Frozen Battery ????

Sunline1 · 02-25-2009, 10:12 AM

Checked my Campers battery volts the other day with my digital volt meter, read .2 volts.

Assumed battery shorted out/failed or something.

Call AC Delco customer service, and was told:

Battery probably discharged and froze. Try letting it thawout and recharge, might come back to life. But was warned the, the fully charged AMP hrs. etc will be shortened/etc.

Customer service guy said when the battery discharges acid and water seperate and then water freezes. Therfore low to no volts across the terminals.

Even as I write this I have the battery setting out in the sun, thawing out.
Waiting to recharge it.

Weather it will work well enough after charge who knowes.

Thing that gets me is I have a disconnect switch on the battery terminal. And I thought I had the battery disconnected. I had went out to do some work in the camper several weeks ago, voltage was fine (12.2 v or so), connected battery plugged in camper, did what I wanted to do in the camper, unplugged camper and disconnected battery i thought.

Just thought I would post this maybe some would find this of interest.

Happy Camping

frank · 02-25-2009, 03:18 PM

Yes, a dead battery will freeze. They are usually right about worthless after that happens as well.

It's also important to note that a lead-acid battery has a rate of self-discharge. This means that a 100% charged battery, left idle with nothing connected, will discharge itself over time. I don't recall the actual figure, but they are available on the web for those interested.

- Frank

Sunline1 · 02-25-2009, 03:35 PM

frank

that's probably what happened to mine.

Will try to charge it, doesn't cost anything to try.

That being said I'm checking around for a new battery.

frank · 02-25-2009, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunline1

frank

that's probably what happened to mine.

Will try to charge it, doesn't cost anything to try.

That being said I'm checking around for a new battery.

Certainly worth a shot.

FWIW, we replaced our single 12V with a pair of 6V golf cart batteries. Pretty happy with that setup. Actually looking to make a bigger rack so I can add another pair.

- Frank

Honda03842 · 02-25-2009, 04:39 PM

I've never had a frozen battery. I assume they don't freeze if there always on a converter. When we wintereize we always leave them plugged in and the converter on and have never had a frozen battery as far as we know. I assume this is an OK thing to do.

Norm Milliard

frank · 02-26-2009, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Honda03842

I've never had a frozen battery. I assume they don't freeze if there always on a converter. When we wintereize we always leave them plugged in and the converter on and have never had a frozen battery as far as we know. I assume this is an OK thing to do.

Norm Milliard

Correct, a charged battery is rather freeze resistant. I'm sure there's a temperature where it would happen, but I've never seen it documented and would assume it's pretty darn low!

Leaving the battery on the converter is fine, provided it's an intelligent converter that will float the battery at the proper voltage. Some older converters float the battery at too high a voltage which will cause excessive water loss. In these cases, you need to keep a close eye on the water level.

- Frank

Sunline1 · 02-26-2009, 09:32 AM

Frank

I happened to run across, on the internet, somewhere, - 75 F is the freeze point for a fully charged battery.

i can't remember which site it was, the numbers were very low, if I'm not mistaken at 25 % charge the freeze point is like -10 F.

i was researching, load testing of a deep cycle battery. I'm recharging my battery,and intend to do a load test on it. To give me an idea if it's still good or not ?

After seeing the freeze numbers, I'm not sure my battery froze, proably just completly discharge.