Battery Question

[MadMan]

I hooked up my Cabellas dual bank battery charger yesterday and when I came home from work, the battery(s) were making a hissing sound, almost like the water was boiling.

I know almost nothing about battery's, and these are for a bow mounted trolling motor that I have not used since spring, but did charge it once or twice over the summer.

Is this normal?

Also, I was told to hook up jumper cables from one of the battery's to the starting battery, and it should charge that too. Is this correct?

[bvs]

Are you sure it isn't the charger that's hissing? Both the Promariner/Cabela chargers I've had have ceramic capacitors in them that ring/buzz when the charger is floating at the end of the charge. I've noticed it gets louder when temps are below 32F.

If the battery really is boiling you'll be able to pop the filler covers and watch it. This is good if it lasts for an hour or so evert so often at the end of a charge, but is a sign of a defective charger if it never stops.

Be careful with the jumper cables. Your trolling motor batteries are probably floating and if you don't know what you are doing you could fry a lot of stuff. If you completely disconnect the trolling motor battery from everything but the charger, then yes you could probably jumper it up to your starting battery. It's a lot safer to just use another battery charger.

Good luck with the Cabelas charger and hold on to your receipt. The one I bought this spring already died once.

[Mr. Sauger]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
The hissing sound could be the acid in your batteries boiling. The escaping gasses include Hydrogen. Add a spark and boom – acid in the face, loss of eyesight and maybe worse. Unplug the battery charger asap.
After the gasses disspate safely, check the fluid level in the battery - the plates should be submerged. The jumper cable rig sounds like a no no. Perhaps some experts can advise you further.

[bob1]

I would not hook up the starting battery to the charger unless it has another bank from the charger to hook up to it! You need a charger with an additional bank for the starting battery or another charger for the starting battery.

Bob

[MadMan]

Thanks for the feed back.

It's a 2006 Alaskan that I bought used in 2007. The original owner did a top notch job rigging the boat, but the charger is mounted inside of the floor. I don't think that he was as die hard as I am, and while fishing in the rain, water will sometimes submerge the charger. It is supposed to be water proof, but I often wonder about things like that.

I am positive that the hissing is the battery, and all 3 of them did it. The first one did it with the jumper by itself, then the other, then the last one. Ever since I owned the boat it never did that.

When I came home last night, the charger showed that the trolling motors were all charged, but one of the battery's was still hissing. I will put a regular charger on them tonight and write back on the readings that I get (I don't know what in the heck they mean.) So your thoughts would be that I have a bad charger?

Thanks again for the feed back.

[MadMan]

I put a regular charger on the battery's last night at 2amps and the needle was to the far left, past 100% and the bottom number was 0.

This would mean the battery's did charge, correct?

[PRD1]

If the charge indicator was at or near zero it would indicate a full charge. In order to determine the real state of the battery you need to pick up a battery hydrometer. It will quickly check the condition of each cell and the overall condition of the battery. Draw a tube full of the acid solution from EACH CELL into the hydrometer and take a reading, it should be in the green area of the floating bulb. If any cell(s) are lower than the others it indicates a bad cell and the battery should be replaced. These things cost under $10 and last for years so are a good investment, available at any auto parts store.