Stupid me

[High Wire]

Coming home after 3800 mile trip up and down the east coast, my battery bank performance was slightly lower than expected. No problems making it through the night or starting the engine in the morning. Here is a photo of the as found starboard battery bank. What is wrong with this picture?

 

[Comodave]

Can’t tell for sure but where does the red cable go from the right side in the middle?

 

[diver dave]

yeah, I'm thinking the bank is 1/2 of expected

But, I like the bipolar batt cables.

 

[High Wire]

We have a winner! It goes nowhere. It was supposed to be connected to the other red positive cable on the left terminal. It has been disconnected since Nov 2018 when we launched that fall. The other Trojans did their jobs plus some.

 

[C lectric]

Attached is a copy of what I think is what you have.

It might help if you sent a better photo that shows more of the fwd. box and the + bar, LESS of the heat exchanger and the jugs.

So where does that red wire from the rear battery set go?


I will add that the photo does not show the polarity marking on each battery
so is it possible one of the batteries was reversed. I've seen that before.
Carefully check the polarity connections.

 

[O C Diver]

That red cable doesn't look hooked up.

Ted

 

[High Wire]

The alarm bell of the bottom set of 6V batteries needed to be topped off with water back in NJ but the other set did not. I thought that unusual but did not pursue. That is until we got back and found the same set needed more water and the other still did not. That's when I saw the red cable end had fallen down between the battery and the box wall. 13 months and almost 4000 miles like that!
Performed an equalization and all came back to full charge/SG, thank goodness.

So:
Did not self check on the Fall 2018 hook up. (Time pressure)

Did not double check my work when done. (Shortcut taken/Time pressure)

Did not investigate when the batteries were not performing as expected. (Overconfidence/ Symptoms not recognized))