Battery capacity is borderline

rjxj wrote:
Westend
I'm parked in the shade because it's the best place overall and we have shore power. Being in the shade helped a lot when we we first got here and it was still hot outside. 1.250 is the bottom of the green zone on my cheapo hydrometer and I haven't checked them in some time. My solar is set for 14.7 max charge so sg is usually probably pretty good as it has performed as expected. I'm not trying to maintain them on solar, yesterday I started out fully charged after being on the converter and was just curious if the solar system could maintain, not charge or run big loads, just cruise along for the day. There are a couple hours or so when the sun catches two of the panels and it does 15 amps or so.

At sundown it was still at 99 or 98% but fell on it's face when we pushed it. Tonight will tell more.

This frig pulls about 6.5 amps. Each time it is unplugged and plugged in it automatically does a defrost cycle where it seems to hit 2o some amps. I'm not familiar enough with it yet to know how often it does a defrost. When the inverter, house, led television, furnace and frig are all on they pull about 20 amps.

It may have just needed an equalize and all the cells didn't come out perfect but I'll run it on battery only tonight and see how the ah vs volts hold up.

Gotcha' on the parking location and solar use.

I have a feeling that whatever is telling you that the batteries are at 99% full is lying. Could your Trimetric not be set correctly?

Other owners of residential fridges with a defrost heat strip have put a switch in line with the strip to turn it off when boondocking.

Still, with the loads you have overnight, a somewhat discharged bank of 4 good batteries should handle that load until morning.

I'd suggest you charge the bank and then give it a really good equalization. If SG does not return to at least .1275 in all cells, you most likely have a battery issue (sulphation).