Major Harris battery failure in 2021 400. What could cause this?

pthomas745

This is on the FB page this morning.  Still sorting out the details, as in was the battery seriously discharged and this happened when it was plugged in, what is the status of the Gloso breaker, etc.  Many guesses in the comments: would a converter set to Lithium do this to the AGMs?  Can the Gloso breaker fail? 

Any ideas?  Sure is a dramatic photo, though.

pthomas745

More info on what was going on when this happened (with permission from the author).

"I had the trailer home for a good cleaning and noticed like a lavatory smell aired it out. had it hooked to the house thru a 50 amp outlet then we lost power at the house. I then hooked up my 2 Yamaha ef20001sv2 generators for power to run the A/C it's a little warm here in Texas. we ran it for about 2 hours until power in the house came back on. this was yesterday. now this morning I ask my wife to go smell the trailer and when she did there was a slight kind of rubber smell and when she touch the bed it was very warm to the touch.. removed the center panel and found the batteries melted. all the fuses and breakers are fine no issues with those. with battery switch off the solar is putting in 14.1 volts turned the charge controller off and with the battery switch on the shore power shows a charge of 13.6. with everything turned off, the batteries show 5.4 volt each."

VictoriaP

I wonder if they had a power surge? Not seeing anything in all that that indicates an EMS in use, or do the newest trailers have that built in?

Fuses and breakers are fine though, so maybe not. 

Denny16

Thomas, sorry to hear about your issue.  When you say connected to 50 amp power source, was it a 220VAC 50 amp power source?  Was the master power disconnect breaker off whilst you were using the genny?  Batteries look like they were cooked due to over charging at a high charge rate (bulk charge) or?  

Is the converter working correctly?  The dual Lithium/Standard power converter was released in 2022.  The early ones had a little switch upper right had side to select Lithium mode.  The later,ones are auto sensing so no switch.
 Cheers 

pthomas745

@Denny16 , thanks, but this is not my trailer, but I appreciate the concern! Someone posted this picture on the FB page this morning.

I wondered about the power source too, or if an adapter or dogbone was used.  And, I don't know anything about generators.

And, @VictoriaP mentioned the fuses and Gloso breakers:  if an inappropriate power source was used, shouldn't they have blown to protect the battery? 

I know the lithiums charge at a higher rate, but would that higher rate cause this sort of damage to the battery.

Or: if all these ideas here are just "distractors", can a battery simply fail and cause this?

Denny16

All good questions, glad it wasn’t your TaB and batteries Thomas.  If I had this issue, and the converter was working correctly, I would be contacting Harris, about the battery failure, the batteries may still be under warranty by Harris?

Cheers 

atlasb

There have been several posts over the years that people had electrician install 30-amp supply.  They did not use the RV variety and wired for 220/ 240 volt.  I would check what power is coming through the 30-amp adaptor to connect to the T@B power cable.  I did see the owner posted connecting to a 50-amp house circuit and that probably was 220/240-volt supply.  Luck no fire ensued.







2b

Denny16

Connecting incorrectly to a 50-amp 220VAC supply, allowing 220VAC to,the TaC power co vertex would fry the converter and should trip the main breaker, and a surge could have gone to the batteries?   A lighting strike to a boat doesn’t even do this thr a battery bank.  This damage looks like long term overcharging from a failed charger…. But I would be having this TaB checked by the dealer.
 Cheers 

pthomas745

The owner of the trailer has talked to NuCamp and their thought it was converter failure, also.

Marceline

pthomas745 said:

"I had the trailer home for a good cleaning and noticed like a lavatory smell aired it out. had it hooked to the house thru a 50 amp outlet then we lost power at the house. I then hooked up my 2 Yamaha ef20001sv2 generators for power to run the A/C it's a little warm here in Texas. we ran it for about 2 hours until power in the house came back on. this was yesterday. now this morning I ask my wife to go smell the trailer and when she did there was a slight kind of rubber smell and when she touch the bed it was very warm to the touch.. removed the center panel and found the batteries melted. all the fuses and breakers are fine no issues with those. with battery switch off the solar is putting in 14.1 volts turned the charge controller off and with the battery switch on the shore power shows a charge of 13.6. with everything turned off, the batteries show 5.4 volt each."

I think that the power outage and generators are a bit of a red herring. The "lavatory smell" was probably the first indication that the batteries were frying. I'd have a look at that connection to the 50 amp outlet. I don't understand why a breaker didn't blow, but maybe someone with better electrical knowledge can come up with an explanation.

Denny16

If the user used a proper 50-amp to 30-amp adapter, then this would not have necessary the issue either, as the adapter would only connect to one 120VAC leg of the 220VAC source.  I agree with the failed converter theory, looks like the batteries were cooked over a period of time.
 Cheers 

VictoriaP

pthomas745 said:

Or: if all these ideas here are just "distractors", can a battery simply fail and cause this?

Yes, a battery can fail but…would it take out both batteries? Genuinely curious.

Anyway, the converter seems the likely culprit, hopefully still under warranty.

MuttonChops

Don't lead-acid-sealed [ AGM ] batteries swell for one of two reasons.

1)  Internal short or Negative-Positive terminal direct short.
2)  Over-Charging . . . too much current into battery.

In both cases the battery acid begins to boil off and since the battery is sealed the case must expand.  This process also creates a sulfur 'rotting eggs' odor.

The greatest danger is the case failing allowing battery acid to leak/explode all over the battery compartment.  In general this type of battery failure is not a fire hazard.

For the batteries shown/discussed in the Facebook post - - -
My vote is with the Power Center having failed in some type of higher than standard output current mode.

pthomas745

Thanks for the comments.  The owner responded a bit ago there was no smell of "rotten eggs", but that plasticky kind of smell of burnt Tupperware. That was probably the melting battery box.  So, this cookoff must have been a long slow process.

Why no sulfur smell?  The batteries got hot enough to burn the cases but not hot enough to boil the electrolyte in the battery?  Or would an AGM not "boil" like a "normal" lead acid?

Bayliss

"Thermal Runaway?"  Apparently, it can happen in all types of batteries.

https://dragonflyenergy.com/thermal-runaway/#:~:text=Thermal runaway is a chain,to occur inside the battery.

pthomas745

Found some more on thermal runaway for AGM's.  Same conclusions as in this thread (shorts, a bad converter, etc.) but with some descriptions of what is happening inside the battery.

https://www.cdtechno.com/pdf/ref/41_7944_0712.pdf

SLJ

Do yourself a favor and add an in-line 30 amp fuse at the positive battery terminal when you put new batteries in.

hustoncs

@SLJ That sounds like a great idea in the event of an over current event. But I wonder how much current there would be in a over charging situation

Grumpy_G

pthomas745 said:

Found some more on thermal runaway for AGM's.  Same conclusions as in this thread (shorts, a bad converter, etc.) but with some descriptions of what is happening inside the battery.

https://www.cdtechno.com/pdf/ref/41_7944_0712.pdf

Great info in the article. I'm always a little leery of having the converter and the solar controller charging at the same time because they have different charging curves and might have different ideas of what voltage to apply. Some of the charging stages are timed and restarting the charge process (e.g. reconnecting power) restarts the timer. Conceivably the failed batteries saw too high voltage at high temperatures and experienced a thermal runaway. 

Denny16

AGM batteries do have a pressure release vent, that allows excess vapors to release in a situation where excessive pressure builds up in the battery.  This is why they are normally in a vented case or compartment sealed off from living spaces in RVs.
 Cheers 

Marceline

pthomas745 said:

Thanks for the comments.  The owner responded a bit ago there was no smell of "rotten eggs", but that plasticky kind of smell of burnt Tupperware. That was probably the melting battery box.  So, this cookoff must have been a long slow process.

Why no sulfur smell?  The batteries got hot enough to burn the cases but not hot enough to boil the electrolyte in the battery?  Or would an AGM not "boil" like a "normal" lead acid?

"noticed like a lavatory smell "