cencerrita wrote:
jwcolby54 wrote:
Booner wrote:
After having my 23A for over a year I thought I would check in.
I haven't had really any negative issues with the RV until recently, and it concerns the house battery. It seems I haven't been giving the battery the love it deserves. CA said they put a new battery in the unit before I bought it, and the battery is a rather expensive battery (Lifeline 100 AH AGM), but since I can't find anything on the battery telling me when it was made, and I suspect that if the battery was "new" a year before I purchased the rv, it probably wasn't charged or maintained as it should have been.
When I first got the rv, I put a number of long trips on it, which should have fully charged the AGM battery. It's only been lately that I think it doesn't hold a charge as it should. But then, how I'm using the rv now has changed, With the cost of gas, I don't make the long trips anymore.
So I think either the battery has seen better days due to the way it's been used prior to my ownership, and/or the way I've been charging the battery hasn't done it any good. For example, I thought that simply driving the rv a long distance would fully charge the battery. No, the alternator will only give it a bulk charge; to fully charge the battery up to 100%, I need to trickle charge it for a couple of days. Who would have thought that?
For a while I've been researching adding solar power to help fully charge the battery. I've learned a ton of information on batteries and solar on the Sportsmobile website. I realize there's information available on various RV sites, but I found that after reading them, they didn't answer all of my questions. On the Sportsmobile site, all of the information I was looking for was in one spot.
the link-->https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/forums/f20/faq-s-battery-problems-and-common-power-calculators-1940.html
Hopefully, this link will help someone discover everything they need to know about how to take care of their house batteries.
Lead acid batteries of any type self discharge somewhat rapidly. When it sits, leave it plugged in if possible. If not have a solar panel charge it if possible. If not put a trickle charger on it. If not... just cruise in it every month.
I just brought the cheapest Walmart battery (now about $129) which has not been a problem over several years using solar and an invertor whilst travelling. leaving in storage with a 10w small solar charger for 5 months whilst in Europe I had the battery go flat. Ever since I used to disconnect it from the vehicle terminals and the small solar charger worked.
There is always some parasitic draw unless you disconnect your battery terminals. I'm not aware of Cruise America (for example) RVs having any battery disconnect switch. Your propane/Carbon monoxide detector is always on at a minimum, but there are usually some other phantom draws. I haven't looked recently, but my battery monitor seems to show between -.1amp and -.3amp at night when I think I have everything off. (I have solar that charges during the day). A 10w trickle charge likely will not even keep up with this small parasitic draw. A minimum of 50w (100w would be better) would be a great start to keep your batteries fully charged during months of storage. But if you are going to put 50-100w of solar on your roof, you might as well put 200-300w for not much more and then you'll actually have some boondocking capacity (assuming you aren't power hungry when you camp).
Good luck!
Chris
