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Battery Charging

Yahoo Message Number: 110029
Hi All,

I have just relocated my parking area for my 2007 Allure 470 and I now have a power plug in. The power cycles through for 2 hours per night. So here is the question? If I leave my charger on via the coach i believe it keeps shutting down as the battery power goes down on the home bank of batteries. I know there have been lots of discussion on this page regarding using a battery minder.

Would this be a good solution for my parking area? If so what type of battery minder and which terminals of the four lifelines should i hook up the battery minder to?

Thanks for the comments.

David and Paula

07 Allure 470 #31554

Battery %

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110067
Hi - this weekend is our first boondocking at Oneil Park. We ran the generator until 7pm last night and the batteries only read 81%. We only ran the hydro hot during the night. I woke up this am and the batteries were at 29%. Turned on the coffee pot and they now read zero but everything is still working. Turned off the coffee pot and now at 6%.

How reliable are these battery meters?

2005 Intrigue Suite Sensation #11890 Cummins 400 ISL

Re: Battery %

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110068
We are long time boondockers, and found having two good sized solar chargers on the roof ending all the battery woes we had, including leaving the coach in storage for a couple of months. The batteries stay well charged.

Michael
2006 51748

Re: Battery %

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110080
We have two 2QTY 150 watt solar panels with a duo charge controller 20 amp that charges house batteries and engine batteries.

The manufacturer is RENOGY solar systems low voltage solar panels for motor home applications.

10 year warranty on the panels.

These were installed by Mike's RV and Marine in Santa Rosa CA. He did all the work for ten years on our old Beaver (he now owns it) and on our Country Coach. Good folks.

Michael

Inspire 51748

Re: Battery %

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110084
Hi Todd,

I'd guess you probably need new house batteries. But we had an interesting discussion last week at the CCI rally in Tampa with Butch Williams, who's a former CC Electrical Tech and knows these rigs inside and out. His comment on using % of charge as a measure of battery state is that it's like a checkbook. Depends on your assumption of the going-in balance. Whereas battery voltage gives you a read on the ACTUAL state of the battery. He recommended using voltage as your guide. You can switch the readout to show voltage on the inverter panel.
We dry camp for long periods, and find we need to run about 4 hours/day to keep the batteries up. When charging, you are "fully charged" when the meter shows "float charging". At that point you can shut down the genny. When running off the batteries, your voltage should be around 12.6 -7 when "full". As you deplete them it'll drop, and our practice is not to go below 12.0, though note that when running a load off the inverter (making coffee in the morning, for example) it'll show less voltage while under load.
When you start the genny it'll go to "bulk charge" at a high voltage and amp rate. As the bank gets charged, it'll switch to "absorption charge", lower voltage and lower amp rate. Then you'll hit "float charge" and you're done.
If you use that technique, and your bank can't keep up with your loads, then you need to look at new batteries.

Don Hutchins

'08 Allure 470, 40' tag, Cat C-9 w/ Cat tranny
Don Hutchins
'08 Allure 470 #31613
40' w/tag, Cat C-9 & Cat tranny

Re: Battery %

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110086
Thanks Don.

I tried som slightly different yesterday and it seemed took work. Once batteries hit 100% and got to the float stage, I turned off the inverter and went to bed. Woke up 8 hours later and the house batteries were at 85%. Made coffee and it did drop to 75% under load but shot back up to 80% when I turned the inverter back off. I guess its all part of the learning curve. Leaving the inverter off until you need it is the trick. I didn't realize the TVs, DirecTV box, cell phones charging drew so much current.

I was also advised not to let the batteries discharge past 50%. I will also pay closer attention to the 12v rule. That's probably why the solar panels are effective.

I will read up on how to change the panel to read voltage as well.

Thanks again,

Todd.

Re: Battery %

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110088
The inverter draws power even when nothing is powered through it so as you found off except when you specifically need it.

We use DC chargers for cell phones also, less loss since they use 5 volts DC to charge.

We run gen in the morning for an hour while making and eating breakfast and then again for an hour or so in the evening for dinner and some tv time maybe.

This usually gets us by with reserve includingrunning furnace through the night when required.

Re: Battery %

Reply #9 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110110
I'm going to pull the batteries and have them loads tested again. The percentage the Xantrex is reading is all over the place. Once I turned the generator on the percentage read zero and over the next hour only read 50%. When I turned the Genny off to hit the road batteries read 100% again but only at 12v. Batteries when charged should read in the 12.75v range. Very frustrating

2005 Intrigue Suite Sensation #11890 Cummins 400 ISL

Re: Battery %

Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110111
Make sure all connections are clean and tight, at the battery posts and the ground cable connection to the frame.

Ray

They say wine improves with age! As I enter my golden years, I say age improves with wine! The Born Loser

Re: Battery %

Reply #11 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110112
Load testing is fine, but depending on your type of batteries AGM's especially (but really either type, AGM or lead acid) the best way to determine is with a battery discharger. It's much harder to find a shop with one but if you can it will show pretty much exactly the condition of each battery. I have the Lester brand, and what it does is put a 75A constant load on the battery and counts the run time in minutes until it pulls the battery down to 10.5v and shuts off. Of course you fully charge beforehand and then you get the spec sheet on your battery and compare what it should run according to the manufacture versus what it ran.
So let's say the battery should run 100 min on the 75a load, but it only runs for 50 min, the battery is only at 50%. With that reading I would recommend replacement.

I own just about every type of battery tester and this one really shows the truest quality of the battery. I normally use my digital tester first, then carbon pile, then put it on the discharger if it passed the first 2. Typically takes me 2 days to complete testing, fully charge the batteries, run thru testing and then fully recharge if everything passed.

Now if you want to really know where your batteries are in the coach... you need to either add a good battery monitor (a good monitor will always have a shunt inline of the main ground cable from the battery bank) such as a Link 10 or replace your inverter & remote with a Magnum and add a ME-BMK (Battery Monitor Kit). With a battery monitor give true percentage of the bank monitoring everything coming & going, when it reads 100 it is at 100% full when it reads 60 it is at 60%. I personally never want to see below 60% with lead acid or AGM. Customers with this type of set up and with AGM's typically get 5-6 years on average out of the batteries. Of course some get much more and some get much less, all depends on number of cycles and amount of discharge.

Jim Lewis

Infinity Coach

Re: Battery %

Reply #12 –
Yahoo Message Number: 110130
Update.

Back from testing. All tested fine.

When I went back to install, I always connect the positive cables first. Then ground. When I was hooking up the main ground cable, it arced. I called my buddy that has the same coach in the 2004 model, he says it does the same thing. Is that normal?

I traced the spark to the #14 positive cables that goes directly into the Xantrex inverter.

With #14 disconnected, I tested with the volt meter and it was reading 1.5v. Strange.

I also find it odd that it also has a neg 12g wire connected to the house batteries. When this ground is connected it doesn't arc.

Very strange.

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2005 Intrigue Suite Sensation #11890 Cummins 400 ISL