My battery melted! need help asap

[ghoster]

well my side mount where i have the 0 gauge for my amp and the wire to power the compressor for the air horns melted off. The metal actually melted. I've never seen such thing.

I was cleaning my truck and had the radio on for about 3hrs w/ the subs all the way down, barely hearing them. Then when i'm about to leave i put the subs up and they are not making any bass. I check my fuse, i didn't pop ( i have the breaker style fuse ) i check my amp, its on. Check my second battery and its fine.
So i start tracing all the wires and ended up at the battery with this site.....


what could it be?

 

[RangerTab]

wow...

 

[aznboi3644]

My guess is high resistance and current = heat....I dunno...never seen that happen

 

[MadExplorer93]

Definately a BAD ground issue somewhere causing a high resistance = heat.

 

[kert0307]

Was there a battery isolator or solenoid in between the batteries, or were they just wired up in parallel? Are the batteries the same make/model?

 

[ghoster]

the second battery is a kenetic battery..its an audio battery that acts like a cap
and they are just parallel

 

[IZwack]

Something similar happened to me, but during winching -- the ground clamp just melted.

I think the problem in my situation was a bad connection (oxidation?) between the negative wire at the clamp and the winch ground -- because remember electrons actually come from the ground (the negative), not the positive (electrons have a negative charge and head towards the positive, not visa versa as almost everyone else will tell you).

 

[aznboi3644]

the second battery is a kenetic battery..its an audio battery that acts like a cap
and they are just parallel

A battery does not act like a capacitor...a cap stores energy. A battery can make energy

 

[kert0307]

A battery does not act like a capacitor...a cap stores energy. A battery can make energy

um... a battery doesn't make energy. Energy is only converted, it is never "made."

A battery is an energy storage device.

The reason I asked about battery type, is that i have heard of batteries of different makes, like gel type vs lead acid doing weird things when wired in parallel, like one will kill the other ect. Nothing this extreme though.

 

[aznboi3644]

what I meant was that unlike a cap a battery doesn't just store energy from another source.

Law of Conservation of Energy...I hate physics lol

 

[Eplorer]

this happens in the golf carts that i work with all the time
its normally just because of intense heat the wires melt all the time

 

[SilverSPL]

if you have 2 different batteries in a car, you want something to break the connection between the 2 when the car is not running such as a relay or isolator.
Just get a second kinetik to match the one in the rear and you will be good to go.

 

[ghoster]

if you have 2 different batteries in a car, you want something to break the connection between the 2 when the car is not running such as a relay or isolator.
Just get a second kinetik to match the one in the rear and you will be good to go.

How would i wire the relay or isolator?
So you mean get another kinetik battery for the engine bay? the one i have now is a the hc800..would that be enough for the "main" battery?

anyway after looking closely at the wiring and the battery i think i came to conclusion of why this happened

The battery i am using is slightly smaller than stock, so the battery holds the battery in place from it moving from side to side BUT doesn't prevent it from sliding forward and backward.
What i'm thinking is that over time the lead terminal got weak, eventually crack. When it cracked the terminal made little contact to the actual battery terminal creating heat which in turn made some of the plastic to metal.

The solder on the pic i realized is from the wire that goes to the air horn compressor (i solder all my connections)

Now what i am still confused is why is my circuit breaker "fuse" still poping. If i put the Bass boost to like mid way, i'll bump for like 1min and then blow the fuse.
I'm thinking i might just buy more 0 gauge wire and run a Negative to the back.

 

[SilverSPL]

you want to hook the o gague wire from the front battery into the relay then out to the second battery. the coil on the relay you would hook up to the ignition wire on your steering colum so when the car is running both batterys are connected and when your just listening to the radio the back battery will only be connected to your amps, so you dont drain the front battery all the way down and can still start your suv.

You want something bigger than the 800. i would get like the 1800 or 2000 or what fits your stereo needs. I always go bigger the better. better to have higher voltage than lower.
I got a 2400 under the hood and 4 2400's in the back.

 

[91exploreron37]

I've had a guy come into work that had the same thing happen on his jeep when winching with an optima battery. The problem is that that side post really isnt a true side post, its a thin strip of lead that runs down from the top post(unlike other batteries where the side post is made into the side of the case) which when it gets hot melts easily. A solution is to connect the accessories to the top post and dont use the fake side post for high current draw accs. aka winch, amps, etc..

 

[yogi_pahl]

^^ is right if u look at the pics you can see that it is just a strip from the top post to the side. Happen to my friend and all he did was wire it to the top and has yet to have the problem. He has sups and a winch.