What am I doing wrong?

[Ksjayhawker]

Newbie here with a '06 Travel Supreme...Coach has been in storage for the past two weeks. I have flipped all of the breakers off and pulled all of the fuses to save on the battery usage. I have been tinkering with the coach daily, doing various maintenance repairs. Each day, the chassis batteries are dead and I have to charge them via the generator to put the slides out.

The only electrical I can tap into is a 110 outlet. Is there anything else I can do to keep a little charge in the batteries? It seems like they should hold a charge for more than a couple of weeks. Been thinking on putting a battery tender on them.

[Cacique]

How old are there batteries and are they still good?

[hayward3411]

Why not leave your coach plugged into the 110v outlet, use electrical adapters.

I have been doing this for many years without problems, keeps the batteries charged up.

Your batteries should hold a charge for a few weeks if they are good.

[triplewide]

Some questions:

How old are the batteries?
How many batteries?
What kind/size of batteries?

If they are flooded type, have you checked the water levels?

[Cacique]

Originally Posted by triplewide

Some questions:

How old are the batteries?
How many batteries?
What kind/size of batteries?

If they are flooded type, have you checked the water levels?

yes this is what is important not connecting to 110 if the batteries are shot you can leave plugged fo one year and they will not maintain charge

[Sweetbriar]

My first thought is the batteries are shot and are self discharging. If this is the case adding a trickle charger, would be possible with 15 amp 120VAC power available, will only be fixing a symptom and not the base problem. Even with a small load such as a CO or propane detector a healthy battery can go down but will take weeks not a day or two.

Try one last test that only costs time and little effort. Rather than pulling fuses and such just disconnect the ground terminal from the batteries that are the problem and see how long the battery volts stay in the high 12VDC range after being fully charged. They should last weeks if not months before dropping into the lower end of 12VDC.

[msturtz]

There should be a DC battery disconnect switch in your coach. If you can't plug into AC power at the storage location you will need to disconnect the batteries. There are always parasitic DC loads in an RV.

[petrel]

Originally Posted by msturtz

There should be a DC battery disconnect switch in your coach. If you can't plug into AC power at the storage location you will need to disconnect the batteries. There are always parasitic DC loads in an RV.

I agree. If it has been going on for some time, the batteries may be irreparably damaged as previous posts have mentioned.

Parasitic loads are sometimes hard to hunt down. If you can not keep the batteries on charge, disconnect them.

[2 Stroker]

Originally Posted by Ksjayhawker

Newbie here with a '06 Travel Supreme...Coach has been in storage for the past two weeks. I have flipped all of the breakers off and pulled all of the fuses to save on the battery usage. I have been tinkering with the coach daily, doing various maintenance repairs. Each day, the chassis batteries are dead and I have to charge them via the generator to put the slides out.

The only electrical I can tap into is a 110 outlet. Is there anything else I can do to keep a little charge in the batteries? It seems like they should hold a charge for more than a couple of weeks. Been thinking on putting a battery tender on them.

Like hayward said, plug it into the 110 outlet.
From your coach use this.
Power Grip Adapter - 30A Male to 50A Female - Camco 55185 - Electrical Adapters - Camping World
Then you plug this into that adapter.
15 Amp Male to 30 Amp Female Round Adapter - Direcsource Ltd 100892 - Electrical Adapters - Camping World
Then plug into the 110 outlet and hook up the echo charger, that is the only way to charge the chassis battery by way of 110 outlet.
I keep mine plugged in at a 30A outlet but have had to use the 15A. I had my coach at a Cat shop for close to 2 weeks plugged into 110 on a 15A to keep my RR frig going, plus I keep my inverter on 100% of the time so when I'm on the road it keeps my frig going.
I would think you need new batteries by now getting discharged that often because they can't take it.
2 stroker

[Ksjayhawker]

I pulled the caps off today and as you have said, the cells are completely dry. Pisses me off as the guy who did my inspection said all the batteries were in great condition. There goes another $700

[triplewide]

Originally Posted by Ksjayhawker

I pulled the caps off today and as you have said, the cells are completely dry. Pisses me off as the guy who did my inspection said all the batteries were in great condition. There goes another $700

I would fill them with distilled water and charge them again, they may be OK.

I installed these on my flooded type batteries, works great. Makes filling easy:

https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Rite-MP2...atering+system

[The Driver]

Originally Posted by Ksjayhawker

The only electrical I can tap into is a 110 outlet.

On my Magnum Energy controllers in the bathroom, I change their settings when only plugged into a 15 or 20 amp circuit.

Hit the Shore button, then turn Select knob to Shore Max @ 5A, then push the Select knob to choose the setting.

Despite the button being labeled Shore, my belief is that it controls the charge rate from all sources. So when you run the genny, the setting should be changed to 50A.

If your batteries are fully charged by the genny before you plug into a low-power circuit, the 5A rate will easily maintain their charge...and give you more power for other thingd.

Bad luck on the dry cells. If they are to recover, I think it will take a blast from your genny for at least 5 hours. Even so, they've probably been badly damaged. That'll be hard to tell sometimes, because they'll show a good response to a charge...but then won't hold it for very long.

[Ksjayhawker]

Originally Posted by The Driver

On my Magnum Energy controllers in the bathroom, I change their settings when only plugged into a 15 or 20 amp circuit.

Hit the Shore button, then turn Select knob to Shore Max @ 5A, then push the Select knob to choose the setting.

Despite the button being labeled Shore, my belief is that it controls the charge rate from all sources. So when you run the genny, the setting should be changed to 50A.

If your batteries are fully charged by the genny before you plug into a low-power circuit, the 5A rate will easily maintain their charge...and give you more power for other thingd.

Bad luck on the dry cells. If they are to recover, I think it will take a blast from your genny for at least 5 hours. Even so, they've probably been badly damaged. That'll be hard to tell sometimes, because they'll show a good response to a charge...but then won't hold it for very long.

Thanks for the info on the inverter!!! I will give it a shot. Ya, the batteries were toast..two of them were bulging on the sides so I bit the bullet and replaced them with new Trojan batteries.

[justaroamer]

Driver is correct, always be sure the Magnum (s) is set to correct line in voltage to coincide with the type of supply you are connected to. Otherwise, you could only be powering one leg of the main buss and not powering all circuits.