[RE-wrenches] Fullriver Battery meltdown

Fri May 11 13:34:19 EDT 2018

Here is a photo of before I removed the deformed battery. The Magnum temp sensor was on one battery and the PV controller sensor on the other. I do not believe anything external caused this failure. Perhaps a shorted cell allowed the charger to pass high current continuously.

Larry Crutcher
Starlight Solar Power Systems

On May 10, 2018, at 1:59 PM, Steve Higgins <steve at surrette.com> wrote:

Larry, 

Do you have any pic's of them installed? 

That would help a lot in getting an idea of how/why these failed. 

I do have two questions for you... 

Were there tie down straps over the tops of the batteries? 

Where was the temp sensor? 

 <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/> <http://www.rollsbattery.com/>Steve Higgins ⋅ Technical Services Manager
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On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 1:42 PM, Starlight Solar Power Systems <larry at starlightsolar.com <mailto:larry at starlightsolar.com>> wrote:
Wrenches, 

Attached is a photo of my first thermal runaway event after 17 years and thousands of battery systems installed. These were in an RV. I checked every charge source and all are within specified charging parameters. No cause found. The owner is a single elderly lady that uses very little power in her RV and spend most of the time on shore power. She reported that the batteries were dead when she unplugged from shore power. This was i the 23rd month after installation. 

After I reported this to my Fullriver distributor, they told me that another set of DC400-6 had melted down just 1 month earlier and that they had fused together just like these. That is extreme heat. It is too peculiar to know of two similar events. This meltdown happened within the 2 year warranty period but my customer could not come back to us for another 3 months beyond the warranty period. Fullriver would not allow anything towards replacement do to the reporting date being grater than 24 months.

I would like to know has anyone else had a similar failure with Rolls or Fullriver AGM batteries, specifically L16 size.

Thank you,

Larry Crutcher
Starlight Solar Power Systems

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