fridge problem on gas / potential battery issue?
Hi all first post:
2006 Forest River Wildwood 23FBL travel trailer. Dometic refrigerator runs fine on electric (gas generator- no electric on site), unreliably on propane (sometimes works, sometimes not). I was thinking it might be that the two 12v deep-cycle batteries are starting to go, and that the spark igniter at the gas burner may not always have enough juice to generate spark. So Q#1:
1) Does anyone know what voltage the igniter needs to have to work?
It could also be a bad ground or bad igniter, but a new symptom seems to support the idea of batteries not providing enough juice: the batteries are quickly dying when I turn the generator off, even when it has run for several hours...and despite the fact that I have a 100watt solar panel in the system to keep the batteries topped off between generator runs. So next question seems to be what might be causing the batteries to discharge/fail. Perhaps they're just old (I bought this RV used one year ago & don't know when they were last replaced). But I also started thinking about parasitic drains, bc of course I don't want to put new batteries in and have them fail in a couple months. I would think it would have to be a pretty bad one for the 100w solar panel to not compensate for the drain. Then I realized something that might be a parasitic problem: I've installed a galvanized wire fence around the the camper, which does make contact with the ground and the frame (but only at the hitch, it's in contact with the body of the TT in other areas, and forms a little yard). So Q#2-4:
2) What's the easiest way to test if a parasitic drain is occurring?
3) Will that test work with the existing batteries if they're weak, or will I need to invest in good batteries first?
4) Could grounding the frame (to actual ground) through a wire fence cause substantial parasitic drain, eventually causing the batteries to not hold a charge?
2006 Forest River Wildwood 23FBL travel trailer. Dometic refrigerator runs fine on electric (gas generator- no electric on site), unreliably on propane (sometimes works, sometimes not). I was thinking it might be that the two 12v deep-cycle batteries are starting to go, and that the spark igniter at the gas burner may not always have enough juice to generate spark. So Q#1:
1) Does anyone know what voltage the igniter needs to have to work?
It could also be a bad ground or bad igniter, but a new symptom seems to support the idea of batteries not providing enough juice: the batteries are quickly dying when I turn the generator off, even when it has run for several hours...and despite the fact that I have a 100watt solar panel in the system to keep the batteries topped off between generator runs. So next question seems to be what might be causing the batteries to discharge/fail. Perhaps they're just old (I bought this RV used one year ago & don't know when they were last replaced). But I also started thinking about parasitic drains, bc of course I don't want to put new batteries in and have them fail in a couple months. I would think it would have to be a pretty bad one for the 100w solar panel to not compensate for the drain. Then I realized something that might be a parasitic problem: I've installed a galvanized wire fence around the the camper, which does make contact with the ground and the frame (but only at the hitch, it's in contact with the body of the TT in other areas, and forms a little yard). So Q#2-4:
2) What's the easiest way to test if a parasitic drain is occurring?
3) Will that test work with the existing batteries if they're weak, or will I need to invest in good batteries first?
4) Could grounding the frame (to actual ground) through a wire fence cause substantial parasitic drain, eventually causing the batteries to not hold a charge?
