Electrical system discharging WAY too quickly

landyacht318 wrote:
One possibility is the compressor on the fridge is failing and sucking way more juice than when it was new. Do you have a clamp on Ammeter?

I'm beginning to wonder. If we assume the Bosch test was accurate, it really has to be the fridge. We're in the hottest place we've been to yet now and I can hear the compressor kicking on almost constantly during the day. But, that alone would not kill them this quickly. I could even see going from 3 days to about 1 day with it working overtime, but not less than 12 hours - unless it's broken. It's not THAT much hotter than places we've been.

Here's the thing, my dash volt meter shows lower voltage than I would expect. When driving, rather than 14.3-14.6, I see 13.9-14.2. Same with the solar when not driving. I rarely see 14 and when the batteries should be about halfway discharged (the cutoff activated) it seems more like they're almost completely discharged. That is usually when I see lower voltage than I would expect.

Handbasket had mentioned checking the grounds. I had forgotten to check the actual chassis ground. I did, and it was pretty corroded and crappy looking. I took a wire brush and grinder to the issue just a few minutes ago and have already noticed an improvement in the system. I'm not convinced (yet) that my problems are solved though. Could that really have been it?

Hopefully tonight I will be able to charge, remove, and test the batteries in the manner Mena661 mentioned.

Landyacht318, all I have is a standard voltmeter, can I effectively test the fridge with that? Could the compressor be malfunctioning so much that its drawing that much energy? I feel like between driving and solar I can't really fully charge the batteries. I suppose I could fully charge everything, then turn the fridge off and see if things return to normal...

Thanks for the help everyone. This is a puzzling issue and horrible timing with respect to climate and temps.