Carbon monoxide detectors and hot batteries? [RE-wrenches]

[Bob Ellison]

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A few more things to look for;
The power vent has probably died, that wold allow the gas into the
room and probably set off the detector. He should be able to smell the
gas also.
If all the batteries are too hot to touch overcharging is suspect,
probably caused by several cells failing around the same time. It is
best described as a cascading failure. A cell fails and allows the
other cells to be overloaded and so on and on it goes.
An MX-60 failure is also possible and just over charging the batteries.
115 degrees F is wam, but liveable, 125 deg. is too hot. I have seen
industrial batteries that I work on at 145 deg. for the inner cells in
the pack. To high........
In short they are probably wore out and best to start looking for a replacement.

Hope this gets to the list.

Bob Ellison

On 5/22/07, Geoff Greenfield <Geoff at third-sun.com> wrote:
>
> Hello all wrenchies -
>
> I VERY concerned customer called with what seems to be a failing battery
> bank (tons of heat, bubbling way more than normal, and a recently
> manifesting large difference between strings of water consumption).  These
> are T-105s  retired from an electric vehicle, and I suspect an open or
> shorted cell.
>
> He is remote and has transferred AC loads and shut things down on the DC
> side... and once he borrows a multimeter I will walk him through a
> resistance check on the cells and suspect to find a bad battery.  Along with
> looking for anomalous individual battery voltage, at rest and during heavy
> charging do any of you have any other quick tests to suggest?  I already
> asked if he had an infrared thermometer... and when I spoke with him "all
> the batteries were too hot to touch".
>
> So - the gist of my post is:  he was alerted to this situation not by
> collapsing voltage under load, but by his CO detector going off.  What
> chemically is happening there?  These are flooded LA batts... is insulation
> and plastic heating up and generating CO?  Does the CO detector pick up
> other stuff?
>
> The batteries are in a roomy painted plywood box with plastic liner,
> screened low vents and a 2" pvc power vented to the screened exterior (I
> should have him check that for wasp nests).  Will check to see if the vent
> operates. it was controlled by the MX-60 aux to come on at around 53 VDC.
>
>
> For a brighter energy future,
>
> Geoff Greenfield
> President
> Third Sun Solar & Wind Power Ltd.
> 340 West State street, Unit 25
> Athens, Ohio 45701
> (740) 597-3111   fax: (740)597-1548
> www.third-sun.com
>
> Clean Energy - Expertly Installed
>
>
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