Lippert jacks only work with generator
Hi everyone, fairly new to all this and learning on the fly. We purchased a 2013 Montana 3750FL last year and have had issues with the batteries and the lippert hydraulic jack system when boondocking...
Forum Discussion
Sounds to me like you have a 12 Volt issue. Even though you tried it with 2 brand new batteries, were the batteries fully charged? The jacks are designed to work on the 12 volts supplied by the batteries however they require batteries that are fully charged. (Specifically 12V automotive/marine/RV batteries with a minimum rating of 500 CCA, and/or at least 60 AH). Fully charged batteries should read 12.8 volts. if the read 12 volts, they are almost dead. What code did the leveling display show?
We are good on the batteries, they were reading 14 volts. I am not sure on the code, I remember it did say aborted and timed out at some point.
Yeah, I agree with way2roll's answer. The 14 Volts you are seeing is from the charger not the true voltage of your batteries. You need to unplug your RV, wait a day and see what each batteries true voltage is using a multimeter. If they have been charging since you installed them at the 14 volt rate, they must have been dead when you bought them (if they were new). Once they are fully charged your jacks should start working again on battery, as they should.
You reading them with a meter or the panel? 14V is the reading when charging and doesn't really indicate the at rest voltage. 14V while charging usually indicates the charge rate on a low battery. 13.5 would be a good charging rate for a healthy battery and 12.8 at rest for fully charged. You need to test them at rest/not charging and see what they read. My money is still on bad/low batteries.
Sorry for the delay in replying, we traveled back home, the 5th wheel is in storage about 4 hours from us. The batteries at rest read between 12 and 13 volts. There has to be something with the charging also?? This is our 3rd set of batteries, I need to figure out what is killing them. When we purchased the unit they had installed new batteries and we had issues with the jacks and the batteries were dead after a week. Bought a second set, same issue. This is our 3rd set now, reading fine and still cannot do the jacks without hooking up the generator. So maybe I have 2 issues. We have a smaller 5th wheel that we travel in and we do not have any issues with this.
between 12 and 13V is a large sweep, your going to have to be more specific than that. first if it is 13V then something is wrong as a fully charged 12V battery is under 12.7V. so 12.7V would be the resting voltage of a fully charged lead acid battery. if it is 12.0V then you are only at about 43% charged. but you still haven't told me what type of batteries they are and how many. this can make a huge difference.
the other question I have is you mentioned it is in storage.
is it plugged in when in storage? there are draws on the batteries and depending how long it is in storage each time you could be drawing the battery down to the point where it gets damaged from the parasitic loads.
