Another dead battery question

[bncinwv]

I was at the rig today readying it for this weekends trip. I had charged the battery at the house and left it in the rig with the positive wire unhooked. The battery lasted about an hour and died. Can a battery discharge through ground without the hot side being connected?? I have the battery at the house now in the garage on the battery charger at 10amps and will leave it on until tomorrow evenings return trip to the rig. Any thoughts?
Bingo

[NCFischers]

It sounds as though you have a bad plate in the battery and it's grounding out.

[8.1al]

I'm with Jim, the battery will not discharge if only one cable is connect

[bncinwv]

That is what I thought, I will be checking the battery charge with a multimeter tomorrow. It is a new battery (still has warranty sticker on the side) which strikes me as odd the way it is acting. Still looking at adding an Optima blue top as well, may have to accelerate the purchase.
Bingo

[snfexpress]

I don't think a multimeter will help you with your diagnosis in this case. I suggest that you return it to your vendor, who hopefully has a discharge shunt, and who will then gladly replace your battery.

[stiles watson]

Take it to any battery shop and they will test it under load. Then you will know for sure.

[Bill-N-Donna]

I’ve always found that the volt-meter check is fairly accurate. By measuring each cell you can determine if one of them is bad. Each cell should show an increase in voltage. If you have a bad cell it may not read anything at all. Of course when you take it in they do an actual load test which may be more definitive.

[dieselguy]

Get a cheapie hydrometer (Wally World) suck some electrolyte from each cell and see what it reads ... odds are you have a dead cell. A dead cell will still have a low reading even after several hours of charging.

[bncinwv]

I guess I can check it with a hydrometer then to make sure the cells are okay, or since I have the battery at the house, I assume Autozone or someone can test it pretty easily. At the rate it is going it won't even cool the fridge overnight.
Bingo

[sfish]

My Interstate battery went bad within a couple weeks so I took it back to the RV dealer and they replaced it with no questions asked.

[Jdrobone]

Sounds like one of the straps between the cells (batteries are internally wired in series) is partially open. Makes good enough connection to charge up over time but will quickly fail under load.

[bncinwv]

Checked with a multimeter and it showed 14.0 volts. Hydrometer in each cell after charging showed the same charge in each cell. Batttery is in the rig and the fridge is on. Out of curiosity, I checked the super high-tech, gotta-be-reliable because it is provided by Montana, battery meter in the rig and it showed 2/3 charge. We will find out tomorrow afternoon if it dies from one day of getting the fridge cold. I see an Optima in the very near future.
Bingo