Battery going out this soon?

[Yosemite_Sam1]

My camper trailer is just 6 months old. Did not saw reason to buy and install a 2nd battery.. Went camping for a week and battery never once discharged even on 4 straight days of use with no recharging.

This last few days, I noticed that lights dimmed even after I connected ihe RV to house outlet overnight where battery is supposedly fully charged.

Today I run the generator and when I left, I checked and it was 3/4 full. There is no extra load on the RV aside from the usual LED lights that I’m siure we’ve all turned off. And no one was left inside to trigger he running of water pump. But after 3 hours outside the battery indicator is flickering and none of the LED lights would turn on.

Yes, I have an extended warranty from Good Sam but want to check first if I’m doing something wrong that might have caused the battery to quickly drain.

[Dave_H_M]

Man i feel for you.

I just replaced the bat in my 5er. It had an 09 date on it.

[fj12ryder]

"Forgot too the conventional wisdom among scientists. That if you are finding solution to a problem, look at the simplest first. The advice I got, first, check the terminal connections if loose and 2nd, check the battery if it's gone bad."

Actually you need to check the converter output to the battery before you assume the battery is at fault. It may be shot now, but the base cause could be that it wasn't being charged due to the converter not operating as it should.

[time2roll]

Need a voltage reading or hydrometer to verify full charge.
Good chance the battery has never been fully charged and has sulfated.
Very common in part-time RV use.

The 12 Volt Side of Life

[Yosemite_Sam1]

Again, thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.

Learned a lot about batteries in so short a time. Forgot that we have an electrical engineer and someone who works on batteries (Tesla), lol.

Forgot too the conventional wisdom among scientists. That if you are finding solution to a problem, look at the simplest first. The advice I got, first, check the terminal connections if loose and 2nd, check the battery if it's gone bad.

And my problem indeed is the battery. As my in-house expert said, 2 to 5% of those will be bad right out of the factory floor -- and unfortunately, a few will not be detected in quality control and testing and will end up in our hands and mess up our time under the trees and with the mountains.

Lwiddis is right, batteries have life cycles and will die if it reach it's limit. Our RV's deep cycle batteries are meant to go on deep discharge, hence, the name, duh. It is not supposed to die or go bad immediately if it's fully discharged, but the deeper the discharge, the shorter the life cycle. Extreme heat is also the enemy and so as residues falling at the bottom and accumulating to touch plates.

And yesterday was the more difficult task. I must have made more than a dozen calls to the CW dealer, salesman, service department, Dutchmen (manufacturer), battery dealer... for anyone to honor their warranty.

In desperation, end of the rope post for, Ella/Ask Marcus. Wish me luck!

[ScottG]

You didn't get anywhere close to a full charge in two hours.

[Chris_Bryant]

You did not "get it full" in two hours of genset time, I can almost garentee .

[Lwiddis]

“and got it full in 2-hour run.“

Your battery was not filled after a two hour generator run. The absorption phase takes longer than that amount of time. How long after you stopped charging did you take the reading? How did you take the reading?

[shastagary]

the voltage gauge supplied in most rv's is not a good indicator of state of charge on your battery try testing it when the water pump is running and the battery has a load on it.

[shastagary]

if you had been recharging your battery every day and not let it discharge so deeply in the first 4 days you would not be having this problem.
you are damaging the battery every time you let it get that low evan at home in storage.

[Grit_dog]

Yes, doubt 2 hours took your battery from zero to hero.
Make a dedicated effort to fully charge the battery and then see what happens. This is more likely a case of not understanding your power usage and what it takes to recharge.

Or you may have cooked the battery and now it's weak.

[Grit_dog]

bikendan wrote:
you don't seem to know about the many parasitic power drains in modern RVs.
they can drain a single battery in just a few days, if not hooked up to shore power.
not sure what you're using to say that the battery didn't discharge for 4 straight days of usage, that doesnt' make any sense. any battery will lose power after that many days.

He means the battery lasted 4 days the last time camping and now won't even take a charge. But thanks for being critical of his explanation.

[pianotuna]

RTCastillow,

What converter is in the RV?

Do you have a volt meter or a multimeter?

A two hour generator run may not be enough to get anywhere near a full charge.

Did you check the shore power outlet to make sure it is working?

[Yosemite_Sam1]

Thanks everyone for the useful comments and insightful suggestions and recommendations. I’ll do those things you recommended once we’re back to civilization next week.

Meanwhile as an update, battery did retain some charge with the use of generator and got it full in 2-hour run. We did use it for lights and of course water pump in automatics. Shut all lights off by 10pm and by morning it’s down to less than 25%.

Again, I appreciate your responses and suggestions.

[Lwiddis]

There are legitimate reasons for exceeding the 50% “magic” number re DOD. An RVer doesn’t have room for more batteries and/or doesn’t want the extra weight but does not wish to reduce his/her electric use trades that decision for fewer cycles. Fewer cycles isn’t “damage,” it’s more “hard use.”