Battery Issue

[CGXterra]

Hello,

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but there's a lot going on. 🙂

I'm on my way across the country to Cali. I have a 36' Cedar Creek 5'er and I'm having an issue with my batteries. A bit of back story;

When I bought the camper, I had a pretty short and kind of not very helpful PDI. I didn't realize when we were doing it that ther was a single 12 volt battery in the battery compartment instead of the required four 6 volt batteries as the sticker in the compartment said. We're fulltimers and we towed the camper to our spot and deployed the jacks and slides, all fine with the single 12 volt battery. I noticed the sticker a couple of days later and called th dealer and told him and he ordered the batteries and came to my site to install them.

Flash forward about 3 weeks and we're getting ready for our trip. I went to try and put the slides in and the bedroom slide would reluctantly come in and then the hydraulic pump would audibly struggle and just start clicking when it came to putting the living room slide in. Dealership came out and put in a new hydraulic pump and it was doing th same thing. It was then that they realized that the four 6 volt batteries might have been wired wrong, rewired and all of a sudden the slides worked great.

Now 3 days into our trip after traveleing 6-8 hours a day and plugging in at a 50 amp service every night, the inverter starts giiving me error 1, 2 or 5 (it changees). Everything seemed to be working okay even with the alarm on the inverter. I decided too take the batteries out to clean one particularly corroded wire and check the water in all 4. Water looked good, wire brushed the corrosion and reconnected evreything. Now th slides won't go in again. 😞

We needed to get on the road this morning due to reservation commitments. I went to autozone and bought a 12 volt battery and disconnected all the 6 volts and now everything is working fine again. The battery got dragged down to about 11.4 volts during slide and jack operation, but was recharged to 12.6 volts during our trip today and is currently showing 13.6 while plugged into a 50 amp pole.

During testiing and troubleshooting I found that 2 of the 6 volt batteries were showing 5.4 and two were showing 6.3 after being hooked up to 50 amp all night. They're all less than 3 months old.

I'm hoping that the 12 volt fix will get us through the rest of our trip, but I thought I'd throw this to the experts on this forum to see if y'all might have any ideas as to what the problem might be.

Thank you iin advance.
Ed

***Sent using my iPad, please excuse the typos.

[Willcamp4]

I had the impression that your Cedar Creek was brand new, and still under warranty. If it is, I can't understand why a call to the factory hasn't connected you with a factory authorized service center near where you are, that will solve your problem immediately. Your frustration with this issue should NEVER happen with a unit from a reputable manufacturer. It's time to call the manufacturer.

PS- Sounds like a problem with your power converter.

[CGXterra]

Update.

I finally got around to taking my four batteries into a dealer to get them tested. Upon arrival, 2 of them were at 5.8 and 2 we're at 6.3. They charged them up and load tested them, all is good there. I've hd the 12 v hooked up since arrival and had no issues.

Yesterday, I moved the slides in and out with the 12 v hooked up so I would know everything was working and it was. I disconnected the 12 v and put the four 6 v in and hooked them up exactly as shown in the diagram inside the battery compartment and tested the slides again. Weak output from the hydraulic pump and flickering lights while using the pump. I took the four 6 v out, reconnected the 12 v anf everything is fine again, nice strong hydraulic pump, no flickering a lights while being used. I retested all the batteries at that point and they all read around 6.3.

Additionally, after reconnecting my 12 v, although everything works fine, I'm getting an error in my xantrex inverter that reads "E05 - OL". According to the manual, that means it's detecting low charge in the battery. I only had it disconnected for maybe 15 minutes and everything was fine before I disconnected it, error-wise.

[bpounds]

Sounds to me like your battery is charging when you're driving, but not charging when plugged in to shore power. Check your converter. Could be as simple as the polarity fuses blown, particularly since there has been some ineptitude with the installation.

[BiggestRon]

CGXterra wrote:
Hello. Just an update. The new 12 volt battery we installed is working like a champ. Recharging when we're hooked to shore power or the truck and the slides are going in and out as designed. DW talked me out of further troubleshooting for the time being with the old "It's working, leave it alone" line. I'll work on it when we get to LA.

Thank you for your advice and support. I can always count on this forum.

Ed and Jess

Thank You for your service to our country. And a safe trip.

Ron

[CGXterra]

Hello. Just an update. The new 12 volt battery we installed is working like a champ. Recharging when we're hooked to shore power or the truck and the slides are going in and out as designed. DW talked me out of further troubleshooting for the time being with the old "It's working, leave it alone" line. I'll work on it when we get to LA.

THank you all for your advice and support. I can always count on this forum.

Ed and Jess

[2oldman]

Coach-man wrote:
or should I say anything less than 12.6 volts is a dead battery!

No, you shouldn't.

[Pipeman]

I think I would also post your problem in the technical section of the forum. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and on the right side is "jump to forum". Click on the down arrow and scroll down to technical forum. Besides the great help here you might get some answers to your problem there. Good luck.

[TakingThe5th]

I once had a problem with a loose battery post. I could actually see the post wiggle side-to-side in it's base. A loose post could cause some of the problems you mentioned. Check the posts, make sure the wire connectors and posts are clean, and make sure you are connected correctly. Connections should also be tight but not overly tight.

[Coach-man]

When connected together, weather in series or parallel, if any one of the batteries is "bad", it will take down the others that are connected to it. Never, the other way around. It is possible that one or more cells were ruined when the tech incorrectly connected them. Then after rewire that bad battery took the others down, so now all four batteries are bad. As stated you need 12 volts to power your equipment, or should I say anything less than 12.6 volts is a dead battery!

[CGXterra]

Excellent advice. Thank you.

I have one day in a relatives driveway tomorrow, then back to campgrounds after that so I'll do what Don said on Tuesday when I'm back on 50 amp power.

Appreciate the responses.

Ed

[gbopp]

The 12 Volt Side of Life may help you understand your system.

[Old-Biscuit]

First thing I would do is take the 6 volt batteries to an auto parts store and have them load tested. They may have good voltage........but can't maintain under load.

Corrosion on cable is sign of continuous drain on battery.

Might have damaged a cell or two when hooked up wrong.

[donn0128]

First thing I would do is Strip all the wires off the 6VDC batteries and start over using only two 6 volt batteries. Connect the batteries like Sailinon posted using two of them in stead of all four. Now, be absolutely sure you you connect the correct positive and negative battery cables, You should now be ready to go.
I suspect when you took things apart to clean terminals you might have accidentally connected then back up wrong. Remember, a 6VDC battery is half of a very heavy 12 volt battery and your trailer needs 12VDC to work correctly. All your problems are centered around batteries. So fix should be simple as long as someone has not hooked up 18 or 24 volts by accident.

[CGXterra]

Yes quite a saga. 🙂

I have a volt-meter, but unfortunately very little experience using it. I could do whatever anyone says I should do but as far as just looking at wires and sailing something up and sticking the probes onto the wires, not really sure heat I'm looking for there. I'm active duty military and can get college courses very cheap/free. I think I'm going to use some of that on a electricity theory class. I hate that I can't fix things myself and electricity scares the******out of me.

The batteries were wired like the diagram shows in the above post the second time. Is it possible that the tech might have nuked the two batteries when he connected them wrong the first time?

Thanks
Ed