Battery Blew Up!

[Dutch]

I have a Dual pro XL charger in my '07 Triton.

 

I fished last weekend, came home, plugged in the boat as always. I was geetting ready to go today and went to the back of the boat to turn on the power switches (I always turn the main power off). One of the 27 series interstate batteries on my 24V motorguide had blown its top - this is only its 2nd season. Not sure why this would have happened, I didn't do anything I wouldn't have normally done. It is not hot here at all right now either.

 

I thought maybe the Dual pro didn't automatically kick off and caused it. According to the owner's manual, it should be left plugged in at all times.

 

I got the blown up battery out and the one that didn't blow up and cleaned up the acid. Popped the top on the dual pro and there doesn't seem to be any arching. The one heat sink is darker than the other on the bank of the battery that went. There is also some hairline cracks in the charger case that I don't reacll seeing before - maybe fom the heat build-up in the case? I plugged it in briefly, and just got one flashing led light on each bank - which was expected as there wasn't a battery hooked up at that point.

 

So - how do I test the dual pro to make sure it wasn't the culprit? I was going to be upgrading to 31 series batteries next season anyway, so that batteries were going to go, but I didn't want to have to buy a new charger. Any suggest as to what to do next?

[irishfield]

I have the same charger in my boat and starting 2 summers ago the left bank would get down to the last green light and then never shut off.. boiling the battery. Thought maybe it was a battery going bad so I switched wires..and it did the same thing with the right side shutting off as per norm, so not the batteries. Sometimes it does it.. some times it shuts off on it's own, so I religiously only plug it in overnight at most and then see if it shut off or unplug it.

 

Glad it was a glass boat at least... you'd be doing a lot of flushing and baking soda if it was aluminum (or patching a big hole!)