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...
Forum Discussion
Read through this thread three times, it's sometimes difficult for me to understand narratives written from second person point of view, especially with the rest of the interaction of following posts.
My take: The replacement of the failing batteries didn't cure the cause of poor operation. The cause of the demise of the failing batteries and the poor performance of the replacement batteries is not due to any parasitic draw, undiscovered, but due to the insufficient charger that is in the trailer. The charger/converter is not bringing batteries back to 100% SOC. The auxiliary charger used does not accurately indicate SOC, also. The batteries have been allowed a real lean diet of charge and since they are not a true deep cycle battery will not likely recover to 100% health.
The 100w solar module should help to keep batteries charged if use is light, as stated in the first posts. The owner would be better served by installing a new converter with four stage charging capability and new, true deep cycle batteries. The price of two GC2 6V batteries from Sam's Club or Costco is not that much greater than two marine batteries from Walmart (about $30) and will serve the owner better.
I couldn't find in this thread how connectivity or wire size is defined but, from experience, I've found that most TT's have inadequate or borderline wiring used in the DC side of things. If choosing to upgrade the DC system, it might be a good time to upgrade wiring and add a few accessories like a usage monitor and a system disconnect switch.
Good luck to Ron and the owner with the batteries!
My take: The replacement of the failing batteries didn't cure the cause of poor operation. The cause of the demise of the failing batteries and the poor performance of the replacement batteries is not due to any parasitic draw, undiscovered, but due to the insufficient charger that is in the trailer. The charger/converter is not bringing batteries back to 100% SOC. The auxiliary charger used does not accurately indicate SOC, also. The batteries have been allowed a real lean diet of charge and since they are not a true deep cycle battery will not likely recover to 100% health.
The 100w solar module should help to keep batteries charged if use is light, as stated in the first posts. The owner would be better served by installing a new converter with four stage charging capability and new, true deep cycle batteries. The price of two GC2 6V batteries from Sam's Club or Costco is not that much greater than two marine batteries from Walmart (about $30) and will serve the owner better.
I couldn't find in this thread how connectivity or wire size is defined but, from experience, I've found that most TT's have inadequate or borderline wiring used in the DC side of things. If choosing to upgrade the DC system, it might be a good time to upgrade wiring and add a few accessories like a usage monitor and a system disconnect switch.
Good luck to Ron and the owner with the batteries!
