Sorry, no facts and figures yet, so it's tough to do the math...but...Proud new owner of a Jayco 29.5 RLS Fifth. Used it 3 weeks in May, and for 4 days this past weekend. While in the driveway after the May trip, and not plugged in to shore, DW left a couple of lights on. Did not notice for many days (a week?). Battery totally dead. Plugged into shore, and let the built in charger do it's thing. Left it plugged into shore for a couple of weeks. Sent the trailer to the dealer for some work, and temp storage, and after a month got it back with again a totally dead battery. Recharge again for a few days, and went camping with shore power the whole trip. Showed 100% at the campground on Sunday. In the last 24 hrs, we operated the 2 slides out, in and out, lowered the front landing gear, used three lights for about 1/2 hour, and it otherwise sat with the entertainment center on standby, and the microwave clock running. On board charge indicator now shows battery down to 25%.I have not opened the battery box at all, but assume it is a group 24.Any WAG about how much current draw I put on it with the above? The life seems very, very short.I will, of course, take the box apart and check the levels (and verify what I actually have in there) in the next day or two.Without being dishonest, do I have any claim with the dealer on warranty for the battery - or is it likely I did it to myself with the very deep discharge?

Sorry to tell you but you did it to yourself. With nothing but parastic loads (no lights at all) my FW would kill the GP24 in 4 days. If your sitting without shore power you need to disconnect the batteriesFixed my problem with 2 GC2 6volts and 265Watt solar. It'll sit forever now if I so wanted to.

standby current drain can be higher than you expect. First sometimes the CO and smoke and Propane detectors are connected to +12V. Next, and worst is the stereo. The Jensen common in many units in the "off" position is really standby and draws about 0.3A. Thats 9AH/day so in 7-10days it will pretty much toast a single 12V battery. In any event, it will get the battery below the 50% level, the lowest you want a 12V to get for reasonable life in less than a week. even a pair of GC get run down in a few weeks with that load.Completely discharging a common "dual cycle" marine battery a few times does it no good, in fact even true deep discharge really suffer cycle life when drawn below 20% of capacity. Draw even the best deep discharge down to 0%, fully dead and you do permanent damage. Very many times and they are in the scrap heap as well. Especially if it is completely discharged and then left for weeks before carefully recharging. Do that a few times and battery may be toast. It may be worth trying for a warranty claim regardless. In any case, if the trailer doesn't have a battery disconnect switch I'd recomend getting on and installing it and use it religiously when not using the trailer. Or, disconnect the battery positive terminal during storage.

Hi,Even deep cycle batteries can not be fully discharged--not if you want them to last. 50% is a good number to not go below if possible.

Sounds about normal to me. Get the battery charged and keep it charged when you can for best longevity. You need more battery and a method to recharge if you will be more than a day off grid.

Expected Battery life when "powered down" | Good Sam Community

15 Replies

time2roll
Nomad
Sep 23, 2013
Sounds about normal to me. Get the battery charged and keep it charged when you can for best longevity. You need more battery and a method to recharge if you will be more than a day off grid.
pianotuna
Nomad III
Sep 23, 2013
Hi,

Even deep cycle batteries can not be fully discharged--not if you want them to last. 50% is a good number to not go below if possible.
ktmrfs
Explorer III
Sep 23, 2013
standby current drain can be higher than you expect. First sometimes the CO and smoke and Propane detectors are connected to +12V. Next, and worst is the stereo. The Jensen common in many units in the "off" position is really standby and draws about 0.3A. Thats 9AH/day so in 7-10days it will pretty much toast a single 12V battery. In any event, it will get the battery below the 50% level, the lowest you want a 12V to get for reasonable life in less than a week. even a pair of GC get run down in a few weeks with that load.

Completely discharging a common "dual cycle" marine battery a few times does it no good, in fact even true deep discharge really suffer cycle life when drawn below 20% of capacity. Draw even the best deep discharge down to 0%, fully dead and you do permanent damage. Very many times and they are in the scrap heap as well. Especially if it is completely discharged and then left for weeks before carefully recharging.

Do that a few times and battery may be toast. It may be worth trying for a warranty claim regardless.

In any case, if the trailer doesn't have a battery disconnect switch I'd recomend getting on and installing it and use it religiously when not using the trailer. Or, disconnect the battery positive terminal during storage.
hmknightnc
Explorer
Sep 23, 2013
Sorry to tell you but you did it to yourself. With nothing but parastic loads (no lights at all) my FW would kill the GP24 in 4 days. If your sitting without shore power you need to disconnect the batteries

Fixed my problem with 2 GC2 6volts and 265Watt solar. It'll sit forever now if I so wanted to.
pkunk
Explorer
Sep 23, 2013
Yep, you destroyed it.

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Expected Battery life when "powered down"

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