Hey every body! I have a problem with my charger or battery, Im not sure which. I started noticing a foul smell that was coming from a compartment where my 2 bank charger and battteries are, I felt the charger and noticed it was hot, so I thought the charger may be bad, then I checked the TM batterries, one was good but the other had no water inside of it and the wires connected to it looked to be burnt black, the battery also seemed to be where the foul smell was coming from, The battery surprisingly still has a full charge. I can't decide if the problem is the charger or the battery, I know its normal for the charger to get warm, but it seemed hotter then normal. thge batteries aren't that old so Im guessing its the charger thats bad, or maybe its both? Does anyone have a theory as to what the problem may be?? Thanks!!!!

If the battery wasn't bad, it probably is now. Two things could have happened, the charger could have just flat failed to shut down when battery reached full charge or battery may have never reached full charge and the charger kept cranking into, over heating battery and boiling the water out.

If I had to make a blind guess, I would say the battery was the whole problem. I've seen a number of batteries fail and do this

The only time I've seen chargers do this is when you standard old Automatick cut off chargers were left on an extended time after the battery reached full charge. Most of those chargers still trickle some charge that over charges the battery, causing it to over heat to the point it makes the charge come back on and cooks the carp out of the battery.

Your cables being burned like you described could also have caused your problem. One or both of the connections were bad/dirty, causing a resistance, which causes a voltage drop so the charger never sees the batteries full charge. The resistance causes the connection to over heat. I've seen the studs melted out to the battery and the insulation melted off the leads because of a simple loose/dirty cable connection.

By the way, your battery may appear to be at full charge, but don't plan on getting much run time out of it.

Thanks for the reply!! The charger may have kept charging, the red light went out and the green light stayed on (indicating it was finished charging) but the charger was still hot, I thought it seemed odd that the charger was still hot when it shouldn't even be on.  I may just buy a new battery and charger. it would cost more but it would hopefully solve the problem...it sucks because I had a spare battery and I gave it away to someone a couple weeks ago because I didn't think I would ever need it