Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
 


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
 
Old 07-02-2015, 10:19 PM   #1
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 156
House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

I replaced my house battery in March with a deep cycle marine grade and ran the heck out of it the first weekend out. It was 13 degrees so furnace, lights, etc drained it completely several times.

I would turn the van on the recharge and it was making an audible clicking noise like the isolator was alternating between charging the main and house. I was able to charge it up enough to make it through the night.

Flash forward to last weekend, I drove for over 4 hours figuring the alternator would charge the house battery enough for lights and water pump for the weekend. It was dead in an hour.

I went to Advance Auto this evening and he checked it and it said the battery was fine and just needed charging.

Should I simply give it a good overnight charge on the 30 amp or do you think something is wrong with my isolator or alternator (both of which are brand new).

E277 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2015, 10:20 PM   #2
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 156
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

One additional detail... I had Advance check the main battery and it said "needs replacing".

Would the fact that the main battery is bad have caused the alternator to only work on keeping it charged on the trip instead of juicing up the new house battery??
E277 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 12:25 AM   #3
REF
Senior Member
 
REF's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Boulder, CO.
Posts: 2,552
Send a message via MSN to REF
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Yes, that's definitely possible. The separators or isolators are designed to charge whatever is hooked up to position 1, usually the main starter, before it switches over to position 2, usually your house. Sounds like your starting battery is in fact bad and not holding charge, so your separator or isolator doesn't allow the house battery to get charged cause it's always switching back to the starting battery, causing the problem with your low house, sounds like if you replace your start battery and all should work again. I'd plug in and get a charge on the house too.
__________________
'03 Ford E350 7.3L Diesel
(de)SMB'd Custom RB-50
Quigley 4X4 w/Deavers & Agile Offroad's R.I.P. package
CCV High Profile Pop Top
REF is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 05:55 AM   #4
Senior Member
 
LenS's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 1,220
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Couple notes:

Batteries should not be drained more than 50% when using them for longest life. Sounds like you had to completely drain your house battery several times because of the weather. That will prematurely age the house battery.

Also for long life batteries should be kept topped off within a "short" time of discharging. Sounds like your house battery(s) were left deeply discharged for 3 months. That also will prematurely age the battery and take life out of it.

You might consider doubling the Ah capacity of your house battery bank so it will not be more than 50% discharged.
__________________
Len & Joanne

The Green TARDIS
LenS is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 08:04 AM   #5
Senior Member
 
boywonder's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: So Cal
Posts: 4,045
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Quote:
Originally Posted by E277

Should I simply give it a good overnight charge on the 30 amp or do you think something is wrong with my isolator or alternator (both of which are brand new).
Is your 30A charger a smart charger? e.g. does it have bulk, absorption and float charge modes?

If it is a dumb charger, I wouldn't charge for more than say an hour or so at a time. One hour charge would be 30ah back in the battery. It can be easy to cook a good battery with a dumb charger lrft overnight.

Also, do you have a battery isolator or separator?
__________________
2008 E350 RB passenger 4WD SMB penthouse
2013 KTM 350 EXC
2008 KTM 250 XCF-W
2003 Honda Element
boywonder is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 08:45 AM   #6
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 156
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Thank you all for the replies. I have an isolator only I believe and it is opposite of the main battery under the hood. It was fried recently which strained the alternator and took that out with it. The shop replace both and upgraded the wiring all around to larger gauge.

I do not have a "smart" charger; however, why would you have to disconnect from power after an hour. What about when you are near hookups and plug in for the weekend for instance. I simply plug the 30 amp in the side of the van and flip all 4 of the breakers in the van. Is that harming things?

I am going to replace the main battery today and juice the house up tonight and see what happens. I know the shop hooked everything up correctly because firing the engine on the trip when the house died would charge it significantly between drains.

Do you all have a suggestion as to a battery monitor I could hook up to watch the house and/or main while boon docking?
E277 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 09:40 AM   #7
Senior Member
 
Viva's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 879
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

I can't say what exactly is wrong in this instance, but it sounds like overall you are sort of running two types of systems. What I mean is that you are "working" your house bank as if you had a "good" house system; but you are really set up in a more simple way, and with that type of set-up you really only want to use your house batteries very minimally (more like "the old days"). When I say the old days, I mean you would either be plugged in at a campground, or you would be using lanterns and hand pumps.

Not to sound too dramatic, but now it's like you're running long distance without a fuel gauge or an odometer, and you only start with a quarter tank of gas. Something is bound to go wrong!

Not that you are doing so on purpose, but it happens a lot due to modern usage patterns combined with system setups that are basically the same as they were 20+ years ago (in fact, your setup sounds similar to the way my 1997 SMB came, and in that rig I had to either drive, plug in, or use things VERY sparingly on an overnight stop (now a friend owns that rig and we have set it up for boondocking/modern usage, but that's no the way it came or was set up when I bought it).

A "modern" setup does need some money thrown at it, and probably some time --- unless you are lucky enough to have a good electrician nearby. The good thing is that once you've bought the components/wire/etc. it's not hard to learn the basics and do it yourself, so in most cases you don't need to pay for labor.

One thing is that whatever you use, you have to be able to put back. So say you decide you want to be able to use 100 amp hours per day, and you want to draw your batteries down to 50% (on average) for good lifespan, so you get 200 amp hours worth of batteries and put them in. Day one is great, you are perfectly set up. But if there is going to be a day two, three, or four, then you have to have a way to put back the amp hours as well. This typically means solar panels, generator, or plug in (the last two requiring a good smart charger, IMO). On my boat (as it is set up now), I only have the wimpy engine alternator for charging, so that made me limit the battery bank size to 100 amp hours, of which I can use 50 before I have to get underway for a loooong day in order to put the amps back into the battery. So in that case if I had 300 amp hours of battery I'd NEVER get caught back up on a trip (not to mention it is a "dumb charger" and so it's hard to ever get the last 15% of charge in; this is why I'm adding solar).

So, one way to go about it is to figure out your usage (amp hours per day x number of days between charging) and then set up for that. Or, you can figure out what your limiting factor is, and just build a system to that, and know you've done the best you can -- but then you limit usage accordingly.

So, for example, if you can only fit one house battery of 100 amp hours (Group 27, say), then you know you can only use (around, there is no magic line) 50 amp hours, and then you need to be able to put back 50 amp hours, preferably in a "smart" way. If you can fit two batteries, then you can double that, but you also have to double what you put back (but then maybe you can do it at the end of a weekend).

With something like a huge Class A, you can usually fit tons of batteries and/or solar, so you could easily built an overly huge system, but that's not likely possible on an SMB.

So... what is your usage pattern? If you are trying to keep to a budget, and you only go for weekends (and your usage is "reasonable," you could put in a larger house bank and a smart 110 charger, and then just plug in before you leave home and right when you get back (with reasonable usage and enough battery power). If you are out for longer, then you'll likely need some other way to put power back, such as a generator or solar panels (I hate listening to generators, so I'd vote solar panels).

And then the gas gauge, a battery monitor. Normally that's the first thing I recommend, but if your budget is tight, and you can precisely calculate your usage over a short period of time being out (like one weekend), then I might say you could just go ahead and put your immediate money into batteries and a charger. Although a monitor is always nice. For just one "fit and forget, just tell me the SOC," I like the Balmar Smart gauge. For more information (but some input needed, especially as batteries age), then something like a Victron BMV 700S, which is an amp counter type meter. Or if you are a total nerd ( ), both. There is also the school of thought to just put in cheap batteries and replace them when they go bad, which can work in certain situations.

Here is an example of a system we put on my buddy's SMB. Note that we did 300 watts of solar because he lives in a cloudy area, and there was no problem fitting that much (and solar panels are relatively cheap now); but the system would probably have worked fine with 200 watts, especially in a sunny climate. His usage is to want to be able to stay out indefinitely without plugging in, to run the (for now, old inefficient Norcold) refrigerator; to listen to the radio all day; to charge laptop, phone, etc.; and to run lights, most of which are not currently LED. He does not have a smart charger yet (110).

1) Three Renogy aluminum/glass 100 watt panels on PH top, with home-designed aluminum brackets secured to the roof with VHB tape.

2) Cable Clam for bringing #10 wire from solar panels into rig (very short run).

3) #4 wire for run from PH "rim" level to solar controller.

4) Blue Sea on/off switch between panels and controller.

5) Blue Sky Solar Boost 2512iX-HV MPPT charge controller, with optional display that also has battery monitor functions (includes shunt).

6) Two Lifeline Group 31 GPLXT AGM batteries

7) In addition, we used mostly Blue Sea components to upgrade the overall electrical system, which was not properly fused, etc.

I already had a big crimper tool, plus quite a bit of cabling and lugs on hand, so only the #4 cable had to be purchased in the wiring department. That helped. I'd also say that he could have gone with Group 27 batteries to save a bit of money if he'd wanted to (but with only room for two batteries, he decided to get the 31 XT's because they are 125 amp hours each).

If he were to make next steps, they would be as follows:

1) Upgrade tiny wire from engine compartment to house bank (brings alternator power back, has huge voltage drop and hard to fuse as it is so small) (For some reason he stubbornly did not want to do this at the time, but we all have our quirks )

2) Smart 110 charger.

3) Newer refrigerator (Truck Fridge or the like).

4) LED lighting.

Okay, by now you're probably thinking "Whoah, I just wanted to keep from killing my one house battery!"
I did live like that traveling in my SMB for months at a time (one house battery, no real means to recharge except driving (with tiny wire/voltage drop) or plugging in (stupid charger) and with no monitor. I made it work, but I had to live "old style" when parked and not plugged in (flashlights, turn off fridge, use a big sleeping bag vs. the furnace) -- and then I charged things directly from the dashboard when driving (computer, phone). I had to keep a move on.

Now of course my buddy has the system I always wanted on the SMB

I hope some of this is helpful, and if you do want to improve the system somewhat, maybe post your usage pattern (i.e. how many days out in a row, how do you expect to "live," etc.) for more tailored ideas.
Viva is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 10:43 AM   #8
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 156
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Awesome write up!!

That helps a ton as my specialty is focused more around drinking beer in the woods around a fire and not so much the electrical capabilities of the SMB.

When I first purchased the van, I got a new house battery (prob 27 series) deep cycle marine and it would power the furnace with reasonable night time temps and lights and water pump for a weekend out. It wasn't until the whole isolator/alternator and connecting wire meltdown occurred that I starting experiencing major drains.

I thought with larger gauge wires running off the isolator and new house battery, isolator, and alternator, that I would get more time out of the house and not significantly less.

I am going to replace the main today and juice up the house tonight and see if things improve. Thank you for the suggestions on an improved system; however, on a 20 year old van, I'm focused more on general maintenance than upgrading to solar, etc. I would rather go with cheap house batteries and not worry about over draining them and life-span and just replace them when needed. It is about $100.

Thanks again!
E277 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 11:01 AM   #9
Site Team
 
daveb's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Turlock Ca
Posts: 10,407
Garage
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Depending on the make of the house battery it's possible that it will recover. Cheaper brands are less able to come back to life as compared to the high end manufactured types. Try to give it a good charge, like 10 amps for a day, then check the voltage after the charge. It should be above 13 volts. Let the battery sit unhooked for about 4-5 hours and test voltage again. If it reads between 12.7-12.8 chances are it has not been damaged too much. Voltages that drop to 12.2-12.3 indicates a bad battery. You can always purchase a charger that can supply an equalizing charge and that could breath some life into the battery.

FWIW, the whole problem could have been cause by one or the other battery being bad. A shorted cell on a wet cell starting battery will cause it to hog the alternators charge. That could cause the alternator to finally fail in the long run. It seems like standard wet cell maintenance free batteries have a tendency to do this so IMO a good AGM starting battery is the way to go. But even an alternator that just fails, a bad connection somewhere or corrosion at a terminal might be the problem as well as what others have posted.
__________________
2006 Ford 6.0PSD EB-50/E-PH SMB 4X4 Rock Crawler Trailer

Sportsmobile 4X4 Adventures..........On and off road adventures
daveb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2015, 11:10 AM   #10
Senior Member
 
Viva's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 879
Re: House Battery Won't Hold Charge But...

Sorry, duplicate. See next entry.
Viva is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off

» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3
Disclaimer:

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sportsmobile SIP or any of its affiliates. This is an independent, unofficial site.


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:41 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.