House battery charging & discharging
I run the generator for 5 hours during the day( from 11am to 4:00pm) hoping I would have enough power to kick off the heater at night to keep me warm. No, by 7:00pm, my coach battery is very low. Gene...
Forum Discussion
Wendyshieh wrote:
thank you so much for all the great suggestions you gave me.
My RV is 2009 Four Wind Duchman, I brought it new in 2010. The house battery came with it, never replaced. I left out one important thing though, which is I hired a company to install a solar panel on top of the roof along with two extra batteries in 2011, on sunny day( I live near San Diego, we got great sun power), it was good but I wish I had two solar panels with 4 extra batteries, but on cloudy days, I got very little electricity, that was the reason I turn to house battery to keep me warm at night.( temperature dropped to 30-40 degree). I never figure out what is the real supplier behind it, is it the solar? or generator? or combined?
The Solar company since moved away and I don't have any contact with them. I was wondering.... because of the solar installation, does the solar batteries took over the house battery function? or they work together to supply the 12-volt appliances inside the coach(light, heater, fan....)?
How do I find this out without going to a RV-shop? I am keep it up with my reading of the RV material and I do appreciate all your help and suggestions, what a group of RV lovers with big hearts!!
Wendy
This is something that you can figure out by yourself if you have time and patience, but you might be better off going to an independent RV repairer (even check craigslist) to get some input. Don't have them fix it for you, but have them talk you through the system and how it works.
There's definitely something going on, but without knowing how your systems is set up it is hard to know where to start. So I would start by making a diagram of your electrical system. Feel free to post it here, I'd be interested in seeing it. If you aren't sure what something is, take a picture of it and post that.
You possibly have
- generator
- alternator(s)
- batteries
- solar panel(s)
- charge controller (+ inverter?)
- solar panel controller
all connected in some configuration and then wired into your RV through some sort of a fuse/breaker panel.
