Battery Bubbling during charging

[Jeff Bacon]

Hi all:How much should a battery bubble during recharging ? Or, should a battery bubble at all during recharging ?I am not sure of the condition of my starting battery (this will be the third season), and I noticed it took longer to charge, and, was bubbling during the process.Any thoughts ?Thanks......... Jeff

 

[Fred Ficarra]

Jeff, can you provide a little more info?

First off, a start-only battery should never bubble. It should never discharge enough to draw a load from the charger. That brings up the question of what's charging it, the alternator or the shoreside charger? Oh hell, either way, shut it down! Somethings wrong. You may have a dead cell and it'll just keep drawing like that. Oh hell again, you do have a dead cell. Get that battery out of there. Oops, almost forgot, IMHO.

 

[Tom s/v GAIA]

I'm not so sure of that.

The reason batterys have vents is to allow the gas to escape, a small amount of bubbling is normal.Toms/v GAIA

 

[AL Hughes]

bubbling battery

Be real careful Hydrogen Gas is in the bubblesthat come off of a boiling battery. Turn off all of your power, let the battery cool and remove the battery and install a new one.Becareful of sparks around the battery.A good battery will give off some very small bubbles depending on the amperage going into the battery being charged. The Charger should start charging at a high rate of Amps and then as the battery comes up in charge the Amps should drop to a small amount. If you have an Amp meter on the charger watch for this drop off in Amps.Swap out a known good battery to the boiling battery position and see what happens, this will tell you if the battery is bad or the charger is bad or have the battery tested. Good Winds AL

 

[Stu Jackson]

Batteries

I suggest that you need to do some reading. Batteries HAVE to bubble a bit to charge, because there is a chemical reaction happening. What's "a bit?" Depends on the size of the charger, the bank and the depletion of the bank. (Fred's right about the start bank, though, since it shouldn't need much of a charge unless you left it uncharged over the winter and it drained.)Check out West Marine's Advisor's on line, and www.amplepower.com, download the Ample Power Primer, and check all the material on this site and others (Sailnet) on batteries. It's not that hard to find, and you'll know lots more before you're finished, which you NEED to know.There are also lots of BOOKS on the subject.Stu