problem there. Not like when my stepson put a penny in the power plug in my DI... that was nasty.

 

[D Chapman]

I don't know, Steve, sounds fishy to me. If batteries just spontaneously combust, there would be auto parts stores all over the country burning down.

That battery had to be "working" in order to create enough energy to catch fire. I'm not buying the alternator argument, as the alternator was not functioning at the time of the fire.

You claim the power wire from the alternator to the fuse box looked suspect. I find that strange. I don't understand how energy could be created from the alternator if the alternator was not turning. On the flip side, I don't see how the fuse box could produce enough energy to start a fire, yet bypass the fuse so it could continue to heat the wire.

I've been wiring for a long time, and I don't understand what you are claiming. In every POV, police car, fire truck, ambulance or boat I've ever wired, fuses have snapped long before wires would melt or catch fires.

I still scream faulty wiring on something you installed and did not properly fuse, or some sort of voltage regulator you may have installed went bad (still should not have been running if the key was off). I think the battery blowing up is bogus.

 

[syoung]

Well, by God you know every damned thing. Did you read the part where someone else had one go in a boat? Do you know that an internally damaged battery can reverse a cell or short- causing it to vent and/or explode? Do you know that it has happened before that an alternator shorts internally, causing the unfused wire to the battery connection in the fuse box to melt?
In my case, there is no additional 'stuff' to fail there. Just a simple twin battery setup with well made cables and routed properly. Even if the battery manager solenoid failed, the worst that would happen is that it would connect the batteries instead of isolate them. None of the large gauge battery cables have fuses, dipshit. The only accessory taps coming from the batteries had fuses individually behind a distibution block which was protected by a marine grade circuit breaker.
But then again you know everything. You know all Matt and Jesse's business workings and you know how every truck has been built and you can tell how something was wired even after the wiring was removed. You're a fuckin psychic. I knew you'd want to argue shit- but as usual, sometimes shit happens that you don't know a fucking thing about it, but as usual, you don't let that stop you from being the fuckin expert.
When you have half the creds of the people who have already looked at this situation, maybe I'll listen to your opinion... until then why don't you pay attention to the wiring in your single-wide?

 

[D Chapman]

None of the large gauge battery cables have fuses, dipshit.

I guess you'll be installing fuses on your next POS.

 

[syoung]

Maybe Land Rover should do that- other than the maxi fuse in the fuse box, there are no other fuses and apparently that wasn't enough.
My truck's salvage value is twice that of the POS you drive.

 

[jimjet]

I don't know, Steve, sounds fishy to me. If batteries just spontaneously combust, there would be auto parts stores all over the country burning down.

Batteries can Spontaneously combust.
Commercial Aircraft Nicad batteries are made of many individual cells to prevent this sort of thing.if one cell gets high resistance it will not take out the whole battery.

If these optimas are known to crack the Neg terminal internally then whos says the pos terminal or any other part of the battery(plates) is not cracked internaly, if so this crack can lead to a high resistance between the plates.
High resistance equals heat heat equals fire not to hard to comprehend.

jim

steve can i buy your junk for parts
our trucks are identical

 

[Bannon88]

I'm shocked the man who has two or three of everything wouldn't have a remote controlled gold plated fuse block complete with roof top tent on his battery cables.

The high resistance caused heat alright, enough heat to melt the cable insulation causing a short?

Dan, does your POS have fuses on the battery cables?

I run dual batteries and have a fuse block on my POS.