What happened to my battery?

[JSK76]

So I pulled the battery tray out of my Ice Cabin tonight to find the battery like in the pic below. I just bought this fish house used about 3 weeks ago and I know the battery worked when I brought it home because I used the electric jack to lift the tongue off the ball, unless the house was getting battery power from the 7 pin off the truck? When I was looking it over when I was buying it the guy opened the door and I didn't notice anything but it is tucked back away so it was possible but I'm 95% sure it was fine.

The house has an AC to DC converter and it auto charges the battery too. I'm just trying to figure out if the battery got over charged buy the charger not working properly or if it possibly got run down and froze. I've had battery's freeze and they just bulged, never blew apart. The vent caps were off and laying in the bottom of the tray when I found it. I would thought if it just over charged it would have boiled and blew the caps off and boiled out. I have had the house plugged in to 110 since I bought it. Another thought what if it was froze and then me or the previous owner plugged it in to charge? My volt meter is at work right now so I have no idea what's going on at the battery leads.

[Fowlmouth]

I'm guessing the battery froze then when a load was put on the frozen battery it exploded.

[JSK76]

I've been reading up on my brand power converter (World Friendship Co model wf-8955PEC) and I'm thinking it over charged it. The positive battery cable does have a inline breaker like the ones you use on a trolling motor but I'm not sure if that would stop it from over charging or just shorting out. If I find it's the charger can I just unhook the charger part of the converter and install a 6 amp Minnkota boat battery charger I have in its place? I know 6 amps isn't very fast but I use a generator almost non stop. Two seasons ago I didn't even put a battery in the house but it's nice to have lights after you shut the generator off and now with the new house I need power for the furnace.

[Transporter]

That it what can happen to a battery when it freezes. It doesn't look like one that has exploded, a frozen battery has no voltage so you cannot load it. When plugged into the truck, it supplied the voltage needed to operate the jack. When plugged into A/C, the converter took over, you never were relying on the battery for anything so there would never be any indication that it was bad. Depending on the converter, some can overcharge the battery and kill it over time. Not likely in a month though.

[Gus]

I've found that the battery will drain, in my opinion, fairly fast when it's not plugged in. I'd bet the battery froze first, then possibly exploded.

In roughly 2.5 weeks, my battery can go from a full charge to 12.0- 11.9.

My thoughts are that there is just a bit of draw from all of the systems even though I ran nothing during the time. CO detector, Smoke, etc etc.

Or, I just got a bad brand new battery.

2014 Ice Cabin 20SV

[Gus]

Somewhat off topic, but I always try to run my jacks when the truck is hooked up and running. Keeping the load on the truck saves on the house battery life. I also have a connection that I built into the house for my Big Volt auger. I drill all my holes while connected to truck power also.

[acroman]

My guess is that it froze. As stated earlier even a fully charged battery can loose a lot of voltage over a very short time when connected. What I have done is hooked up a solar charger to mine which keeps the batteries fully charged when not in use. (I move the same batteries to my boat in spring) The other thing you can do is make sure the battery is fully charged and disconnect it. Unless the battery is bad it will hold a charge along time.

[mwal]

If you have anything electronic hooked up its draining the battery. You need to have a a system kill switch installed and a battery tender. When I got my 1st Minnkota AP they drew small amounts of power even though it was in stowed position and my battery looked like that in the spring. My arctic cat atv also drained starting battery even though it off and key is out if it has electronic ignition it still draws micro amounts of power for its circuit boards. The newer outboards draw power also so you need to keep onboard charger attached or disconnect battery. YOu have smoke or Co detector drawing? same thing you need a system kill switch when not using.

Mwal

[Wanderer]

Got a radio in the house with a lit display? I pulled the fuse on the house I used so the battery wouldn't drain as fast.

[JSK76]

Just for the fun of it, i put my volt meter on the battery and believe it or not it's still putting out 10.8 volts! I wish I had a way to read amps coming from the charger just to get a better idea of what might of happened. I will probably just have to monitor my new battery when I get one and see If it get hot or anything.

[TrapMan13]

Maybe the wife just didn't want you going fishin so much ? Haha