More power problems

bkenobi wrote:
A wiring question... the batteries are wired independently to the panel (I believe). There's a bunch of leads with some connected to each battery. I get a little nervous every time I remove the batteries that I'll mess up what goes on each terminal. It seems though that so long as I have + leads to the + terminal and - to the -, it shouldn't matter how it was originally wired. Correct? In other words, could I move all connections to the outboard battery and just the hookup leads to the inboard? Obviously it would have to physically fit, but + is + and - is -...what difference does it make?

The answer is it kind of does matter. With parallel batteries you want each power source (i.e. solar, converter, truck) and the load (output) to have a positive on one battery and a negative on the other. This balances the batteries in terms of total wire length in each circuit.

If you connect to just one battery then use jumpers over to the other, it will see less charging and discharging than the primary one you're connected to.

Just label all of the wires with a +1, -1, +2 and -2 so you keep the groupings the same if you go to a single battery and back to 2.

A wiring question... the batteries are wired independently to the panel (I believe). There's a bunch of leads with some connected to each battery. I get a little nervous every time I remove the batteries that I'll mess up what goes on each terminal. It seems though that so long as I have + leads to the + terminal and - to the -, it shouldn't matter how it was originally wired. Correct? In other words, could I move all connections to the outboard battery and just the hookup leads to the inboard? Obviously it would have to physically fit, but + is + and - is -...what difference does it make?

If you think it is one battery, disconnect the one you think is bad and see what happens. If it still does it try the other battery and see about that one.

You could also toss in another 12V battery that you know is good (one out of another vehicle as it does not have to be a camper battery for a test) and see. This would eliminate the two batteries in there now.

More observations that lead me to a conclusion (I think). TC was frigid when we got to rest stop last night but didn't want to run the furnace on 10v cause it might lead to CO detector screaming on the middle of the night. I ran the truck for 30min until it was acceptable. I shut off the truck and the batteries we re at 10.4v. The furnace ran intermittently all night. At one point I checked and the battery was at 12.4v. This morning I checked 2x be for leaving. The first time it said 10.4v. The second it read 11.7v.

My conclusion is that I have 1 cell that is intermittently faulty. But, since I have 2 batteries, I don't understand why voltage wouldn't be either 12v read from good battery or an average (1.4+12.5)/2=11.5v. I'm not sure why it reads 10.4v unless one has 2 bad cells.

battery has a cracked plate

Maybe the initial diagnosis of a shorted cell was correct......and it is intermittent.

Electrical problems, what a pain. We had an issue with our new NL 811. Dealer finally tracked it down to the power receptacle on the camper that you plug the truck in to. Fixed that, no more issues for us. Good luck.