Battery drain

[hbrady]

Another rookie boondocking question. DW and I are in the midsts of a 5 night boondocking trip at a state park in Northern Maine. We have a Champion 3100 Inverter / Gen and my wife is getting really tired of me running it. Here is the issue, night one, no issues, night 2 and 3 the battery drained dead by 4am. The only thing running at night is a 12v fan and the fan associated with fridge. I have fridge on propane and everything else is turned off. The camper's 12v battery is only about 14 months old. Yesterday I ran the generator for about 5 hours total (2 hours just before bed) thinking that would get us through the night but only got me 6 hours. Also, I run it in economy mode. Is this typical or could I have a battery issue. I'm guessing a fully drained battery takes 10 hours or more to charge fully with these crappy WFCO power distribution centers but wanted to see what others thinking before I invest in a better charger or dual battery setup. Thanks!

[ktmrfs]

hbrady wrote:
Thanks all (well, almost all). It's amazing how quickly you can learn from those who know. Frustrating when search doesn't answer question first but I'm glad there are some off you who remember what it's like to not know everything. Just took a 1.5 hour trip to get the best 15 amp deep cycle charger I could find and I have it running off inverter. I'll probably invest in better technology next year since this is our only 2017 dry trip. The $800 'quiet' inverter is pretty annoying to listen to but luckily my neighbors are a good distance away and we are in heavily forested area, only DW scowels at me.

a 15A charger will likely be better than the WFCO, but still will take a long time to recharge a battery. 50+ amps is much better at the start.

Heck, I stuff 110A at the start into my bank of 4 GC batteries and 60A into the pair of GC on my small trailer. eventually tapes down, but does get them to 80 or 85 percent SOC pretty quickly.

[hbrady]

Thanks all (well, almost all). It's amazing how quickly you can learn from those who know. Frustrating when search doesn't answer question first but I'm glad there are some off you who remember what it's like to not know everything. Just took a 1.5 hour trip to get the best 15 amp deep cycle charger I could find and I have it running off inverter. I'll probably invest in better technology next year since this is our only 2017 dry trip. The $800 'quiet' inverter is pretty annoying to listen to but luckily my neighbors are a good distance away and we are in heavily forested area, only DW scowels at me.

[stevenal]

Make sure the anti-condensation heater strip on your fridge door is turned off.

[Mel_B_]

lanerd wrote:

jyrostng wrote:
one choice is to buy a real charger and plug it into the generator.

Even with two batteries, it will take even longer to charge with your built in charger. I doubt your getting a full charge with your current setup, the battery lasted a few days on a full charge.

x2

With your current setup, a regular battery charger connected to your generator will charge your battery much, much faster.


Ron

Not wanting argue but I would at least upgrade to a progressive dynamics smart converter over a portable battery charger
Mel

[lanerd]

jyrostng wrote:
one choice is to buy a real charger and plug it into the generator.

Even with two batteries, it will take even longer to charge with your built in charger. I doubt your getting a full charge with your current setup, the battery lasted a few days on a full charge.

x2

With your current setup, a regular battery charger connected to your generator will charge your battery much, much faster.


Ron

[Mel_B_]

I have 400 watt solar system 4 Interstate 6v golf cart batteries and a 2000 watt inverter/charger. And a 3400 watt remote start dual fuel champion generator. We are on our 10th day dry camping at the ocean with a 5 and two 10 year old grandkids. I run too led tvs kids games lights you name it. I'v only started the generator one time in 10 days for 15 minutes, because the kids wanted a microwave pizza or something. My batteries will run the microwave but 15 minutes is a bit long. Bottom line is I agree with your wife, the generator should not be run everyday. All you need is good batteries, solar and you're set.
Mel

[Lwiddis]

"my wife is getting really tired of me running it"

Not as tired as the campers near you are. My solar is running...hear anything? Need to refuel? Nope. Check oil? Nope.

[Fubeca]

My guess is that you have a marine/deep battery that is not in good condition - plus a charger that can't charge it fast enough to make much of a difference when boondocking. You likely need both a better battery/batteries, and a better way to charge the batteries.

[Sandia_Man]

That is our preferred method of RVing, at the minimum a pair of 6 volt golfcart batteries is truly advantageous, purchased our current pair from Samsclub and they are less expensive than most car batteries. At this point your 12 volt battery has already begun it's final descent into uselessness since draining to such low capacity translates to early and imminent failure, not a biggie as we all started out our RVing escapades with a single 12 volt jar from the dealer. Golfcart batteries can take repetitive deep discharges and readily bounce back making them ideal for this type of RVing.

When camping off the power grid best results are achieved using a multi-pronged approach. Once a quality set of batteries have been integrated into your 12 volt distribution system, a converter with proven smart charging technology is critical to the equation. Unfortunately, WFCO doesn't fully go into bulk charging mode where 14.4 Vdc or more are required to get batteries up to around 85-90 percent threshold in a couple of hours of genny runtime. Talk with Randy at BestConverters.com for and easy to swap out upgrade that will make your batteries very happy.

Since you have a Champion 3100 inverter generator it's apparent that you intend to do more RVing off the power grid. We have the remote start version and it has handled every item on our rig with ease, very efficient but not something you want to run just for recharging or watching TV. Adding solar can significantly reduce genny runtime for recharging depleted batteries, about 100 watts per battery will net you full batteries by sundown, sooner if they aren't too depleted. With our inverter we can use our HDTVs, HD Satellite, Bose and Bluray gaming system, among other portable devices.

[ktmrfs]

I strongly suspect the real issue is the WFCO charger. I have yet to see one that will set voltage above about 13.6, which means charging current around 10 amps. not the 40 or 50 they claim.

step one. get a PD drop in replacement.
step two, if you dry camp much get at least 2 12V batteries, or a pair of 6V.

with the above combo, you will get 40-50 A into the battery so you can get it to 85 percent or so charge in a few hours.

[Triker33]

You should only let the battery to discharge to 50% and then start charging it at that state.
A signal 12V battery usually doesn't have many AMP's to start with. 2 deep cycle 6V batteries will have much more.

If you want to boondock for several days at a time and not run the generator as much. Invest in some solar power panels.

Or Sebago Lake and Camden Hills state park has electric hookups. 🙂

[jyrostng]

one choice is to buy a real charger and plug it into the generator.

Even with two batteries, it will take even longer to charge with your built in charger. I doubt your getting a full charge with your current setup, the battery lasted a few days on a full charge.

[korbe]

We use our battery exclusively while dry camping and first thing I did was to run all my 12-volt things while my battery was connected through my amp meter and determined how much everything used. Those numbers, along with knowing the state of charge of my battery, allows me to generally have a handle on how long the batteries will last and also if something is wrong.

You may want to get a volt meter and find out if your battery is fully charged. One big battery draw that could go undetected is the switch at the frig that I believe de-humidifies the frig/freezer.

[Lenny_K]

If you plan on boondocking a lot get yourself at least two 6 volt deep cycle batteries. You are right about it taking a long time to get a battery fully recharged using a generator or any other method as far as that goes. You are also right about the crappy WFCO converter. You could replace it with a good Progressive Dynamics converter or a high amp battery charger. The best way to go is with the new converter. Regardless, if you let your battery go dead as you did it takes a long time to get it recharged.

Or get solar.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

It's been mentioned on this forum a thousand times.

A WhiffCo is a power pole princess Hungarian Movie Actress. Ask it to make a sandwich and you'll starve. It would take that "thing" 35 hours of gen run time to fully recharge the battery.

Like starting your car engine to listen to the radio.