Question about battery charging maintenance

[tradewinds1]

Hi, just joined the club, need to know how & where you ask members about thing on our RV?

[tradewinds1]

I have a National Tradewinds 38 ft. diesel rv. I bought a sears battery maintenance battery charger to keep bateries charged during storage. I have four six volt house batteries to mantain, how do I hook up the charger to maintain all four batteries, or do I need more than one charger? Thank you for all your help.

[wa8yxm]

Where do you ask: Wherever you are posting is just fine.

Battery maintenance: Many modern RV's have 3-stage "Smart Chargers" these do an excellent job of charge maintenance on the batteries. Truly it's hard to do better from the electrical side.. Physically if your batteries are flooded wet cells like the common Interstate U-2200 or Trojan T-105, you need to clean them well, rinse well (Tap water) remove the caps and add DISTILLED water from time to time, Proper levle to add to is just below the bottom of the "Split Ring" (Filler tube) I like to go 1/8 to 1/4 inch below the tube. If you have SLA or VRLA (Sealed or Valve Regulated Lead Acid) which describes Maintenance Free, and AGM (Including Optima) then only occasional cleaning of the terminals is needed.. NOTE: I DO NOT recommend Optima for RV use, as they have less capacity as the same size AGM, Maintenace free or flooded wet cells (Which all have about the same capacity).


Some older RV's may have a Magnatek 6300 or Parallex 7300 (Without the "T" suffex) these are both single stage chargers in which case you should consider a converter upgrade. But a Battery minder (TM) or battery Tender (TM) can be used during storage.


IN any case there is something you need to do NOW!!!!

Get two cans of spray paint, The Testor's brand which you cn get in toy or hobby shops.. Or two bottles of fingernail polish One black, one red.

Find your batteries, both house and if a motor home Engine.

Paint the wires hooked to the POSITIVE end of the battery or batteries RED

Black on the NEGATIVE wires, No matter what color the wires are now paint them RED on the Positive lead,, If you spill or overspray onto the battery itself NOT a problem. (Good thing in fact)

When you remove the batteries for any reason, and go to replce them.

Remember me and my advice and think "Gee, this is easy.. Red to Red"

[GreatWhite]

Great reply above.

Welcome to iRV2

There are a "ton" of forums here and I think they are well titled. Should be easy to find a proper place to ask questions that are specific to your issues. Sometimes a multitude of different questions are asked under forums specific to the make of RV.. others are asked in the type of RV.. towables, motorhomes, pop-up's etc. Others are more specific to electrical, plumbing, etc.

Have fun here.....