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Old 06-29-2018, 07:32 AM   #1
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Seneca overcharging engine batteries when plugged in

I had noticed a whiff of gas smell the last few days while sleeping above the cab. Last night the smell was overpowering.

I believe the batteries are being overcharged while on shore power or while running the genny. I am currently reading 13.5 volts on my meter. One of the batteries under the seat is pretty hot. Its pretty hot out around the Grand Canyon where we are so the genny runs non stop.

Does anyone know of a quick way to cut shore charging to the engine batteries without me having to trace down the wiring?
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Old 06-29-2018, 07:57 AM   #2
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If engine batteries were overcharging so would house batteries. They both charge off the same converter output while on shore power. Are sure it's not low on water or going bad.

13.5 is correct voltage.
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Old 06-29-2018, 11:24 AM   #3
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Seneca overcharging engine batteries when plugged in

Does your m2 have sealed batteries. I would suspect that 7-8 year old batteries might have cracked and lost water. As grumpy said the 13.5 is normal charging. I am not sure if your unit has a battery isolation manager or not. If it does that unit senses the charge in chassis batteries and shuts the current from the converter on and off depending if the chassis batteries need it or not. If the batteries are fully charged it opens the circuit. Once it senses a drop in the batteries it closes and the converter starts to charge again. The newer converters also come with a charge wizard that switches between bulk, maintain and topping cycles. Drawing below is from 2013 so should be fairly close to what you have.
I would pull the wires off the chassis batteries and test each battery for voltage if they are sealed. If they have tops pull them and check water level

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Old 09-11-2018, 01:19 PM   #4
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And the JOF comes in handy once again...

We just got back from a 11-day backcountry fishing trip where we took the Seneca as far as the road would let us... (once we could not clear the rocks on the jeep trail)

We ran the Gen to charge batteries and had the strongest sulfur smell imaginable on day 6. I isolated the stink coming from the chassis battery tray under the cab and found that one of the chassis batteries decided to die right there. One of the two was warm to the touch(right in the picture) so I disconnected it from the other right away.

I pulled both of the ground wires on the negative side, removed the ground bar (that ties the two negative terminals of the batteries together) from the battery connection and then reassembled the negative terminals so that only the battery on the left was connected. It took about 5 hours for the right battery to cool down and stop stinking once the right battery was isolated.

Going to be putting two new chassis batteries in the Seneca this weekend!
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Old 09-11-2018, 02:19 PM   #5
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Sorry I did not reply back on my battery issue a few months ago. The person who I purchased the Seneca from told me at the time I bought it that he changed out "all" of the batteries. Well this was incorrect, he had not changed the chassis batteries. A new set under the drivers seat fixed it.
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Old 09-11-2018, 02:35 PM   #6
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SloPoke - Do you think the battery was actually being overcharged by your system or was it just a battery failure and that is how it presented itself?

My chassis batteries are older than yours, wondering if I should plan for replacements before they die "on the road"?
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Old 09-11-2018, 03:10 PM   #7
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Robbbyr,

The issue is finding the batteries on the road. Not every place will have them. Also, it's pretty darn tight under that seat. I can do just about anything but I got the freightliner place to replace mine. Cost me about $400 total for Interstate replacement batteries.

Also, I don't think my batteries were being overcharged. One just started getting hot and leaking fluid like the guy above. The alternator diode went bad in mine as well a few days before. I had to replace it on the road. This may have all been tied together.
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Old 09-11-2018, 03:27 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbbyr View Post
SloPoke - Do you think the battery was actually being overcharged by your system or was it just a battery failure and that is how it presented itself?

My chassis batteries are older than yours, wondering if I should plan for replacements before they die "on the road"?
After getting them isolated from each other and the chassis..... the (still healthy) battery showed 12.5v and the hot one showed 11.2v.

It appeared that the bad battery has shorted a cell and lowered the combined voltage of the two so that the generator sensed the need to charge the chassis batteries.(I had the Gen in "AUTO mode" so that it would start when charging was needed) With the one shorted cell, that would result in overcharging the remaining 5 cells of the bad battery - thus boiling what was left of the electrolyte and the resulting sulfur stink.

Once the bad battery was isolated, the chassis battery was not being overcharged, it stayed between 12.6 and 13.1 the remaining days - and started the chassis w/o any issues to head back home.

Our Seneca is a late-year 2015, Like you- I just replaced the house batteries that have date stickers of 8/14. I was being proactive by changing them out early... and I now think that I should have replaced the Chassis ones at the same time.

On another side note: The AUTO mode on the gen works really cool... We used the Inverter a bunch over the 11 days, when the battery charge became discharged to the 2/3 bars on the control monitor - the Gen started up and charged the house batteries.
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Old 09-11-2018, 03:43 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clayduster71 View Post
Robbbyr,

The issue is finding the batteries on the road. Not every place will have them. Also, it's pretty darn tight under that seat. I can do just about anything but I got the freightliner place to replace mine. Cost me about $400 total for Interstate replacement batteries.
.
We were in Jackson WY, and we did find replacements at the local Car-Quest there. Like anything else in Jackson, they charge around 30% more than in the larger cities. I had the bad battery isolated and felt it would be better to swap them out once at home so that I can deal with the usual issues that I sometimes encounter with the build workmanship. It is a tight mess in there!!!

oh.. and not to mention that I can get the TRP BD31S71 replacements at cost for $73 each
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