Dead Batteries

OP started a thread about electrified rims six moths ago. Fixing it must not be a priority.
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27170006/gotomsg/27170124.cfm#27170124

mtnpapa, how about an update?

Properly charging the battery takes hours...

Plugging into 15 am house/garage outlet to run converter should NOT make rim's hot nor should it trip reset on fridge (Do you mean GFCI).

Odds are the outlet is mis-wired (hot/neutral reversed) and or there is a short in either the outlet (Hot/ground) or cord (same) There is clearly a problem with that outlet and cord.

Test procedure

Three light outlet tester.. On the outlet, and on the cord.

Yes, you can use a regular battery charger on your batteries. Since they are connected in parallel, make sure the charger connections are to the + of one battery and the - of the other. Take care not to reverse the polarity of the connections.

Charging 10 min is a common error to those who are unfamiliar with batteries and electricity in general. Just starting the engine will take more amperage that the gen set and or alternator can put back into the batteries....so each time you did that, you depleted the batteries even more than when you started.

I agree with others...your first concern should be that electrical problem. Remember...electricity can KILL! It doesn't take a whole lot of amperage to do some serious damage to you or others.

The second thing you should do is go down to Walmart or Harbor Freight an buy a cheap multimeter and use it to measure actual voltage on the batteries and the outlet where you are trying to plug your rig into.

For the batteries, using the DC Voltage function on the multimeter, 12.6 is full charge whereas 12.2 is only 50% charged. When running the gen set or alternator, you should be reading well over 13v, maybe even 14v on the batteries.

For the house outlet that you are trying to plug into, set your multimeter on AC Voltage, and measure the voltage on the two slotted holes in the outlet. You should read 110 to 120 vac. Then put the red lead into the small slotted hole and the black lead in the round hole. Again you should read 110 to 120 vac. Then stick the red lead in the large slotted hole and the black lead in the round hole...you should read 0 volts. Anything other than these readings indicates a faulty or mis-wired outlet.

You may have to remove the cover off of the outlet to see if there is a green wire attached to the very bottom of the outlet. This will be the ground connection and it sounds like your outlet may not be grounded. Be careful with the cover off and don't touch anything on the outlet until you have the cover back on.

Do some research (use the search engine here on rv.net) and educate yourself.

Good luck and I hope this helps

Ron

Ahh.. it must be spring. The dead battery posts are beginning.

Sounds like your 15A connection has an open ground or something like that. You need to go get one of these 120VAC Circuit testers (LOWES) and make sure your house/garage 120VAC receptacle is wired correctly. You have to use all three connections.



Before you can plug into your 120VAC receptacle it has to show the correct lights on the tester. The bottom set should react CORRECT.

Then you need to plug in a good 10GA HD extension cord (The YELLOW ONES) that has all three conductors being used. You can use a 12GAUGE extension but if you start loading things down it may start getting hot on you. No way is a 14-16 WALMART RED COLOR Extension cord good for this use. You can eliminate the extension cord if you are close enough to the 30AMP RV Trailer plug. I use a 50-foot HD extension cord on my setup.


At the end of the HD 10GAUGE extension cord you need to pet one of these RV30A-15A ADAPTERS (WALMART HAS THEM). Then you can plug your 30A Shore Power Cable into that.


DO NOT USE the small BLACK RV30A-15A ADAPTERS as they will start getting hot on you in a short time... Need to use the RV30A-15A DOGBONE LONG connecter adapter.


Those that try to make short cuts here end up getting shocked by touching the trailer or worse. You trailer grounding comes from the shore power cable so it must be connected through the 120VAC Receptacle.

I also like to use one of these 120VAC PLUG in 120VAC VOLTMETERS. Mine is plugged into a receptacle inside the trailer in a good spot where I can glance at it. It has a GREEN SAFE ZONE scale on it and if the 120VAC power I am hooked to is outside this SAFE ZONE LIMITs I will not turn on the air conditioner for instance.


To answer your other question YES you can hook a 120VAC Battery Charger and connect to your trailer battery terminals. I carry the Black and Decker Smart Mode 40AMP SMART MODE charger model VEC1093DBD just for these occasions I need to charge my batteries and my on-board converter/charger may have failed.. Got to always have a PLAN B. I plug my smart mode portable charger into my generator and can re-charge my batteries to their 90% charge state in as little as three hours generator run time.

Just some of my comments here

Roy Ken

Agree with rrupert.
First - SAFETY. You need to figure out and fix the hot skin condition before anything else. It could be a badly wired household outlet, RV plug, RV power cord, or the 15-30 adapter. Share more information on what your setup is and maybe we can help narrow it down. Not fixing this could potentially kill/injure someone, and likely damage systems in your RV.

Second - BATTERIES. I'm not sure what 5-10 minutes run time (MH or genset) does for you other than to deplete the batteries. You should have some sort of a charge indicator showing what charging mode is being used. You need to get out of bulk charge at least before you shut down.

Did you use a 3 wire extension cord? A 2 wire cord will sometimes cause trouble.

Yes you can use a portable charger to recharge all the batteries, but you might find they are too far gone to be usable again depending on how long they have been "dead." Have to try it and see.

Meanwhile, your 30/15 adapter should be fine to run just the converter so it can recharge the house batts. Perhaps you have too many other 120v things "on" for a 15a? Especially the water heater, or any kind of electric heater.

What "rims become charged?" You mean you get a tingle from touching the wheels? That's a different issue to do with grounds etc. Must be fixed!

It takes more than 5 to 10 minutes to charge the batteries up to snuff. Starting probably took more out of the batteries than the charge put in. There is a problem with the 30 amp outlet that needs to be addressed. It is not wired correctly or the ground is messed up somewhere. That's a dangerous condition that needs immediate attention.