# High rate of battery charge



## Jean-Luc (Jul 21, 2005)

I've just noticed that the on-board CBE charger is charging at a higher rate than 'normal'.

The van is on permanent hook-up when at home, has always been as the charger is of the multi-stage type which can be left permanently connected.
Usually once the battery charging cycles are complete the CBE unit goes into 'maintenance' mode and holds the battery at 13.8v with little or no current (amps) going in.

Now I notice that even though the charger seems to be in maintenance mode and the voltage is 13.8 the current is not going below 5.0/4.5 amps.

Any ideas as to why the charger is still shoving so much current at the batteries (2 X 95 ah)


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## 747 (Oct 2, 2009)

Sounds like a duff cell on one of them.

Try them in the system one at a time to eliminate the bad one.


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## WildThingsKev (Dec 29, 2009)

Probably as 747 says but I guess you could of lost calibration. That would be easy to check because with the charger and everything off the ammeter would show -5A.

Kev


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## Jean-Luc (Jul 21, 2005)

WildThingsKev said:


> Probably as 747 says but I guess you could of lost calibration. That would be easy to check because with the charger and everything off the ammeter would show -5A.
> 
> Kev


Thanks Kev, 
I have checked the calibration and that is ok. EHU disconnected and everything off shows zero amps.


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## Jean-Luc (Jul 21, 2005)

747 said:


> Sounds like a duff cell on one of them.
> 
> Try them in the system one at a time to eliminate the bad one.


Spot on 747 

When I checked both batteries I noticed one of them as a little warm :? so I disconnected it.

Now the input current has dropped back to < 0.5 amps  (maintenance charge)

One of the batteries definitely seems to have expired  at the ripe old age of eight years 

I wonder how long its sibling will survive on its own :?:


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## lgbzone (Oct 8, 2008)

747 said:


> Sounds like a duff cell on one of them.
> 
> Try them in the system one at a time to eliminate the bad one.


Good call 747.

when i hook up at home i always check for the 240v light coming on on the panel, think i'll incorporate a quick glance at the actual charge rate in future for any first signs of a battery going.

Lee


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## Jean-Luc (Jul 21, 2005)

lgbzone said:


> 747 said:
> 
> 
> > Sounds like a duff cell on one of them.
> ...


The charge rate will obviously be high at the beginning but should drop down to less that one amp once the battery is fully re-charged (since I disconnected the dud battery mine is now going down to less than half an amp again). How long it will take will depend on how much it was discharged in the first place.

Certainly if the charge rate has not gone down to the maintenance rate within 48 hours there is definitely something wrong, as I found out.

PS, this only applies to intelligent chargers with multi stage charging where the final stage is a maintenance or float charge.


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## SilverFox13 (Nov 20, 2007)

I had the same problem 3 weeks ago on our Rapido, while hooked up at friends over the weekend I noticed a high charge rate of 5 amps, when driving home my other half mentioned the smell of bad eggs in the garage ... classic overcharging. So pulled over and was shocked that one of the batteries was boiling hot. So had to climb in and disconnect it .. as I couldn't think of any other way of isolating it from the solar panel/B2B charger.

Luckily it was just under 3 years old and was exchanged with no problems.

The duff battery had dropped a cell so was measuring 10.7v.


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## SilverFox13 (Nov 20, 2007)

I had the same problem 3 weeks ago on our Rapido, while hooked up at friends over the weekend I noticed a high charge rate of 5 amps, when driving home my other half mentioned the smell of bad eggs in the garage ... classic overcharging. So pulled over and was shocked that one of the batteries was boiling hot. So had to climb in and disconnect it .. as I couldn't think of any other way of isolating it from the solar panel/B2B charger.

Luckily it was just under 3 years old and was exchanged with no problems.

The duff battery had dropped a cell so was measuring 10.7v.


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