Had a weird issue last trip.First off, I am running 200 watts of solar into two Costco Golf cart 6v Batts.
Batteries were on a maintainer for over a month prior to this trip. We spent a week at the coast earlier this month,, Rain and wind is the best weather we got. I was still able to pull five amps of solar out of the worst clouds.
Anyway back to the problem.I noticed my battery voltage was dropping off slowly in the evening, they would go from 13.5 to 12.2 in a few hours, We were at a No hook up area so we were depending on my batts for power.
I wanted to watch a dvd movie but the inverter and tv/dvd combo (35 watt draw) would draw the batts down to 12.0v, I didn't want to go lower than that so I shut the tv off, batts came back up to 12.3 but slowly began to drift off. In the very early (O dark thirty) hours they were at 11.8v just before solar got enough to start charging again.
Second night I ran the Generator for three hours after dinner and got the batts up to 14.4, Shut the gen down and got to watch the movie I wanted to see, Batts were down to 12.3 again. and held at 12.0 thru the night.
Next morning we got a clearing and the batts were getting over 9 amps out of the solar early in the morning to top them off at 13.9. I checked water level and they were good, I confirmed direct battery voltage and confirmed solar panel voltage was correct ( all I was able to do at the camp site). Later in the day the wife asked me if I could hear the constant high pitch wine some where in the trailer.
(30 years of firefighting and all I hear is a constant slight ringing from years of sirens), told her Nope don't hear it.
That evening the batts did the same thing and shed voltage slowly and constantly (no tv that night either).
Next day the wife was taking the trash bag out of the can under the sink and yelled that she found the whine!(Not the Chardonnay)but she was pointing at the water pump under the sink.
Sure enough Once I got on my hands and knees I put my ear as close as I could and it had a very low high pitch electrical whine!!
Panel switch for the pump was off!! Turned it on with no change, I pulled a red wire off of the front of the pump with no change, re attached, pulled the other red wire off the other side of the pump and the whine stopped!
Re attached and it started whining again.. Nothing else I could do at that point.
Disconnected that wire for the rest of the evening and used bottle water for our needs, Batts remained at 12.6 for the night!! Watched TV the next night with out an issue,, Batts again held at 12.6 for the night..
Now to figure out Why I have a parasitic drain from the pump with a whine like that?? Even with the pump shut off!!
Has anyone ever run into this issue?? Is the pump bad?? It works just fine! Do they short out??
