Battery question ...?

[tvp]

Trying to figure out if my coach battery's are ok
With gen set running they are charging at
14.5 volts ......both there are two
What is the definition of a fully charged 12volt coach battery ? What should the meter on the control panel read ?

How low can the reading go 10 volts


Thanks
Tvp

[60sumtin]

14.5v shows your batteries are being charged properly. (13.7v to 14.7v is normal)

At rest a fully charged battery should read about 12.6 volts. (2.1 volts per cell)

At 10 volts the battery would be considered dead.

[tvp]

Trying to figure out way in the morning
The coach battery's would not start gen set
I did leave the inverter on
As well as the windguard antenna amp.
Frig on propane
?????
Would that have killed the batteries over night ??

Thanks guys
TVP

[hawkeye1995]

With the gen set running, it will show them charging at 14.5. You need to measure the voltage after a full charge and without the generator running. That will give you the true voltage. Are they two 6 volt batteries wired in series or two 12 volts wired in parallel? You could have one battery starting to fail. You need to disconnect the battery cables and measure the voltage of each individual battery after a full charge and after letting them sit overnight without any load. If voltage is good after overnight check, you have something drawing to much current. I would not think the antenna would draw that much current?

[l1v3fr33ord1]

tvp-

Shut off the inverter overnight and see what difference that makes.

How many hours each day do you run the generator to recharge the batteries?

Two explanations:

1) Failed/failing house battery/batteries (won't hold charge)
2) Healthy batteries, not fully charged
2a) Not enough time recharging, and/or
2b) Poor charger performance

If you let a battery go dead, it takes a lot of the life out of it. Similarly, if you do not charge a battery to near full, it takes life out of it. The ideal is to discharge no lower than 75 to 80 percent and recharge to full before discharging again.

Here's a link to a Web page that I've found useful:

The 12volt Side of Life (Part 1)

Part 2 discusses inverters and estimating electric power consumption:

http://www.marxrv.com/12volt/12volta.htm

To really know how your batteries are doing, you need a monitor, such as the Trimetric TM-2030:

TriMetric Model Descriptions - Bogart Engineering

If you have a Magnum inverter, you should consider adding the Magnum BMK:

Battery Monitor Kit | Magnum Dimensions

[Soppy]

Originally Posted by tvp

Trying to figure out way in the morning
The coach battery's would not start gen set
I did leave the inverter on
As well as the windguard antenna amp.
Frig on propane
?????
Would that have killed the batteries over night ??

Thanks guys
TVP

The antenna draws very little power . The inverter by itself would not draw enough to kill the batteries . Was your fridge switched to propane or left in auto. If in auto , the inverter will power the fridge and that will run the batteries down overnight.There may also be other DC & AC loads that may be on.

[Sbrownstein]

If the inverter was merely idling, it will draw an amp or two, the antenna would draw less than that so total draw should have been maybe 3 or 4 amps with other parasitic loads. That is 32 amp hours overnight...nothing for a decent battery which should have at least 100 AH with 50 safely drawn for a 50% discharge. Two batteries would give you double that.

[twinboat]

You need to check the specs of your inverter.

I bought a eBay cheapy inverter that drew 4 amps at idle. 4 amps for 10 hours of non use is 40 AH. About half of one battery capacity.

I replaced it with one that draws 1/2 an amp idling. 10 hours idling is only 5 AH. Big difference.

[Sbrownstein]

If it is the inverter idle current (agree, good ones have low idle) why don't you just turn off the inverter if it isn't powering anything? Most have nice remote on/off switches.

[twinboat]

You say you left the fridge on propane ????

Some inverter installations leave the fridge in the system, leaving you to manually switch it to gas.

If youa is like that and you needed to do that and didn't, the fridge will draw around 40 amps. That will kill the batteries in a few hours.

Once the batteries die, the inverter shuts down and the fridge automaticly switchs to gas, so you may never know it happened.

As you can see, there are far to many variables to troubleshoot what actually happened, without specific information on your MH.

A low amp draw idle is important to folks with residental fridges. They need to leave the inverter on.

[z3406]

Have you ever serviced the batteries? On a 2016 Canyon Star that should have happened a couple of times by now. My suggestion is physically look at the batteries check the water level in them then leave the coach connected to a/c power until the inverter panel says they are fully charged. The manual for the inverter should tell you how to do that. It requires distilled water to service the batteries. I find a turkey baster an easy way to add water to the cells. If the batteries have 3 caps each they are 6 volt, 6 caps equal 12 volt. It you can see the tops of the plates inside the batteries when you take the caps off there is a very good chance they are toast.

[mhbell]

Originally Posted by tvp

Trying to figure out way in the morning
The coach battery's would not start gen set
I did leave the inverter on
As well as the windguard antenna amp.
Frig on propane
?????
Would that have killed the batteries over night ??

Thanks guys
TVP

I don't know about Newmar, But on my coach I left the chassis disconnect switch on and it ran down my AGM starting (Chassis battery). The reason it ran down was because the step was retracted and it was still drawing power from the chassis battery same with a couple of other items that I failed to turn off. You cannot charge a AGM battery with a regular battery charger very easy if it is completely discharged. It took me awhile to figure out what to do.
Mel