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l1v3fr33ord1 · 01-01-2018, 07:08 AM

Browsing through iRV2 threads tells me that a 2008 Ventana came with a working house-to-chassis battery charging system, using either a BIRD or a BIM, per the link in "007's" post #7.

"TeJay's" tests will tell wat's busted in the existing system, and "007's" link will help in that, too.

BobrUSMC · 01-01-2018, 11:04 AM

Thanks to all for the good info. To continue the story, this morning I found that the battery charger had turned itself off. According to the book that's not a good sign. Decided to pull one of the chassis batteries out and bring it home to charge it with my old reliable battery charger. Switched it to six amps and it pegged. Monitored the battery heat and had no problem until about an hour in when even this charger turned itself off. OK, lets switch to 2 amps and see what happens... been working now for several hours with no apparent problems. Realize this will take a day or more to charge, but really want to determine if I'm able to salvage these batteries. If not its over to Walmart and see if I can talk them into covering them under warranty since they are only a few months old. Lots of people have mentioned having shore power connected and when the cold weather was forecast I bought a 100 ft extension cord which didn't quite reach, that's when I found out about the dead batteries. Would have done this much sooner but I was in the process of selling my boat and I had a lot of interest and lots of showing and on-the-water demos etc. Fried my two trolling motor batteries on the boat due to a guest not turning of the trolling motor completely. Due to leave for FL the end of this month so money will replace patience pretty soon. Just checked the battery and it reads 11.9v, interesting.
Keep Smiling

BobrUSMC · 01-02-2018, 12:36 PM

Got the two chassis batteries charged to 12.1v which after an hour of sitting dropped to 11.9v. Soooo off to Walmart this AM. Put their capacity tester on it and it said 748 Amps available. I said the battery manufacturer sez that 11.9v is 50 percent discharged and that the batteries would not fully charge. So they then said they would put it on their 'monster' charger to determine whether it could be charged. The slip they gave me said it is mandatory to go through this step before they would honor the warranty. The slip also said it could take as much as an hour to fully charge the battery. I went back three hours later and they said it was still charging. I told them I'd give them a couple of more hours but no more. To be continued...

TeJay · 01-02-2018, 01:25 PM

BobrUSMC,

There's some issues I have with Wally World. If a battery is not accepting a charge using a "Monster" (I'm assuming they mean higher AMPS) charger is the exact opposite of what most shops will do.

The charging process is at the molecular level and to work correctly it should be done slowly over a long period of time. A battery that is willing to accept a charge should do so in a timely fashion. It should be done somewhat quickly (1 to 2 hours tops) depending on how low it was when the charging was started.

If I'm trying to revive a dead battery I'll put in on a 2-4 AMP charger for 3 to 4 days. During that time of slow charging the sulfate that does build up on the plates will come off or go back into solution.

The molecular process uses current to breakdown the discharged molecules of material on the neg and pos plates and then they recombine to make H2SO4 or sulfuric acid.

Fast charging any battery with high current may boil the electrolyte (36% acid and 64% water) and warp and ruin the plates. It will do your battery no good.

Secondly here's what we did to determine if a cranking battery would do its job. We would load the battery down with a high current draw. The exact current draw slips my mind but I think it was 1/2 of the CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) for 15 seconds. At the end of the 15 seconds of high draw the voltage HAD to stay above 10.9 volts.

As far as I know there is no other way of determining a battery's ability to deliver sufficient current under difficult cranking conditions for a sufficient time to get an engine started. Telling me that there's 748 AMPS available tells me nothing. Can it deliver the needed current (150-200 amps) by having the sufficient voltage to push it through the system???

SUN Company made a lot of testing equipment for the automotive industry. Their VAT-40 was great and there are others out there that do the same thing. It's called a battery load test.

You can do the same thing with a DVOM (Digital Volt Ohm Meter). Disable the engine so it either won't get spark or fuel. We don't want it to start but we want it to CRANK. Put the DVOM across the battery. Then crank the engine for 15 seconds while you are watching the battery voltage with the DVOM. If it's still 10.9 volts after 15 seconds then the battery is good.

BobrUSMC · 01-02-2018, 02:42 PM

You are correct about resurrecting a battery, which is what I mentioned in a previous post. Try the high amps first and if that doesn't work (as evidenced by a decreasing draw on the charger) then go to the slow charge over a longer period. In my case that 'seemed' to work but the ambient voltage never made it over twelve volts. We all knew their solution was going to fail. They agreed and I have two new warranty batteries sitting in the garage now. I'm in no rush to go out into the twenty degree weather and put them in. I'll postpone that suffering for tomorrow. Need a positive way to completely disconnect the batteries.

TeJay · 01-02-2018, 02:56 PM

Bob,

Glad it worked out for you. I realize places like Wally World have to be careful but still we are buying a product and when it fails prematurely they should warranty it.

Wow! 20# in NC. It might have gotten to 24 here today but was 14 this morning which was 7 degrees warmer the the day before. I grew up in PA, IN MI and the DW is from ME but we are still tired of the cold. We can't help where we were born but can later in life.

Thanks for your 25 years of service. You probably have some tales to tell. If you can!!!
My Brother served 20 and our Son is a Lt. Col in the AF with 22 years. He's planning to make 06 if all goes well.

Noticed that you tow a 2016 Ford Fusion. We had a 2012 but it could not be towed.

BobrUSMC · 01-02-2018, 05:14 PM

Tejay,
Twenty was the high, it was ten this A.M. Tomorrow four inches of snow is forecast. I was born in Milwaukee and delivered morning papers whatever the weather. I hate the cold as does my bride even tho she is from Ohio. Only good thing is I don't have to round up the dogs when I take them out in the early morning, they beat me in. Florida here we come!
Hope your son is selected for Col. It's always hard getting further away from the pointy end of the spear, but at least you get to run things the right way.
Keep Smiling,
Bob

Tony Lee · 01-02-2018, 11:57 PM

Quote:

and when it fails prematurely they should warranty it.

From the story told, the batteries failed due to neglect rather than a warrantable manufacturing defect so the best thing to do is to be thankful Walmart does have a customer is always right even when he is wrong policy, and take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

BobrUSMC · 01-04-2018, 07:20 AM

Tony,
Neglect is a pretty strong word and I take great umbrage to it. I take great pride in maintaining everything I own. I spent fourteen years in aviation fixing airplanes. Never lost an airplane due to lack of maintenance. Many times lauded for having the most outstanding maintenance program in Naval Aviation. On my own I developed statistical predictive methods for calculating Mean Time Between Failure that greatly increased readiness by finding problems that recurred more frequently then the mean. Those are my 'creds'. I completely rewired my boat to aviation standards including replacing the fuel system (tank, hoses, electrical) completely. I sold it for more than I had in it because of the quality and reliability I added to it. In my old coach 2002 Newmar putting the batteries into store isolated the house batteries. Also never had a problem with the chassis battery despite not running the MH more than once a month during the non-use periods. I expected that same situation from my present motor home. These were all brand new batteries installed in June. Since that period I have run the MH at least once a month and brought it home to spend a day or two on shore power. Never noticed any problems. Unfortunately my MH location at the storage yard precluded using constant shore power until lately when an outlet came free within 120ft of the MH. You infer that I should have 'predicted' the battery failure and having that knowledge taken steps to prevent it. Impossible! When I went to Walmart I didn't BS them, I simply stated the conditions. I did not expect them to replace them and if they If they had said I was out of warranty due to having the batteries run completely flat I would have understood. According to the manager the majority of batteries brought in are in fact able to be redeemed. She was surprised these weren't. There is more going on in this MH than just parasitic drains and now that I can concentrate on it I'll find it and fix it or modify it so it won't happen again. My Marine side tends to go 'red' when I'm offended and now I have to get to the gym to work off the pounding in my temples.

'Life is what happens while you're making other plans',
Bob

BobrUSMC · 01-08-2018, 02:39 PM

The weather here finally got to a balmy fifty-two degrees so I took the new batteries to the motor home to install them. First installed the chassis batteries and started the MH, no problem. Then went to install the new house battery. I always test connections to ensure I'm not connecting to a shorted circuit. Drew a spark so did not connect the house batteries. Then tried to connect shore power to the MH and that blew plug circuit breaker at the outlet. Unfortunately I did not bring my multi-meter with me. Won't be able to work on the MH since I need some body work done and it goes into the shop tomorrow. Something is drastically wrong and I think the first thing I'll do is turn off all the circuit breakers and pull the fuses to isolate things and work backwards from there. Maybe they will let me work on it while it's in the shop.
Keep Smiling,
Bob

BobrUSMC · 01-10-2018, 03:18 PM

Rats, wrote a long dissertation on what I found today and the site consigned it to bit-heaven.
A synopsis: I went to the repair shop and trouble shot the problems I outlined in my previous post. First the input connector (not connected) to the house batteries is +2.5v with no shore power. Where did that come from? Second, the problem with connecting shore power is no problem at the repair shop, probably a GFCI problem at the storage yard. With shore power connected the input line for the house batteries is +15.7v, not good. Measured voltage across the chassis batteries. +12.2v. According to the Intellitec info for the BIRD "... the unit senses the voltage on the coach batteries. When this voltage goes above +13.1v for approximately 2.5 minutes, as happens when the converter isn't heavily loaded, it will close the isolator relay providing charging current to the chassis battery". In my mind this means I should see the same +15.7v I measured at the coach side. Possibilities are that the converter is bad (voltage too high) and that the BIRD is also bad, leaking the +2.5v between the coach and house battery banks. Does anyone disagree with this diagnosis?
Keep Smiling,
Bob

Dave78Chief · 01-10-2018, 05:41 PM

You might want to contact Intellitec to determine what would happen if high voltage (e.g. 15.7VDC is seen by it. Could there be a high voltage protection circuit in the BIRD that would not allow the relay to energize?

Does the Battery Isolator Relay energize when the AUX Start button is depressed. You should see the 15.7VDC on the chassis side when the AUX Start button is depressed irregardless of the BIRD condition.

twinboat · 01-10-2018, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobrUSMC

The weather here finally got to a balmy fifty-two degrees so I took the new batteries to the motor home to install them. First installed the chassis batteries and started the MH, no problem. Then went to install the new house battery. I always test connections to ensure I'm not connecting to a shorted circuit. Drew a spark so did not connect the house batteries. Then tried to connect shore power to the MH and that blew plug circuit breaker at the outlet. Unfortunately I did not bring my multi-meter with me. Won't be able to work on the MH since I need some body work done and it goes into the shop tomorrow. Something is drastically wrong and I think the first thing I'll do is turn off all the circuit breakers and pull the fuses to isolate things and work backwards from there. Maybe they will let me work on it while it's in the shop.
Keep Smiling,
Bob

The spark was from the inverter/charger. They all spark when connecting batteries.

If you have the inverter/charger on shore power, without the batteries connected, the output voltage will be all over the place. It needs the battery in the circuit. They are chargers not power supply like converters. It will also effect the BIRD operation.

The outlet button is not an overload circuit breaker. Its a GFCI ( Ground Fault Circuit Interrupt and checks for faults in the wiring that could kill you.

If it worked before this episode, try it with the batteries connected.

nothermark · 01-10-2018, 07:22 PM

Neglect is probably the wrong word as it connotation is that you did something wrong. If the battery problem is the result of a charging system failure it is still the same thing but we do not have a word for it. In essence the batteries died because the charging system failed to maintain them. If Walmart warranties them they are giving you a break.