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Old 01-27-2016, 10:51 AM   #1
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Battery Issues, Please help!

Hi,

We Are In Quartzite Boondocking At Roadrunner And We Are Having Battery Issues.

We Have A 2006 Winnebago Sightseer On A Ford Engine.

First On Our Way Down To Q We Ended Up buying Brand New batteries Due To The Ones We Had Being Dead.

Since Being Here In Q At Night We Have Woken To The Batteries Not Working And Being Totally Drained And Unable To Start The Generator. Last Night After Running The Gen For An Hour Then Shutting It down The Inverter Was Showing Low Battery And Started Kicking The TV Off And on. The Battery Level On The Panel Showed Batteries Full.

We Are At A Loss And Can't Seen To Figure This One Out. We Will Be In Q Till Sunday.

Any Help Trying To figure Out What Could Be Draining Brand New Batteries Would Be Wonderful.

Thank You,
BobAndshaz
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Old 01-27-2016, 11:08 AM   #2
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First of all the battery monitor in the coach is not very accurate. In my motorhome I have installed a Tri-Metric battery monitor, and even with the Tri-Metric showing 12.1 volts, the on board battery monitor still shows the batteries are fully charged. Also, running your generator for an hour wont charge the batteries very much. If you have the stock converter/charger, it will take 3 or 4 hours of generator time to even come close to fully charging your batteries. Then there are the issues of what the capabilities your batteries have, and your electric usage.

What batteries do you have, and generally what all do you run off the inverter at night?
Hope this helps.
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Old 01-27-2016, 11:53 AM   #3
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We Have 2 New Only 1 Week Old Duralast Marine RV Deep Cycle Batteries. The Only Thing That Runs Would Be The TV For The Evening News And A Few Shows And Is Turned Off At 11 The Latest But The Inverter Would Still Be On.

We Have Cut The Gen Running Time Down But From What You Say It Seems It Needs To Run Longer Then An Hour In The Afternoon And At night

DH Is Going Through Every Possible Thing He Can Think Of. I'm Giving Him All Info Given.

TY
Shaz
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Old 01-27-2016, 11:58 AM   #4
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Marine Batteries are not the best choice for a RV. It could be other issues such as the batteries not being charged by the charging system. Or there is some additional load drawing on the batteries. And yes one hour is not enough to charge the batteries to full capacity.
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Old 01-27-2016, 12:06 PM   #5
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I would start by checking battery voltage with a voltmeter both with and without the generator and the engine running to see if it's even charging from either source.
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Old 01-27-2016, 12:15 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by WD5DBV ROY View Post
Marine Batteries are not the best choice for a RV. It could be other issues such as the batteries not being charged by the charging system. Or there is some additional load drawing on the batteries. And yes one hour is not enough to charge the batteries to full capacity.
I would say that your problem is a combination of several factors. Marine batteries are not the best choice for boondocking. Your onboard charger/converter doesnt do a good job of charging your batteries. You are not running your generator near enough to fully charge your batteries.

Do you shut your inverter and any other items that use electricity off at night? That would help.

Have you got the generator started yet? If not there should be a switch on the dash that you can push to temporarily connect your starting battery with your coach batteries to start the generator. This switch has to be held in when trying to start the generator.

You are almost neighbors as we are up the road at Tyson Wash LTVA.
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Old 01-27-2016, 12:26 PM   #7
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Are you running the furnace at night. The the furnace blower requires a lot of amperage from the batteries. I also agree, if your only source of charge is running generator for 1 hour daily is not enough time for fully charging the batteries.
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Old 01-27-2016, 12:36 PM   #8
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We were neighbors just left Roadrunner 14 day area on Monday. As stated above running the generator 1 hour is not enough to recharge your batteries, especially if run down. Try running the generator for at least 3 or 4 hours to get the batteries fully recharged. Then when not needed shut the inverter off since they tend to draw current even when you think nothing is running. Good luck hopefully this will resolve your battery issues, if not you need to have batteries tested and test your charging system.
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Old 01-27-2016, 01:12 PM   #9
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To Answer The Question DO We Have the Gen Running, The Answer Is Yes. DH Went And Checked The Gen And Fiddled With Something And The voltage Jumped On The Meter From 12.1 To 13.3. He Did Say Possibly A Ground Wire Issue???

So The Gen Is Going Till We Leave For Town And Will Go Back On When We Get Back.

What Has Been Frustrating Is That Each Issue Has Been Different. Also, yes To The Inverter Is On All Night Cuz I Set The Timer To Turn The TV Off Cuz I Fall Asleep And Yes The Heater Is Set To Kick On At Night. Guess We'll Lower The Setting Or Just Keep IT Off. Last Year We Didn't Use The Heat Because It Was So Much Warmer Here.

I Will Show Him All Posts To Continue To Help Figure This Out Since it Has Been So Intermittent And Sudden..

DH Also Thinks The Grandson Screwed Something UP Cuz When In TX He Was Flipping A Switch A Bunch.He's 2 And No One Noticed The Baby Playing With The Button For A While. The Switch Is The Aux Battery Switch By The Door And Batteries. The Problems Started After That Trip.

Thank You All
Shaz
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Old 01-27-2016, 01:28 PM   #10
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Flipping the switch may have just allowed the battery to run down. I would not worry about that.

I can't remember on my 2005 sightseer but does yours have two for the coach and one for the engine.

If one battery you are running with a small box of marbles. That is, not a lot of marbles/electrons in the bucket so it is easy to use them up with a heater and inverter. Unfortunately you can only take about half of the marbles out before things like inverters complain.

Filling that bucket back up with marbles by running the generator for an hour is indeed too little. The device that fills up the bucket is sharing the fill hose with the battery and supplying power to your heater, lights, and inverter. So the charger is even slower when you are using lots of things.

At a minimum for one battery an hour in the morning and one in the evening is marginal. If you are running the heater during the day you will need a mid day charge or two hours in the morning and two in the evening.

With your setup your engine battery may not get charged when on shoreline or generator. A quick test with a voltmeter on each battery will prove that. I had to add a device to mine to accomplish that.
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Old 01-27-2016, 01:46 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by bobandshaz View Post
Also, yes To The Inverter Is On All Night Cuz I Set The Timer To Turn The TV Off Cuz I Fall Asleep And Yes The Heater Is Set To Kick On At Night. Guess We'll Lower The Setting Or Just Keep IT Off.

Thank You All
Shaz
This is going to be a major contributor to your battery problems, especially if they are not charged to the maximum and if they are not truly deep cycle batteries. Like all mentioned above, 1 hour on a discharged battery is not going to bring it to a full charge. If you do this type of camping I recommend looking into some good solar panels so you don't have to depend on a generator.
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Old 01-27-2016, 01:56 PM   #12
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Thumbs up

s sharing the fill hose with the battery and supplying power to your heater, lights, and inverter. So the charger is even slower when you are using lots of things.

At a minimum for one battery an hour in the morning and one in the evening is marginal. If you are running the heater during the day you will need a mid day charge or two hours in the morning and two in the evening.

With your setup your engine battery may not get charged when on shoreline or generator. A quick test with a voltmeter on each battery will prove that. I had to add a device to mine to accomplish that.[/QUOTE]



Yes we have 3 batteries 2 for the house seems we have not been charging them long enough. Also leaving on the Inverter all night!! We are going to try these couple of things and see what happens.. The M/H battery has been fine. No problems getting things started would rather do it after coffee...THANKS FOR THE HELP
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Old 01-27-2016, 02:23 PM   #13
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Solar is on our list for sure!

S
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Old 01-27-2016, 03:34 PM   #14
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Now that you are back in the comfortable mode check out a Trik-l-start. The reason is if you park the rv for a rather short time the engine battery can discharge.

If you add solar, and I cannot recommend it enough, you may not be charging your engine battery. The device will prove effective when on shoreline or generator as well.

It is a very simple device to keep all of your batteries happy.

Before adding the trik-l-start do a voltage measurement on both battery banks with shoreline or generator running. IF both banks are the same voltage, then forget about the above. If you find the engine battery is lower then you could benefit by the addition.
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