DC Voltage Oddness

[dsantoro]

Edit - SOLVED. Charge controller was set for AGM when I had a flooded battery. Changed the controller to 'wet' and everything seems back to normal.

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I seem to have developed a problem with the DC system. Everything looks OK when on shore power, but when on battery only the voltage cycles from 11.2V to 13.2V every five seconds or so in a continuous loop.

Other facts -
*The charge level is almost 2V lower than when I bought it. The solar panels would get the battery to 14.5 or so back then. Now on a good day it's 12.5V.

*I found a pool of water on top of the battery, not sure how that got there, but drying it off had no impact.

Anyone seen something like this before?

[Morich]

Good to hear it solved but a point to consider unless you know otherwise ? Is that water more likely to be battery water/acid that got boiled out due to overcharging?
Don't stuff that cleanup rag in the pocket of your good pants!

Point often missed is that we get a false reading if we don't wait for batteries to get stable after charging. A fully stable lead acid can only hold around 12.8 but we can see 13-14 if we have been charging recently! We can charge and get a 13 volt reading but that is not true and they will settle to 12.8, given a few hours. Just the chemistry part of the battery lead acid!

[dsantoro]

I was wondering about the water. It definitely wasn't acid, I think the likely answer is it was steam generated by overcharging.... meaning I will need to top off the water ASAP.

Good to know about the voltages at various charging cycles, thanks for the insights!

[Morich]

We might think of it as kind of like pouring something really thick like cold honey? As we pour it, we can see it is high but given time the chemicals spread out all through the battery and it is not so high!
Tech term is often "surface charge"!