Copper piping turned silver

[ditchcrawler]

55 minutes ago, bigcol said:

So the battery store, needs to know, do they have to investigate.

it it a battery fault, I would like to know as I can just buy 2 new battery’s.

surley if this gas is so dangerous, then why no preventions.

as you say, everything was working, noticed the smell, investigated engine bilge re silver pipes,

and was diagnosed by this forum.

 

thats it

 

whats stopping it happening to anyone out there using these battery’s.

my charger inverter is a victron 3000, and the inverter part has never been used

the chargers showing float on

 

col

Have you got any CO detectors on board,? they often warn of battery failure

[Alan de Enfield]

Col - I'll ask again.

 

What voltage is your battery charger putting out ?

 

If this was the cause then it will happen again.

[mark99]

Personally I would not advise blindly to turn on any electric bilge blower as I would not know the Atex rating of the blower nor switch and whether it sits in the hazardous area.

Edited December 31, 2018 by mark99

[ditchcrawler]

4 minutes ago, mark99 said:

Personally I would not advise blindly to turn on any electric bilge blower as I would not know the Atex rating of the blower nor switch and whether it sits in the hazardous area.

The blower and switch should be in a safe area, that is why it blows and not suck

 

[mark99]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The blower and switch should be in a safe area, that is why it blows and not suck

 

Yes but you / me are not there to check. Unfortunately I see this type of contravention (non boaty) in my professional life regularly. From so called professionals too.

Edited December 31, 2018 by mark99

[bizzard]

Its dodgy to charge batteries at a very high rate of charge. If there is a bit of weakness in the battery it will find it, overheat and BOOM!!!! Also shortens the battery life.  Years ago when alternators first came into use on vehicles I was called out several times to exploded batteries, sometimes caused by the regulator going berserk, why me and not the fire brigade I don't know.  The first of the Jaguar XJ6's were a classic for this, initial high rate of charge plus engine heat, an electric cooling fan had to be fitted to the battery compartment case, ducting heat away to cool it. Batteries under a steel cruiser deck with the hot summer sun beating on it plus the heat of the engine running, BEWARE!!!.

[bigcol]

13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Col - I'll ask again.

 

What voltage is your battery charger putting out ?

 

If this was the cause then it will happen again.

Hi Alan On the nasa battery monitor it says the voltage is at 26.1 volt

the victron has a charge light which is off, but the float light is on.

 

col

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, bigcol said:

Hi Alan On the nasa battery monitor it says the voltage is at 26.1 volt

the victron has a charge light which is off, but the float light is on.

 

col

 Switch the charger off, wait a couple of minutes and switch the charger back on - What does your multimeter say is the voltage at the battery terminals ?

What is it showing after 10 minutes then after 30 minutes.

 

Forget the monitoring equipment.

[Higgs]

 

On the day that I decided to light the Morso, one of the batteries decided to go bad. When I lit the fire, early in December, I kept an eye on the CO detector. It was reading 45 and I thought I'd have to choke the fire and check it for leaks at the joints and front window in the door. Thinking about the smells around the marina, and people burn all sorts of things, I wondered if the smell might have been the batteries on charge. I took the CO detector to the back of the boat and the batteries. The reading shot up to over 400, which would be a lethal reading for CO.

 

It has happened before, and I read that hydrogen can cause a reading on these CO detectors. Anyway, on separating the batteries, one had gone low. However, it was a few hours of venting the boat before the meter dropped to zero. After a few more hours of it staying at that reading, I felt I could go to bed. And the Morso was ok, and not causing the CO detector to register anything untoward.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2018 by Higgs

[bizzard]

4 minutes ago, bigcol said:

Hi Alan On the nasa battery monitor it says the voltage is at 26.1 volt

the victron has a charge light which is off, but the float light is on.

 

col

Sounds about right for float charge on a 24v system.

[bigcol]

Again Thankyou all on this forum, that has diagnosed and given great advice

hopefully no other damage has been done

The boat has no engine or blowers at all.

the engine bay is sealed gas has escaped along the copper piping inside living area can see this by looking at the pipe.

 

just really worried now, I’ve had windows open and a fan on, the smell went some hours ago now.

 

must admit this has freaked me out

 

col

[mark99]

When we had a h2s issue the victron behaved as it should ie floating volt on the battery monitor was as expected for a 12v system but neighbours complained that the co alarm kept going off when we left.

 

Looked and found we had a dead cell and warped cell in one of the 8 * 6v Rolls batteries  batteries and they were all well old. Swapped em all out.

[ditchcrawler]

4 minutes ago, bigcol said:

Again Thankyou all on this forum, that has diagnosed and given great advice

hopefully no other damage has been done

The boat has no engine or blowers at all.

the engine bay is sealed gas has escaped along the copper piping inside living area can see this by looking at the pipe.

 

just really worried now, I’ve had windows open and a fan on, the smell went some hours ago now.

 

must admit this has freaked me out

 

col

Batteries must have ventilation, natural or forced is up to you. Also if always on charge there is not a lot of point in you buying another battery, just run on the 2

[bigcol]

9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 Switch the charger off, wait a couple of minutes and switch the charger back on - What does your multimeter say is the voltage at the battery terminals ?

What is it showing after 10 minutes then after 30 minutes.

 

Forget the monitoring equipment.

Hi Alan will do this tomorrow morning.

 Many thanks

 

col

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, bigcol said:

Hi Alan will do this tomorrow morning.

 Many thanks

 

col

Did the CO alarm go off

[jonesthenuke]

1 hour ago, bigcol said:

Will I have to replace all the copper piping

or is it all okay

IMHO it will be fine. Clean off the surface with a mild abrasive. You may find Brasso will suffice as I doubt the sulphide film will have significant depth.

[BWM]

1 hour ago, bigcol said:

http://www.psst.org.pk/papers/HAZARDS OF HYDROGEN SULFIDE (H2S).pdf

This makes interesting reading, the effect of the gas on component faliure leads me to doubt the wisdom of installing an inverter/charger next to batteries. 

  I'm fairly certain that this must be an uncommon event, and wonder just how high levels need to be to cause real harm. Neither link seems definitive, and having been closely involved in the charging of battery locomotives with no specified breathing equipment required. They contain hundreds of cells, all bubbling furiously when in the gassing stage and bad cells were a regular occurrence - all carried out in an underground depot complete with arcing from nearby trains. 

[bigcol]

28 minutes ago, BWM said:

This makes interesting reading, the effect of the gas on component faliure leads me to doubt the wisdom of installing an inverter/charger next to batteries. 

  I'm fairly certain that this must be an uncommon event, and wonder just how high levels need to be to cause real harm. Neither link seems definitive, and having been closely involved in the charging of battery locomotives with no specified breathing equipment required. They contain hundreds of cells, all bubbling furiously when in the gassing stage and bad cells were a regular occurrence - all carried out in an underground depot complete with arcing from nearby trains. 

It’s freaked me out, yes the inverter is near the battery’s, also the case which holds all the electrics.

im now worried re the cabling

i will have another look tomorrow and do the tests that Alan’s suggested.

 

again thanks all

 

col

[BWM]

1 hour ago, bigcol said:

It’s freaked me out, yes the inverter is near the battery’s, also the case which holds all the electrics.

im now worried re the cabling

i will have another look tomorrow and do the tests that Alan’s suggested.

 

again thanks all

 

col

I doubt very much if you will suffer anything else being affected by this one event, even though that silver residue is quite dramatic. It may well turn out to be a faulty battery, fingers crossed!

[WotEver]

I’m still intruiged by what the silver actually is. I thought hydrogen sulphide made copper go black. 

[jonesthenuke]

1 hour ago, WotEver said:

I’m still intruiged by what the silver actually is. I thought hydrogen sulphide made copper go black. 

If it is a sulphide layer then a thin layer of black will show up as a silver coating, it will be very thin as the exposure will not have been long.

[Boater Sam]

Its not just the copper pipe but all metallic parts exposed to the H2S , the galvanised cable tray, engine, electrical terminals, the inside of the hull etc. I think you have a bigger corrosion problem than you imagine.

 

The tell tails on the batteries are useless. They are not floating balls anymore, just a pointed plastic stub, when the end dips in the acid it causes total internal refraction of the light so it shows green. When the acid is low, no refraction so shows black. 

As the acid level rises as a battery charges, green is supposed to mean OK and charged, totally misleading, just make folk wreck their batteries faster.

[bigcol]

Okay I’ve been down in the bilge and have tested baterys

 

on charge

batt 1 green 12.5 but eberspacher on at moment connected to both of course 24v

batt 2 green 14 v 

 

charger off

bat 1 12.4

batt 2 14v

 

 

Totally disconected

batt 3  blk 14.2

batt 4  blk 11.2

 

the pipes that gave gone silver will need somthing strong to get rid of it, 

sratching with metal screw driver does bring back the copper but it’s going to be hard work to clean of all the silver of all the pipes

is their any reason why I can’t leave them silver?

 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, bigcol said:

charger off

bat 1 12.4

batt 2 14v

How long after switching the charger off were these readings taken.

 

At 1st sight (if that is immediately after switching off) there is a problem brewing for Batt 1

[bigcol]

Straight away

I will test them in another 10 mins