Battery Charging

Don't know what part of Texas you are in. Have they been in freezing weather. When batteries die and they get a lot of freezing weather they are usually ruined. I farmed for many years, and we use to go through the barn about once a month and put a charge on the batteries. We get a lot of freezing weather here in the Panhandle, so I go to trailer about once a month and start generator and leave it run for a couple of hours. Keeps batteries up. Course putting them in a warm garage is the best.

Hi,

If the batteries were left in place fully charged but disconnected they will not freeze.

Solar could be added, too.

fuzzdr wrote:
My Cruiser fiver came without any sort of battery switch. I plan to install a standard marine 2 place switch. I have happily used one of these in my boat since 1991. Over the winter months I remove the batteries and store them inside the heated house. Then check the electrolyte level and voltage every couple of months and top up and/or charge as required. My property is all hills and ravines which prevents my rv from any access to a 120 vac source. That means using a generator or removing the batteries and moving them to a power source.

My Cruiser fiver came without any sort of battery switch. I plan to install a standard marine 2 place switch. I have happily used one of these in my boat since 1991. Over the winter months I remove the batteries and store them inside the heated house. Then check the electrolyte level and voltage every couple of months and top up and/or charge as required. My property is all hills and ravines which prevents my rv from any access to a 120 vac source. That means using a generator or removing the batteries and moving them to a power source.

Yes, just plug in and turn the battery switch on.

Batteries REALLY dislike being run down below 10 volts. Best to keep close to 12.6 to 13.5 volts.

If your charger requires sensing 12 volts to start charging, then either use jumper cables from your car/truck, or back the truck to the trailer, plug in the 7 pin light harness. This will give a limited amount of 12 volt power to the battery, and allow the charger to start charging, even if it needed the 12 volts to start charging.

You should be able to know by now. If you go out to the trailer 4 hours after it was plugged in, and the lights now work, you are OK, no need to do anything else. The charge should be reading full by now (12 hours after your first post). If not reading full, try to jump start the battery, or connect a portable charger to the battery.

Your built in charger should be 45 amps - give or take about 10 amps, so is much more powerful than the average 12 volt battery charger.

Your battery will discharge quickly. The CO and propane detectors draw about 30 amp hours daily, and can discharge a pair of batteries in about 7 days.

Also check your battery water level. If you left it charging for about 30 days, it is time to check it. If fully discharged and then recharged, time to check it now!

Good luck!

Fred.

As stated it would depend on how discharged the batteries are. The invertor/chargers in the unit will keep the batteries topped of, BUT re charging a dead battery??? The easy thing would be to try it by connecting your rig to 120 volt source, (adaptors can be used to connect to 20 amp supply). Also, if you have a 12 volt car battery charger, you can re charge the batteries without removing them. Keep the disconect switch off, connect the positive cable to the positive post of one battery, and the negative cable to the other batteries negative post. 4 - 6 hours should completly charge the batteries, keep an eye on it, check the water before and after charging and it should be alright.

ALot of times the deep cycle batteries will not recover well if discharged below 50% charge state which is around 12.0VDC.

Connecting the trailer back up to 120VAC from your garage using a RV30A-15A long adapter from WALMART will power up your internal converter/charger to re-charge your batteries. You may have to turn off a few high current appliances when plugged into a house 15-20AMP receptacle.

Again if the batteries are totally discharged this may not work for you as a whole lot of DC current will be demanded from the converter/charger trying to re-charge discharged batteries. If this happens then your only recourse is to use a smaller battery charger and charge at a lower DC CURRENT level for a longer time to start bringing the batteries back to life.

Since they have been discharged like this you may find that the batteries will NOT perform at their peak performance like before and eventually will need to be replaced.

Got to respect the battery system to keep them workig at their peak performance for long periods of time. Battery replacement doesn't come cheap...

Just my thoughts here...
Roy Ken

Hi,

Welcome to the forums.

The answer is dependent on the type of converter (battery charger) in the RV.

It also depends on how long the batteries were stone cold dead. They will, almost certainly, have lost some capacity. It also depends on the type of battery. A marine battery for example really doesn't enjoy being discharged more than about 20%.