86 Glendale Sterling, Gel batteries

[kuziwk]

Hey guys so I bought this motorohome with 130,000KM on it. There is only one deep cycle battery under the hood with an allanson charger converter. The pervious owner had installed a small solar panel maybe like 50 watt with a module that maintains and charges the battery. I have been given 4 gel batteries however I have not found the best way to hook these up. There are two storage locations on the driver side outside the motorhome which may work. The most obvious is the space nearest to the engine bay where the generator would go, however I would like to install a generator in here. I found another spot which would work under the rear master bed which is also where the charge converter is. How would I wire these batteries up to the charge converter?

I was thinking of just hooking this up to the distribution panel and than getting a separate solar charger since the charger converter charges at 40 amps in 120 volt mode and the gel batteries I understand should be charged at 5 amps. The other option which is a pain is running 0AWG 28 FT back to the engine bay to the deep cycle battery under the hood. The downside is when plugged into 120v, unless I install a switch and turn it off when plugged into 120v. Does anyone have suggestions?

On a side note each gel battery weighs about 80 LBS, should I be concerned about added a 350LBs generator in the front compartment and 320 LBS of batteries near the end of the unit under the bed? Willthis make driving unstable?

[kuziwk]

So I contacted Allanson and they were able to send me a wiring diagrams of the unit I have. It's helpful but what I don't understand is the two red power leads and negative wires coming out of the unit. I would have figured there would only be one of each but im assuming there is two one for each of the motorhome battery (starting and house) ?

At any rate there does not seem to be any way to hook any additional batteries up to this thing without it charging when plugged into 120. It appears as though the wires that power the unit from the battery are also the ones that charge the batteries. Am I wrong?

Im not sure how good this unit is but it has some sort of microchip that is supposed to prevent overcharging of the battery...seems sort of a hoax in a unit built in 1986 and im not sure how well it works...I guess I will report back with a multimeter and see what what the volts are.

[kuziwk]

I suppose that's true...the switch would be very simple I just would have to remeber to disconnect the circuit via a switch whenever on 120v and engine running. Perhaps I should just settle with one extra deep cycle lead acid and call it a day.

[samven1]

I think you would be smart to keep the two battery types separate. You could design a switch circuit to keep things isolated under certain conditions and connected under others but the wiring and complexity would be substantial and when the gels finally go bad you will have to buy new gels or tear it all out and start over and believe me if you have not priced gels lately you really dont want to go that route.

[kuziwk]

Well I just tried to pull out the converter box but the cable is too short to even pull it out. You will have to excuse me since I'm typing on my phone with a 5" screen. I'm very confused on how to wire up the additional gel batteries since I'm not sure which wire powers the unit with some 15 amp auto bus fuses, and than on the left of the box there is a separator with the 120v circuit breakers and what not. Either way it would have to be taken apart from the front. Does anyone own a glendale sterling with the allanson 40 amp converter that knows where the distribution block is?

There has been about two previous owners of this motorhome then screwed with the wiring so no colors match and it's very confusing. Does anyone know if there is a device like a toner that will help for rw90 electrical wiring?

If I can't figure this out I'm going to install another single deep cycle battery in parrarel to the house battery under the hood which would power my subwoofer going behind the driver seat. Than take my four gel cells and install them in the generator compartment, wire them in parrarel. After which I can either install a switch or simply use jumper cables to the deep cycle my sub is running on when I need more capacity. I would still need to buy a solar panel and most likely a 120v gel charger and charge the gel cells separately.

[n7bsn]

I don't like WFCO's reliability, but it's probably better then the simple bulk-charger the rig has now.

I'm still not clear your final concept, the stream of consciousness paragraph is leaving me confused.

The 12V fuse block is usually either with the 120V breakers or the converter. But designers can't be trusted, it could be almost any where.

You could put an AGM under the bed, or anywhere, at any angle. But again it's charged like a wet-cell.

Are you planning to add an inverter? If so the gel's could be used to run that and the wet-cell the lights/water pump. This would mean two 12V "banks", but then you could have one that is gel and and then is wet.

[kuziwk]

Converter is not an inverter, the solar charger is suitable for gel as I checked. To be clear there are two batteries under the hood (the one for engine starting and the one for house/Deep cycle). Its a huge pain in the rear that they designed this RV with only one house battery and its under the hood with no additional room, at any rate this house battery was the one I was referring to. I think hooking up the solar panel to a couple gel batteries than hooking up these parallel will be bad since the vehicles alternator when driving will be charging the house battery and will also attempt to charge the gel batteries if I plug these into the house battery, connected to solar. I would buy a lead acid battery however I would not install this under the bed due to the ventilation requirements. The best idea I have come up with is to hookup the gel batteries under the bed with a separate charger and solar system, than plug these directly into the motorhome's 12V distribution block. Where can I find the distribution block? Would it be under the bed with the small circuit breaker panel and charge converter? Or does this need to be plugged directly into the charge converter somehow? If so how can I plug these batteries into the charge converter without having them charge when im plugged into 120V? As mentioned I wish to charge the gels with solar

On a side note im also looking at changing the converter to a used wfco wf-8835 smart charger.

[n7bsn]

kuziwk wrote:
Would it be safe to tie a battery or two in line with the solar panel charger as this would be the easiest...than this would hookup to the battery under the hood and all the batteries would equalize with each other?

The battery under the hood (engine) should -not- be a gel-cell. The vehicle charging system could wreck a gel-cell.

You can't hook regular/AGM batteries and gel-cells together, it just doesn't work.

What kind of regulator is on the solar charger? One for regular/AGM?, if so, you really shouldn't used it to charge your gel-cells.

[n7bsn]

kuziwk wrote:
Yes i understand that...that's why I'm isolating it from the 120 charge converter. My.question is how do I hookup these batteries to the 12v system in the rv and the 120v inverter to just provide power and not charge?

Is your converter also an inverter?

[kuziwk]

Would it be safe to tie a battery or two in line with the solar panel charger as this would be the easiest...than this would hookup to the battery under the hood and all the batteries would equalize with each other?

[kuziwk]

Yes i understand that...that's why I'm isolating it from the 120 charge converter. My.question is how do I hookup these batteries to the 12v system in the rv and the 120v inverter to just provide power and not charge?

[n7bsn]

True Gel batteries (ie not AGM) are not compatible with AGM/Wet-cell chargers. I'ts not the amps, it's the charging voltage.

charging a Gel== 14.0 to 14.2V (float==13.1 to 13.3)
charging a AGM== 14.4 to 15V (float==13.3 to 13.8)
charging a "regular"== 14.4 to 14.9V (float== 13.1 to 13.4)

So, if you are using real gel-cells and charging them with an regular or AGM charger, you will fry the batteries

I can't really address you weight question