Norcold 12cu Drains Battery on LP

dougrainer wrote:
GDETRAILER, Why are you arguing a point? The plain fact is Analogs when on Genset are NOT ACCURATE. Digitals are. My take is, if you are too ignorant to understand 110/120 nomenclature, maybe you need to take a RV online course or get a RV for dummies book. ALL RV owners need and understand how to use,
Digital multimeter
12 volt test light
120 digital plug in meter
12 volt digital plug in meter
Understand 12 volt readings for batteries and understand the various voltage readings to determine battery condition.
LAST, READ THE MANUALS THAT COME WITH YOUR RV. Very few do this. Doug

Doug, while I generally respect your knowledge and opinions, I do feel you are stepping quite a few notches out of being respectful (as a side note..been noticing a lot of your posts elsewhere have been not so nice lately).

I can't help the fact that SOME Analog meters may have excessive inaccuracies.. But you must understand the not ALL are inaccurate as you have broadly painted.

When dealing with "Joe public" (which I have), often you need to be able to dial down "techno speak" to something they can understand.

Myself, well as an Electronic Tech for better than 30 yrs working on consumer and industrial electronic and electrical stuff, I do have a very good handle on Analog and digital volt meters.

There are places where digital volt meters are not needed nor wanted, DVMs sometimes will have way to fast reaction time making troubleshooting difficult or impossible to do due to the fast voltage spikes they show.

Some things simply do not need "Fluke" accuracy..

120V stuff IS one of those, we are not splitting hairs over tenths or thousandths of a volt.

It is generally accepted as "normal" for your "line voltage" to be 120V as the nominal voltage. Normal acceptable voltage range allows for +(-) 5% voltage change.

+(-) 5% of 120V is +(-)6V so OPTIMAL "GO" range is 114V-126V

Most equipment designed to use 120V AC is designed for worst case operation of +(-) 10% or +(-)12V which is 108V-136V

Normal non inverter generators are typically set to run slightly faster when unloaded, resulting in a slightly higher voltage of 122V-123V which is well within normally acceptable 5% range.

When loaded the engine RPM sags and the resulting voltage sags under 120V, typically 118V..

And as I pointed out in a previous post, there ARE other Analog 120V plug in volt meters, lots of other brands to chose from.. They do have something called a "search engine" on the wobbly web which you can use to find alternative non Camco products.

And no, I not a big fan of Camco products, it was the first one to pop up when I searched..

All you had to do is simply point out that their (customers) gen voltage is fine and their meter is a bit off on accuracy and if they see the meter go well into the red they need to get things checked out professionally. It is far better to error on the safe side.

Most folks if you showed them a digital readout of 108V-136V they simply would not know what that means (nor do they care) other than they have electricity..

But show them a visual representation which has a green is good and red is bad and they instantly can make the connection of where they stand.