Weird battery damage

[BeerCan]

Here is a battery I had on my camper that was in storage. The camper was stored in a fully enclosed garage in FL, but it was not environmentally controlled.

Battery was on a trickle charger 24/7 and I last checked on in over a year ago.

To my surprise when I went to get the camper the battery was flat. When I took a look at it I noticed the case was collapsed. Like the air was vacuumed out of it.
Never seen this before, if you notice the top is wavy and the side is collapsed in.

 

[Silver]

Like the vent holes were one way...

 

[brianl703]

Like the vent holes were one way...

They usually are in AGM batteries. Bet that thing developed a shorted cell and the trickle charger just cooked the remaining ones.

 

[Rand]

apparently that can be a somewhat normal condition on AGM batteries.

 

[RitcheyRch]

I had a Optima Blue Top do that when it was in my boat. I had it on a trickle charger and I think we had a power surge and it overcharged the battery.

 

[Spectre694]

Never seen it on a full size battery but I see it a lot on the smaller VRLA for UPS's and such. But battery failed and then charger cooked it.

 

[wpod]

Sometimes a battery lasts a long time, sometimes they don't.

 

[circuitsmith]

Battery was on a trickle charger 24/7

Old school trickle charger?
If so it cooked the battery.
Such a charger I would put on a household light timer set to charge an hour or two per day.

 

[Dave9]

I'd test the charger before using it again, might be that it failed and that caused the battery to be cooked. I don't necessarily mean an old school charger, even something modern, if a transistor failed in a shorted state, can cause that.

 

[BeerCan]

Old school trickle charger?
If so it cooked the battery.
Such a charger I would put on a household light timer set to charge an hour or two per day.

It is this one

BatteryMINDer® Model 2012-AGM : 12V 2 AMP Charger-Maintainer-Desulfator For Optima, Odyssey, Polaris, Yuasa & Other High Performance Specialty 12 Volt Sealed AGM Lead-Acid Batteries (Worldwide Usage)

BatteryMINDer 2012-AGM is a charger/maintainer/desulfator designed for specialty AGM batteries including but not limited to Optima and Odyssey.

www.batteryminders.com

 

[Silver]

They usually are in AGM batteries. Bet that thing developed a shorted cell and the trickle charger just cooked the remaining ones.

So...

This battery leaves the factory at a certain atmospheric pressure, perhaps normal pressure to match the outside. Something happens that changes the pressure, like it heats up or cools down. Pressure can go one way, but is not allowed to equalize again?

 

[brianl703]

So...

This battery leaves the factory at a certain atmospheric pressure, perhaps normal pressure to match the outside. Something happens that changes the pressure, like it heats up or cools down. Pressure can go one way, but is not allowed to equalize again?

AGM batteries normally operate at positive pressure because the process of charging them generates hydrogen and oxygen. Instead of allowing these gasses to escape, there is a valve (hence the alternative name for AGM batteries, VRLA, Valve Regulated Lead Acid) which prevents their release until the pressure inside the battery reaches a certain amount, around 5PSI. Supposedly, I've never found a good explanation as to how, the gasses slowly recombine into water if the pressure isn't high enough to cause a release. And, barring overcharging, the pressure never gets that high.

So an AGM battery should NEVER be under a vacuum. The only way that could happen is if a cell were to go completely dry, such as by overcharging, and heat up in the process of going dry. When it cooled down due to finally going open circuit, it would be under a vacuum.

And if a cell shorts out, the other cells are getting overcharged.

And if you rip the caps off the cells on that battery you'll find that the one-way valve is a rubber cap that fits over a vent hole to the cell.

 

[wrcsixeight]

Deka Intimidator agms spec a.float.voltage of 13.2 to 13.4v @ 77f. Most other agm are 13.6v.

IIRC he batteryminder floats at 13.6 to.13.8v on agm setting.

Ive seen overheated batteries look like that.

When there are no loads.on an agm, it is better to just top them up monthly, rather than try and maintain the specific temperature compensated float voltage.


I got a pair of Deka gc-2 agms, build daTe 5/2017.
Left them disconnected for 3.5 months last winter. They measures 12.69v when I returned, and took only 0.9 ah of their 190ah rating before amps, at 14.3 volts, tapered to 0.4, and they still perform well.

 

[RAR]

I’ve never seen that, ever. But because it’s an AGM, that might be the reason.

I only recently started installing AGM batteries in my cars and trucks, so with this, I’ll keep an eye on them more. Yow!