Resi Fridge draining batteries, please help.

[magnusson]

Hello,
Brand new Fifth Wheel owner, Just purchased a 2018 Forest River Arctic Wolf. We took our first trip last week and had a blast. Only "issue" we have is that we decided to get the residential fridge(Even though 90% of our camping will be boon docking/Dry) and the stock 2 24dc 85ah 12 volt batteries that I think are wired in parallel only powered our 1000 watt inverter/fridge for about 3 hours. Any recomendations on how to get at least 8 hours of power to fridge from batteries. I'm fine running my generator twice a day. I'm OK buying new batteries and using the stock ones for my boat. 6v vs 12v? The trailer is also solar ready. Thanks for any help while I'm researching.

[laknox]

pianotuna wrote:
Hi Lyle,

That works but it is not balanced and it often costs not a single dime to wire it the best way. i.e. one wire to the negative post on battery A, and one wire to the positive post on battery B.

laknox wrote:
With 2 12v batteries, you'd just hook to the + and - on a single battery to charge both.

Lyle

Moot point, since I'll likely never have 12v batteries again. :B

Lyle

[pianotuna]

Hi Lyle,

That works but it is not balanced and it often costs not a single dime to wire it the best way. i.e. one wire to the negative post on battery A, and one wire to the positive post on battery B.

laknox wrote:
With 2 12v batteries, you'd just hook to the + and - on a single battery to charge both.

Lyle

[laknox]

magnusson wrote:

laknox wrote:
Check out my cousin and her husband's bus rebuild project: http://www.beginningfromthismorning.com. Juan goes into a lot of detail in what they're encountering and why they made the decisions they did for their needs. Massive solar and massive batteries. Pretty d@mn interesting...

Lyle

That was a massive project. Nice.

Im looking at solar panels now. If I hook up directly to one battery with alligator clips will it charge all 4 of my batteries?

I have an el cheapo 45w solar kit from Harbor Freight and 2 Sam's golf cart batteries. I hook the controller to the + on one battery and to the - on the other battery. I can only a$$-u-me that it's the same for all other <12v battery configurations. With 2 12v batteries, you'd just hook to the + and - on a single battery to charge both.

Lyle

[Sam_Spade]

pianotuna wrote:

With the existing wfco converter it may take 168 hours to fully charge the battery bank.(7 days).

Is that figuring starting at half discharged ?
Anyway, this is an important point.
Even more important is that you NEED to do some simple math now to figure what charging capacity you really need to support the extra batteries.
Just guessing at things likely will end up either wasting a lot of money OR not having enough capacity to do what you want.

You seem to have guessed pretty good with the batteries but that does not mean that future guesses will end up as good.

[pianotuna]

Hi

With the existing wfco converter it may take 168 hours to fully charge the battery bank.(7 days).

magnusson wrote:
Update:
I went with 6 energizer gc2 6 volts wired in series/parralel, which gives me 690 AH. I charged them for 2 days on shore power prior to my trip and today I got 15 hours out of them and they still read 12.45

[Joe_Way]

lynndiwagon wrote:

2oldman wrote:

lynndiwagon wrote:
The Cross Country Batteries, in 24vdc, have a really low reserve capacity. .

Where did you get they were 24v?

I read his post and he said " and the stock 2 24dc 85ah 12 volt" batteries. Cross Country does make a 24V battery. I did say "something is funky."

That's Group 24 Deep Cycle, not 24v dc.

[magnusson]

Update:
I went with 6 energizer gc2 6 volts wired in series/parralel, which gives me 690 AH. I charged them for 2 days on shore power prior to my trip and today I got 15 hours out of them and they still read 12.45 volts and 2/3 on my battery monitor. I havent setup my 2 100 watt solar panels yet either and im guessing with solar I should be able to hit 24 hours. The 2 24dc batteries that came with it felt really light compared to the golf cart batteries. I think next step will be 2 more 100 watt panels and a nice 4 stage "smart" converter. Thanks for the help.

[DanNJanice]

The first thing you need to do is get a clamp on DC amp meter, if you are not sure how to use it, ask on the forum. With the meter you can find out how much is actually being drawn from you batteries and figure out what to do next.
No need to run around buying more batteries, more panels, different converter, etc, until you know what is really going on.
Here is an example of one of the meters I am talking about.
http://a.co/5odrPea

[time2roll]

You are going to want to replace that WFCO to make this work off-grid.
Not replace the whole panel, just the converter that is in the lower slot.

This PD9270 14.8 converter will work great with your 4x GC2 batteries.

[jeepbluetj]

That's the model # for the distribution center (Breaker panel) - there'll be a converter/charger mounted behind it somewhere. It should be a WFCO WF-98xx series converter, which are less than optimal as a battery charger. Why? Cause the voltages it charges at are way too low. And I'll bet a beer that the cables from your batteries to the converter are long and undersized. RVs are built as cheaply as possible.

WFCO bulk voltage is 14.4v, for a T-105 Trojan recommends 14.82v. Then the WFCO drops to 'absorb' at 13.6v where big deep cycle batteries want to keep that voltage at bulk level until current drops off. Float for the WFCO is 13.2v where a T-105 wants 13.5v. Couple the difference in charge voltage with the fact there's likely a pretty good voltage drop in the wire from the converter to the batteries - you'll get perpetually undercharged batteries. (Why PT said it can take like 160+ hours to get to a full charge)

I've used a typical golf cart battery for comparison, but 13.2 is IMHO still too low for cheapie G24s.

The solution is solar und a bigger battery bank, and a much better charger if being able to charge from generator/shore is important to you.

[Sam_Spade]

magnusson wrote:

Im looking at solar panels now. If I hook up directly to one battery with alligator clips will it charge all 4 of my batteries?

It depends on how they are inter-connected.

You REALLY need to find the 12 V tutorial and read it.

At least a basic understanding of electricity is needed......and a meter.

[magnusson]

time2roll wrote:

magnusson wrote:
I have no clue where my converter is.

Open the breaker panel and look for the model number.

WFCO Model WF-8930/50

[time2roll]

magnusson wrote:
I have no clue where my converter is.

Open the breaker panel and look for the model number.

[2oldman]

magnusson wrote:
sorry typo, 120ac units I meant. .

I'm guessing your inverter powers the refer and only the refer.