WTF happened to my battery????

[cappy72 10+ year member]

im gonna play up the

oohh $hit it almost caused a fire in my car, there were sparks flying everywhere

 

[BassAddictJ 5,000+ posts]

nice.....

if you got it from a local place they should just replace it there. that's not right if they carry yellow tops. check ur other battery to with a load test and make sure it's still top notch. dicount auto, adavanced discount auto, and i think autozone will do free tests on batteries for u.....milk it......

 

[TypeRBass 10+ year member]

did you connect the wires to the sideposts of the optima??? ive heard that isn't the smartest thing to do on them since it CAN melt them. at least from what ive heard

 

[AVSTANG02]

whats the rule on disconnecting and connecting the battery? which wire do u remove first and which do u connect first?

to avoid getting sparks.

sorry random question..

 

[kuijo 10+ year member]

It doesn't matter on taking them off, either one will break the circuit (some people disagree, but if actually reaserched it). but if u want to avoid spark on putting it back together, put the negative on last.

 

[jsloan10 10+ year member]

I believe that this is one of the reasons its recommended to use an isolator when adding a different type of battery to you're electrical system. The only time an isolator is not reccomended is when you wire two identical batterys in parrellel.

When two different types of batterys are used one of the batterys will pull more current then the other and the result can be way too much heat, in a normal battery it would have boiled but because the optima is an absorbed electrolite type battery (dry inside) it just melted the terminal.

Somtimes if the batterys are close to each other in specs you can get away with not using the isolater but the life span of the batterys is still reduced (service lfe), this is why you see somepeople say that they are running two different batterys with no problems but if you talk to them in a few years they will complain about having to replace them early.

So basically if you want to run two batterys in your system without an isolator, you need to have two identical batterys and when I say identical I mean Brand/size/type and even manufacturer to avoid any proplems with overcharging and one battery drawing current from the other, or add an isolator to your system that way you can mix two differnt batterys and the isolator will stop the current from being shared between the two.

 

[cappy72 10+ year member]

did you connect the wires to the sideposts of the optima??? ive heard that isn't the smartest thing to do on them since it CAN melt them. at least from what ive heard

I had amp wires connected to the side post of the terminal and the main wire from the other battery connected to the top post. Well to confirm it in my situation it did melt the side post

I believe that this is one of the reasons its recommended to use an isolator when adding a different type of battery to you're electrical system. The only time an isolator is not reccomended is when you wire two identical batterys in parrellel.When two different types of batterys are used one of the batterys will pull more current then the other and the result can be way too much heat, in a normal battery it would have boiled but because the optima is an absorbed electrolite type battery (dry inside) it just melted the terminal.

Somtimes if the batterys are close to each other in specs you can get away with not using the isolater but the life span of the batterys is still reduced (service lfe), this is why you see somepeople say that they are running two different batterys with no problems but if you talk to them in a few years they will complain about having to replace them early.

So basically if you want to run two batterys in your system without an isolator, you need to have two identical batterys and when I say identical I mean Brand/size/type and even manufacturer to avoid any proplems with overcharging and one battery drawing current from the other, or add an isolator to your system that way you can mix two differnt batterys and the isolator will stop the current from being shared between the two.

I originally had 2 different batteries but the problem came when I purchased my second yellow top.

 

[jsloan10 10+ year member]

Age is also another consideration as the charging characteristics of a battery will change as it ages.

I'm not lying to you this is what the text books say to do, isolator for seperate types and parralell for identical.

 

[Decipha 10+ year member]

they are identical... he said SECOND yellow top

 

[jsloan10 10+ year member]

How old is the original yellow top?.

 

[Shyne151 10+ year member]

wow that's messed up

 

[cappy72 10+ year member]

the oldest yellow top was purchased in march of this year

 

[jsloan10 10+ year member]

WTF!!!???? in march. That definitely shoudn't have happened then, somthing was either seriously wrong with the wires or the new battery is a dud.

 

[XtrmAudioCncpts 10+ year member]

you grounded that thing thats why it melted like that i had the same problem with my red top but i saw it smoke up so i pull the terminal off it sucks ***

 

[cappy72 10+ year member]

you grounded that thing thats why it melted like that i had the same problem with my red top but i saw it smoke up so i pull the terminal off it sucks ***

OK this statement needs some explanation...

As I stated before I was running a dual setup for approx 3 months now, with no problems at all (this was with 1 yellow top, which was new, and 1 regular battery, which was at least a yr old)...

I grounded the neg terminal of the trunk battery to the chassis, in both setups. I attached the grounds on the amps to the battery ground.