What is Eating Those Batteries?
I went to Quartzite yesterday to visit an old friend who is dry-camping on BLM land and has been having some electrical problems with his travel trailer, a 2001 KZ model. The problem is that even wit...
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BFL13 wrote:Ron Nielson wrote:BFL13 wrote:Ron Nielson wrote:
....... He had another circuit outside the circuits thru the converter/charger. It had been disconnected at the time we were working on it.
Was it (whatever it does) connected when his batteries were running down so fast though?
The circuit was for an inverter, about 1400 watts if I remember correctly. No, it was not hooked up in that the ground wire to the battery had pulled out of the crimp-on wiring connector.
Be sure that the "ground wire" that was not connected was the neg wire for the inverter DC input and not just the "chassis ground" for the inverter casing. Confirm there is no other neg path by trying to turn on the inverter.
Even if the inverter were still hooked up it would have to have an AC load running to pull anything much from the battery. Anyway I would be suspicious of this inverter deal until checked more.
The usual reason for a battery bank to discharge faster than expected is sulfation so it has less capacity but goes through the voltages from full to 50% in the normal way. But these are brand new batteries. You say "even with" these. So the same thing was happening with his previous set of batteries and the new ones didn't help?
Yes, he had another set of batteries, same 29's from WM, and he was having problems he couldn't determine or solve, so he was thinking it was the batteries themselves that was the problem. The new batteries didn't help; problem(s) remain.
As for the inverter, it was a direct wire from the battery to the inverter, no chassis ground involved. Also, the inverter has not been turned on, and since it wasn't grounded, pretty sure the problem we are chasing is elsewhere.
Yes, all rv'ers should have a hydrometer, but like many of us, he doesn't and neither do I. There is some kind of a trailer supply place in Quartzite and if he bought a hydrometer, at least he could confirm whether the batteries are really charged fully at the end of the charger's cycle. It could be that he THINKS the batteries are fully charged (because the charger tells him they are), but maybe they're not. We'll see if he can get a hydrometer and verify the charge on the batteries.
