Star Cool drains house battery while driving

[ralph62]

Originally Posted by Scalf77

I hope it works out and that was it. For clarification do you know what made it a "Bad" wire.

Greg

They said that the alternator started charging but then shut off. They replaced the wire and it seem like everything is working now but It still does not charge enough.

[jage]

This is probably irrelevant but recently I drove around with the Van Radio button on and somehow that kept the separator from closing and instead of charging the house side, I drove around all day draining it with the radio and fridge... I do have a different type of separator, but it was obvious something was going on from the voltage readings (and low battery alarms!)

[LenS]

Does anyone know the BTU/HR rating of their Starcool system or better yet the current draw??

[Scalf77]

Current Draw for StarCool is 20Amp or 24Amps on High for the 12 volt blower fan and condenser fan. I believe it takes about 35Amps to run the ignition and fuel system, the head lights, air conditioning, etc can take an additional 50Amps.

I am having a similar issue that I am looking into now. On my last trip I was certainly going negative during the day driving. At the moment I am looking a the separator and/or connections being the culprit. Since I have a Xantrex Battery Monitor I can watch the current going/to from the battery. What I have noticed was a drop in the charge the longer I ran. I do not believe it was the alternator, I could turn off headlights, front air, etc and it had no impact to what the current that was going to the house battery.

As a test I monitored the current from start and it went from the 27 amps at idle to about 5 amps in about 10 min. This was with nothing on except the sensors in the back.

I removed the separator from the equation, hard wired the batteries together and ran the same test started at 27amps and 10min latter about 25amps. I have cleaned the contacts on the Surepower separator and need to reinstall tomorrow (if I find the time). I believe the badgers had reported a similar incident in a different post.

In even a good case you can see that when you have a heavy load being used by the van that you won't have much left to charge the van. I will post additional results when I find them

-greg

[John Kalmbach]

Make sure that the Starcool thermostat is "off" if you're not connected to 110volt power. It is possible for the Inverter to try and operate the Starcool while driving, thereby quickly discharging your house battery if not switched "off". The Starcool thermostat controls the 110volt compressor, solenoid valve, and 12volt fan behind the front grill, it does not need to be set to "cool" unless you have the engine "off".

The ratings, amp draw should be in your SMB manual, but here are the "nominal" numbers as I remember them for the Starcool III

The BTU/HR ratings are 12,000 on 110volt mode, and 18,000 on 12volt mode (engine compressor).

The DC amp draw is about 21 amps on 12volt mode. (While the fans/blower use about 28 amps DC while operated on 110volt mode, the converter/charger or inverter/charger should provide the 12volt power.)

The 110volt compressor uses about 13.8 amps (10.8 amps if you have a capacitor box included with the generator option), add about 3 amps to operate the fans/blower, for a total of about 16.8 amps at 110volts.

John K.

[Scalf77]

I believe the root cause of my similar issues with the battery not getting charged while driving were caused by the Surepower Seperator. I have replaced it with a new one and all is well again in the charging area. My Separator was about 5 years old, I did have start assist wire incorrectly wired to the "run" circuit for the first couple of years. I do consistently plug my van in when parked at home. I suspect that a contact resistance built up over time limiting the current capacity that would go across the separator.


greg

[Ford_6L_E350]

Originally Posted by Scalf77

I believe the root cause of my similar issues with the battery not getting charged while driving were caused by the Surepower Seperator. I have replaced it with a new one and all is well again in the charging area. My Separator was about 5 years old, I did have start assist wire incorrectly wired to the "run" circuit for the first couple of years. I do consistently plug my van in when parked at home. I suspect that a contact resistance built up over time limiting the current capacity that would go across the separator.
greg

I had a similar problem with my separator once. It wasn't contact resistance, it was resistance at the terminal. The cable was bolted on securely, but electrically it was open. I had to remove the cables, clean them with a wire brush, coat them with grease and reinstall them. 4 years later, no more problems.

Similar problems can occur at the battery terminals.

Mike

[ralph62]

I replaced the Van batteries with 2 platinum Die Hards and everything is charging better.
The charging panel lights move right up to the top after the engines been on for 30sec or so.