Community Forums

rkay · 03-07-2021, 12:53 PM

I hope I am post this in the right forum I have a question about a solar charger. On my Sportsmen170MB, it has a Furion Port for a solar charger. I received a samlexsolar SunCharger Battery Maintainer from the dealer. I got the adaptor that is required to maintain polarity for the charger to the trailer port. I have checked and the + is going to the +, negative is going to negative. After 3-4 days, the battery is drained and reading 2+ volts. The charger is putting out 14 volts going into the plug. The plug is connect to the battery and as the battery and the port are reading the same with the charger disconnected. Everything in the trailer is turned off, and all breakers are off. What is my problem?

JollyCamper · 03-07-2021, 02:10 PM

Do you have the owner's manual and paperwork for your trailer? I am wondering if there is something you. need to connect at the battery to make it work. Also, if your battery is dead like that, you need to figure out that issue. How old is your rig and battery?

Tomahawk · 03-07-2021, 05:27 PM

5 watts is pretty small so it would be overwhelmed by just about any draw. I'd guess you have a bad battery or a pretty good sized power draw you don't know about. You said breakers, but the 120V side of electrical system uses breakers, the 12V side uses fuses (at least it is like that in the trailers I have looked at). This is my guess, the 12V side is still on and draws are enough to swamp the 5 Watt maintainer.

I read in another post that a guy had the breakaway pin pulled on his brakes (small cable attached to your safety chain) and it was killing the battery overnight.

When I setup my Solar controller I placed a circuit breaker between the SA charge controller and the battery that could be toggled off.

Personally, I'd do this, if my guess about the 12V side is wrong:
1. remove the battery from the travel trailer (TT)
2. check the battery for water
3. Completely charge the battery
4. Leave it disconnected from the TT for a few days and monitor the voltage a few times a day. It might drop a little each day but should stay pretty constant. I checked my battery last week like this and it stayed at 12.85V for 3 days.
5. Connect the battery to the TT, with all the breakers/fuses off and without the samlex. Monitor the voltage for a day. If the voltage drops off you have a draw that you don't know about. There are several possibilities that you'd have to eliminate.
6. If the voltage did not drop off, connect the samlex and monitor the voltage. You effectively already did this and it turns out bad. However if the battery is okay and it holds charge in step 5, then the samlex is killing it (and this would confirm that).

sirtate · 03-07-2021, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tomahawk

5 watts is pretty small so it would be overwhelmed by just about any draw. I'd guess you have a bad battery or a pretty good sized power draw you don't know about. You said breakers, but the 120V side of electrical system uses breakers, the 12V side uses fuses (at least it is like that in the trailers I have looked at). This is my guess, the 12V side is still on and draws are enough to swamp the 5 Watt maintainer.

I read in another post that a guy had the breakaway pin pulled on his brakes (small cable attached to your safety chain) and it was killing the battery overnight.

When I setup my Solar controller I placed a circuit breaker between the SA charge controller and the battery that could be toggled off.

Personally, I'd do this, if my guess about the 12V side is wrong:

1. remove the battery from the travel trailer (TT)

2. check the battery for water

3. Completely charge the battery

4. Leave it disconnected from the TT for a few days and monitor the voltage a few times a day. It might drop a little each day but should stay pretty constant. I checked my battery last week like this and it stayed at 12.85V for 3 days.

5. Connect the battery to the TT, with all the breakers/fuses off and without the samlex. Monitor the voltage for a day. If the voltage drops off you have a draw that you don't know about. There are several possibilities that you'd have to eliminate.

6. If the voltage did not drop off, connect the samlex and monitor the voltage. You effectively already did this and it turns out bad. However if the battery is okay and it holds charge in step 5, then the samlex is killing it (and this would confirm that).

All this, and when the battery is disconnected from the trailer (even before it is removed from its tray) measure the voltage at the disconnected battery leads...
They should match the voltage coming from the solar panel... (Give or take a tenth)

If they don't, there's a disconnect somewhere in between...

rkay · 03-08-2021, 09:28 AM

Just FYI to answer the questions, Is it a brand new 2021 KZ 170B, with a new battery. The solar charger is just a battery maintainer when it was stored. We lived in it for a month already when we had some remodeling done in the house. Everything worked perfectly [even at 30F]. It was when we moved it to storage and I hooked up the solar charger is when I started having these problems. I will recheck the fuses, and all the instructions above. I will not hook this charger again. As for measurements. I read +/-12.5 volts coming off the charger, and when I read the Furion plug I get 12.5 volt +/- off the plug. When i come back the next time, the battery is reading 2.5 volts.

runamuck · 03-08-2021, 01:18 PM

I bought a 35W panel for mine and a controller but 35W is not enough to keep battery up unless you can isolate the battery from the trailer because there is a lot of parasitic drain. after a week or so the battery would be dead. I would suggest 50W or even 75W or wire it ahead of the battery cut-off so it doesnt get drained by the sensors and appliance memories inside the trailer.

Mark_K5LXP · 03-08-2021, 02:29 PM

Quote:

I read +/-12.5 volts coming off the charger, and when I read the Furion plug I get 12.5 volt +/- off the plug.

It's implied that you're reading the battery and the panel separately, as in disconnected to measure. This does imply that the battery is connected to the connector, and the panel is putting something out. Monitoring the current from the panel would be a conclusive test to know it's connected and working right.

As others have mentioned, 5W may not be enough to even maintain a good battery, though it would be better than nothing. Consider that a solar panel only has output for about 25% of a day, and during the winter a panel only puts out about half of what it does in summer. So there's not a lot there to start with. Add in any parasitic loads that may be present and there's no way this thing would be able to keep up.

The questions to answer are, is the panel putting any current into the batteries, i.e. correctly connected, and if there are more loads than the panel is putting into it. At a handful of net Ah per day there can't be anything other than the panel connected at all, so that would be the mode you'd be storing it if you have any aspirations of this panel doing any good.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

rkay · 03-12-2021, 04:37 PM

well, after several frustrating days, and many calls to the dealer for advice and my handy VOM.... I found my electrical problem. We've really never had it out on the road, just lived in it locally after delivery. We then towed it into the storage lot. Apparently, moving the trailer into storage I had to drive through a couple of potholes, which was enough to loosen the scotch lock holding the ground wire in the junction box in the front of the trailer. Cleaned and retightened that and everything his working perfectly. Thank you everyone for the suggestions and ideas. I'm glad it wasn't anything more serious. We're so excited to get out on the road with it. We have 9 trips planned already around the northwest starting beginning of April. [helps to be retired as we go midweek].