Battery not staying charged
I have a fifth wheel and my 12 volt battery keeps dying. I bought a new one as I initially thought the battery was defective but the new one is running dead after 24 hours. What keeps the battery ...
Forum Discussion
Your 2012 RV should have the multi-voltage smart mode charging. If it is not smart mode then the the constant 13.6VDC that it uses may be over charging your battery and perhaps boiling out the fluids over time.
A good check is to read your battery voltage at their terminals when not connected to shore power which should read 12.6-7VDC if fully charged.
Then plug into your 30AMP shore power service and you should see a jump in DC charge voltage to 13.6VDC. If this doesn't happen then you have some sort of disconnect between the battery terminals and the DC OUTPUT of the converter/charger.
This could be a bad converter - blown REVERSE POLARITY fuses - bad connections - blown inline fuse/circuit breaker close to the battery terminals - bad BATTERY DISCONNECT switch...
Once you are sure you are getting normal DC Charging VOLTAGES then you can look for other problems on why the battery is being discharged.
You will probably notice you may have additional DC CABLES connected to your battery that are running things even after you may operate your battery disconnect switch.
You probably are also aware if the battery gets discharged below its 50% charge state and not re-charged to 90% or 100% charge state right away it will start doing internal harm to your battery - even if it is brand new. A battery only reading around 12.0VDC at the terminals is real close to being at the 50% charge state. This should be read with a multimeter and not the DC PERCENT VOLTMETER most RV units comes with...
First thing is to determine if your on-board converter/charger is indeed charging your batteries when connected to shore power 30AMP service...
Roy Ken
A good check is to read your battery voltage at their terminals when not connected to shore power which should read 12.6-7VDC if fully charged.
Then plug into your 30AMP shore power service and you should see a jump in DC charge voltage to 13.6VDC. If this doesn't happen then you have some sort of disconnect between the battery terminals and the DC OUTPUT of the converter/charger.
This could be a bad converter - blown REVERSE POLARITY fuses - bad connections - blown inline fuse/circuit breaker close to the battery terminals - bad BATTERY DISCONNECT switch...
Once you are sure you are getting normal DC Charging VOLTAGES then you can look for other problems on why the battery is being discharged.
You will probably notice you may have additional DC CABLES connected to your battery that are running things even after you may operate your battery disconnect switch.
You probably are also aware if the battery gets discharged below its 50% charge state and not re-charged to 90% or 100% charge state right away it will start doing internal harm to your battery - even if it is brand new. A battery only reading around 12.0VDC at the terminals is real close to being at the 50% charge state. This should be read with a multimeter and not the DC PERCENT VOLTMETER most RV units comes with...
First thing is to determine if your on-board converter/charger is indeed charging your batteries when connected to shore power 30AMP service...
Roy Ken
