Reproduction battery dilemma

[davepl]

I'm running two reproduction batteries in my truck, both are gel reproductions from RestorationBattery.com which is now long gone, unfortunately. One is a reproduction of the bigger T-60 and one the R59. That's what I found you should have if you have both the dual and the HD battery options (which only gets you the one HD battery and one regular, not two HD).

Anyhow, it was on a C-TEK charger a week ago and I came into the garage in the morning to a strong "hydrogen something or other" smell. Not quite rotten eggs but quite distinctive as the smell of overcharging.

Now I notice the battery has a crack in the top of it! And this is a sealed battery.

So something went wrong but now what? Is it the charger or the battery, and how do I deduce that without burning down my garage as a step?

[cleszkie]

Does your charger have settings for AGM, Gel, and Lead Acid batteries? If so, did you use the correct setting for your batteries? Are you sure your batteries are Gel and not AGM? Did you use a slow charge rate, or quick charge? Gel and AGM do not like quick charge rates. Not trying to insult your intelligence, just thinking of some potential sources of your issue.

Last thought, did you isolate the batteries when you charged them, or where they still linked?

[davepl]

The charger has a setting (a snowflake icon) for AGM, which I was indeed using. I'm almost certain my batteries are AGM, and the C-Tek charger is supposed to be great at that.

The batteries are unlinked automatically when the key turns off by the big relay, so they were totally separate. Actually on that day only one battery was in the truck, the other was out.

[cleszkie]

What charge rate were you using? My charger has settings for 2 amp trickle charge, 10 amp fast charge, and 50 amp jump start. Gel and AGM like the 2 amp rate. If you accidentally had it set to anything higher, it could have caused the problem, especially the 50 amp jump start mode.

If your charger settings were all in order, perhaps you have a direct short in one of the cells.

[mike16]

It seems your not the only person having problems with these batteries

http://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?p=791185

this guy did too

and there are some other issues with these batteries. and the vendor disappeared from the scene

I was about to spring for a new battery but guess I'll have to wait untill the first batch of crap gets used up. I wonder how many pennies they made cutting corners on something as simple as case materials.

[davepl]

That thread is 13 years old though... hopefully they sorted through any trouble in the intervening years!

To the other question, the CTek is totally automatic, microprocoessor controlled. It can go up to 12A but has an AGM "mode" where it does the right thing, supposedly.