House Batteries
Have 2017 Thor ACE, battery dead, jumped started and let run for about an hour. Unplugged from 30amp electrical while in RV barn. Few days later went out to Thor and discovered house batteries are dea...
Forum Discussion
Have you been adding water to your coach batteries on a regular basis? If the plates are visible, then yes the battery might need replacement. Adding water might restore some of their capacity.
Maintenance free and coach batteries are not the same. A coach battery, you should be able to add water to it every once in a while. depending on how good your battery charger is, you should need to add water about once every 6 months. If the charger is set to high of voltage, then more often. Water is consumed during the charge process.
If the coach was built say middle of the year in 2017, then the battery are at least 3 years old, the chassis might have been assembled as early as September 2016, with a battery that was new in May of 2016? Maybe even older than that. So perhaps 4-5 years old? If you can recharge the battery on a bench or with the RV wiring disconnected from it, then it stays above 12.2 volts without the charger for a week, it should be fine. Yet if it self discharges to say 11.5 volts in a week, it can not be trusted to run anything, it has internal short circuit, probably debris under the plates accumulated and it is bad. I have seen some batteries that you charge to 13.6 volts for a week, and within a hour of shutting off the charger they reach 10 volts or less, indicating a shorted cell, and not good for anything.
It is easy for me to say "Replace all three batteries and you will be fine". However you probably will have to replace the battery soon if you are not doing things correctly. Like charging the engine battery once in a while. Like keeping a eye on the water in the coach battery and filling it with distilled water every couple of months, and then you can get an idea of how often you need to check it, and fill it to stay in range.
Shutting off the disconnect switch when you will not be using the coach for a while is also important. Keeping it plugged into 120 volt power will keep the coach battery full (but use up water too) and will not normally charge the engine battery. Starting the engine once a month and let it run about 10 minutes will top off that battery.
Fred.
Maintenance free and coach batteries are not the same. A coach battery, you should be able to add water to it every once in a while. depending on how good your battery charger is, you should need to add water about once every 6 months. If the charger is set to high of voltage, then more often. Water is consumed during the charge process.
If the coach was built say middle of the year in 2017, then the battery are at least 3 years old, the chassis might have been assembled as early as September 2016, with a battery that was new in May of 2016? Maybe even older than that. So perhaps 4-5 years old? If you can recharge the battery on a bench or with the RV wiring disconnected from it, then it stays above 12.2 volts without the charger for a week, it should be fine. Yet if it self discharges to say 11.5 volts in a week, it can not be trusted to run anything, it has internal short circuit, probably debris under the plates accumulated and it is bad. I have seen some batteries that you charge to 13.6 volts for a week, and within a hour of shutting off the charger they reach 10 volts or less, indicating a shorted cell, and not good for anything.
It is easy for me to say "Replace all three batteries and you will be fine". However you probably will have to replace the battery soon if you are not doing things correctly. Like charging the engine battery once in a while. Like keeping a eye on the water in the coach battery and filling it with distilled water every couple of months, and then you can get an idea of how often you need to check it, and fill it to stay in range.
Shutting off the disconnect switch when you will not be using the coach for a while is also important. Keeping it plugged into 120 volt power will keep the coach battery full (but use up water too) and will not normally charge the engine battery. Starting the engine once a month and let it run about 10 minutes will top off that battery.
Fred.
