More power problems

time2roll wrote:
You have a lot of stuff going on. My solution with electrical issues is to divide and conquer.

You have at least three components in play. Two batteries and a converter that all provide 12 volt nominal power.

First disconnect one terminal at each battery and plug in the main cord. The converter should provide about 13.6 volts very steady. All systems should work.

Assuming that works connect the two batteries and let them charge 72 hours. Check twice a day for excessive heat or gassing that would indicate a shorted cell. Voltage should be same as the converter at about 13.6 volts right on the battery terminals. If batteries are low on charge the voltage should steadily climb to 13.6 volts over 2 to 6 hours.

Assuming that all seems good disconnect the batteries again and monitor the battery voltage disconnected for several days. Battery voltage should drop from 13.6 volts to 12.65 in about a day and then hold for at least three more days.

Post the results and we can go from there.

I have not posted results yet as I was delayed by an incident. Someone ran into the back of the camper and left without leaving a note (hit and run). I've been learning about insurance this week. :( I think the camper will be ok, but it really messed up the left rear compartment the jack is attached to.

I'm assuming it can be fixed, so the results so far:
* the converter provides a steady 13.8v. All systems functional.
* the batteries were charged until this morning (4 days) when I disconnected from ground power and drove to the insurance adjuster. The batteries should have been maintained during transit at 2A. The combined batteries were providing 11.8-12.0v after 2 hours unplugged.

I will charge the batteries again and perform the proper tests.

One other thing that I've noticed that's probably unrelated and maybe a non-issue. Most of the time when I plug in to the house, I pop the house breaker. I'm connecting the camper to a 25' 10ga extension cord (fed under garage door), then to an outlet inside the garage, which runs to the main panel with a GFCI breaker. I can reset the breaker and if it stays set, it will never pop again while it's connected.

bkenobi wrote:
I have no problem buying a pair of batteries, a generator, some level of solar, etc. I have a problem buying something without knowing it will help or understanding the problem I'm trying to solve.

Good for you.

Assuming that the batteries are 12 V each and are wired in parallel.....The kind of problem you are seeing is EXACTLY why the consensus recommendation is to NOT do 2 twelves in parallel because if one goes bad it drags BOTH down and complicates the testing.

You need to catch it when it is down around 10.5 and then disconnect enough cables that you can measure each battery individually with the converter OFF.

Hopefully that will let you identify which one is really going bad.

If that doesn't work, you can run the system for a while on only ONE battery to see which one is bad.

BUT.....if both have really gone down to 10.5 or below several times and stayed like that very long, then even the "good" one probably has been weakened too.

I have no problem buying a pair of batteries, a generator, some level of solar, etc. I have a problem buying something without knowing it will help or understanding the problem I'm trying to solve. It doesn't matter what the problem with the battery is (if it's bad), I'll replace it. But, if I have a bad converter, replacing new (March 2017) batteries doesn't make sense unless it's really cheap. $300 for a pair of batteries would be a nice fix but not cheap if I'm just throwing out new batteries.

If you want to learn about batteries and connections, a good read.

12V side of Life

just buy two new batteries.

Ok, will do.

You have a lot of stuff going on. My solution with electrical issues is to divide and conquer.

You have at least three components in play. Two batteries and a converter that all provide 12 volt nominal power.

First disconnect one terminal at each battery and plug in the main cord. The converter should provide about 13.6 volts very steady. All systems should work.

Assuming that works connect the two batteries and let them charge 72 hours. Check twice a day for excessive heat or gassing that would indicate a shorted cell. Voltage should be same as the converter at about 13.6 volts right on the battery terminals. If batteries are low on charge the voltage should steadily climb to 13.6 volts over 2 to 6 hours.

Assuming that all seems good disconnect the batteries again and monitor the battery voltage disconnected for several days. Battery voltage should drop from 13.6 volts to 12.65 in about a day and then hold for at least three more days.

Post the results and we can go from there.

I didn't want to put too much detail in the OP to scare responders away. I have had a lot of issues from day 1 (some my dault, others aren't clear). I know 1 or 2 times the fridge was left on auto by the SO (she was told, but forgot when loading). There have been other times where we went from fully charged to 10v for no reason. I've had the batrekies tested 2 or 3 times. I'm planning on solar or generator, but want this sorted before I complicate things. I don't like masking priblems.

I do not understand the wiring from the description given, but if the batteries are parallel wired and you are measuring different voltages on them, then they are not (effectively) parallel wired - even if one is bad. I also don't understand why they would be independently wired to the panel. Sometimes that was done in boats in the past so you could run on one at a time (using a 1 <-> 2 type battery switch) but that practice has been given up as a bad idea. If the battery shop actually load tested them, my best guess is that there is a wiring problem somewhere.

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?

Doesn't sound correct. I would run each battery to a common buss bars using equal length conductors. Then go from there to each device i.e.: camper 12v distribution panel, charge controller(s), inverter (if used) With two batteries in parallel you want the 2 batteries to become 1 larger 12v battery bank with draw being equal between them and not be charging/drawing different loads from each.

It sounds like a you might benefit from someone more familiar with wiring to help clean up your system.