Community Forums

Longhorn81 · 07-30-2019, 08:21 PM

Three weeks ago we put our new Ventana 4369 in storage after a short but flawless inaugural voyage. We plugged into 20 amp power in our new storage unit never checking to confirm that the plug was live. A week ago we checked on the coach and found the house batteries completely dead along with the electrical plug in our unit. The storage facility manager says we must have tripped the breaker because they never turn the power off.

The coach has now been plugged in to a live plug for a week but the house batteries still don’t show any sign of charging. The AGS red fault light is on and the screen shows a charging dead batteries(?) message. I’m not sure where to start troubleshooting this problem. I’m thinking that I am missing something obvious. Any thoughts on what might be wrong? Thanks. Love this site and love our Newmar.

richard5933 · 07-30-2019, 08:45 PM

Many chargers won't charge a fully dead battery. It's a safety step to keep a faulty battery from being charged.

One method is to connect a charged battery in parallel with the dead one, so that the charger sees the voltage.

Another is to use a manual "dumb" charger to bring the battery up to a level your regular charger will see.

britcon · 07-30-2019, 10:38 PM

Assume you have checked water levels in Batteries ?

Try running generator for a couple of hours - see if it brings them up ?

twinboat · 07-30-2019, 11:09 PM

Start the main engine and run it for half-hour to send some charge into the house batteries thru the isolation system.

That should bring the house batteries up enough to let the house charger take over.

If you can't just run the engine in place, take it for a ride for an hour or so.

GaryKD · 07-31-2019, 05:18 AM

Hi Longhorn81,
Welcome to the Newmar Owners Forum. Consider putting an external charger on the batteries to charge them fully. Then revert back to the coach charging system. If they are not sealed batteries, check the water.

CoreyinWP · 07-31-2019, 05:30 AM

Does the inverter need to be reset to remove any fault codes? Is yours a Magnum inverter? Have you called them?

Luv2go · 07-31-2019, 08:08 AM

Definitely get some charge back into the batteries ASAP. Even though it is new, it's worth checking electrolyte also as britcon and others suggested if your batteries are not sealed.

The engine running method mentioned several times above should work but if it doesn't get an old school charger that does not care if the batteries are dead and use it to get the batteries to the point where the Magnum will start charging them. If you choose to fully charge the batteries with the old school charger be careful, you will boil the electrolyte out of them if you let it run too long.

To prevent this in the future, there should be a setting on the Magnum's control panel that allow you to set the max input current it will use. It's probably at 50A now, set it to 15 or 20A to match the outlet you are using. These inverter-chargers can easily use more than 15-20A when charging deeply discharged lead acid batteries.

757driver · 07-31-2019, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Longhorn81

Three weeks ago we put our new Ventana 4369 in storage after a short but flawless inaugural voyage. We plugged into 20 amp power in our new storage unit never checking to confirm that the plug was live. A week ago we checked on the coach and found the house batteries completely dead along with the electrical plug in our unit. The storage facility manager says we must have tripped the breaker because they never turn the power off.

The coach has now been plugged in to a live plug for a week but the house batteries still don’t show any sign of charging. The AGS red fault light is on and the screen shows a charging dead batteries(?) message. I’m not sure where to start troubleshooting this problem. I’m thinking that I am missing something obvious. Any thoughts on what might be wrong? Thanks. Love this site and love our Newmar.

Dead battery charge is a fault shown on the Magnum remote panel. This fault is a result of deeply discharged house batteries. To clear the fault the house batteries need to see an indicated voltage of 12.6v. Once the remote panel sees this voltage the Magnum charger will take over charging from shore power.

To get the house batteries to an indicated voltage of 12.6v start the engine (if possible) and let the alternator do the work or get an external battery charger and hook it up to the house batteries. Either method should only take a few minutes to get the indicated voltage to read 12.6v or greater.

If you have other things running (such as a fridge) while in storage I would dial back the shore power setting on the Magnum remote panel to 5-10 amps to help prevent tripping the 20A breaker.

"007" · 07-31-2019, 10:59 AM

Welcome to the forum, Longhorn 81
[QUOTE=GaryKD;4889191]Hi Longhorn81,
Welcome to the Newmar Owners Forum. Consider putting an external charger on the batteries to charge them fully. Then revert back to the coach charging system. If they are not sealed batteries, check the water.[/QUOTE]

AS Gary said get a 12v battery charger on the house batteries than maybe your coach batteries, check water level if wet cells.
The coach changing system can than take over if the BCO shut off reads voltage.
You will find the charging systems explained here and that link comes from this large sticky for Newmar owners. Any time coach is plugged in make sure the BCO is turned on - battery cut off switch.

Longhorn81 · 07-31-2019, 09:37 PM

I haven’t checked the batteries - always a good starting point. I will start the motor in hopes that will register enough charge to switch over to the Magnum charger. Info about Magnum settings is very helpful. Thanks again.

Jtrving · 08-01-2019, 07:04 PM

Just had this very problem last week. Per the Newmar customer service rep - NOTHING will charge it quickly except a battery charger rated for 150-200 amps. We tried running the generator, plugging into 50A and nothing. It was completely miserable. Silver leaf shut down and couldn’t even flush the toilet in the coach. Will never make that mistake again.

757driver · 08-02-2019, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jtrving

Just had this very problem last week. Per the Newmar customer service rep - NOTHING will charge it quickly except a battery charger rated for 150-200 amps. We tried running the generator, plugging into 50A and nothing. It was completely miserable. Silver leaf shut down and couldn’t even flush the toilet in the coach. Will never make that mistake again.

If the Magnum inverter panel is showing “dead battery charge” then your right generator or 50A shore power will be useless as the inverter will not charge until the displayed Magnum voltage is above 12.6v. An external charge source is a good way to go but a 150-200 A battery charger is a bit extreme, a 10A battery charger is plenty to get the voltage up to where the Magnum charger can take over.

"007" · 08-02-2019, 01:45 PM

A gree with last two posts use the 12v battery charger make sure water in batteries and BCO is on and operate nothing in coach or your asking for more problems.
May take better than 24 hours if the batteries are still good, if not new ball game for more advise.

Longhorn81 · 08-02-2019, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by "007"

A gree with last two posts use the 12v battery charger make sure water in batteries and BCO is on and operate nothing in coach or your asking for more problems.
May take better than 24 hours if the batteries are still good, if not new ball game for more advise.

Batteries have water so all good there. The BCO switch acts like a single position rocker switch - the red LED stays on regardless of position and there doesn’t seem to be any way to tell if the batteries are off or on. Is this related to having very dead batteries?
I understand the logic of using an external charger. The house battery bank has 8 12V batteries. I’m researching how the charger clips should be attached - can anyone give me any guidance in this area? Thanks.