Battery Replacement Assistance

[jawsthemeswimmi]

I am ready to replace my travel trailers factory installed group 24 rv/marine battery. I briefly searched the forum/internet and found a lot of good info but still wanted to post the question with my exact circumstances here. We have a 2016 Forrest River Flagstaff 23LB travel trailer. Most of the time, we camp with shore power. However, there is at least 1 time a year that we camp dry. With the factory group 24 we haven’t been satisfied. Mostly, the 1 time a year we camp dry is in the early fall. We want the ability to use the lights at night (sparingly), the on demand water pump for dishes and showering, and the fridge for a 3 day camping trip. Our fridge will run on propane but from what I’ve read the control board still needs 12v for power.
Would a true 12v deep cycle battery accommodate this? If so, what brand/model do people recommend? If not, what other recommendations are there? I know of the 2 x 6v golf cart battery setup but would that be overkill for once a year? I appreciate any help!

[time2roll]

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
Sorry for the long delay. I found the info on my battery charger (I think). I looked in the fuse box and found the following model info:

WFCO
Model WF-8955PEC

Hopefully this helps?

Yes I lost track of this myself.

The 8955 is widely know to just charge at 13.6 volts and will undercharge those new GC2 batteries over time. I recommend the Boondocker replacement converter. Far better even if mostly plugged in.

http://www.bestconverter.com/BD-1245-MBA-45-Amp-4-Stage-Main-Board-Replacement

[Harvey51]

So when testing for parasitic draw, do I connect the multimeter to the battery? If there's parasitic draw how do you know which device it is coming from?

You don’t know where the current is going and risk damage to the meter. I lost a range on one of my multimeters when checking a lady’s car that way. The draw was a few mA until she leaned on the car - her under-hood light went on and the meter went off.

Now I always use a DC clampmeter to measure current. No chance of damaging the meter on an RV, and the measurement is nearly as accurate as a multimeter.

It is possible to detect a current going through a fuse by measuring the voltage across it. Zero current will have the full battery voltage across the fuse. If there is a smaller voltage then check the current with a current meter.

[opnspaces]

To find parasitic draws you can pull fuses one at a time and see what happens on the meter.

Hook up your meter and let us know what your draw looks like.

[opnspaces]

Yes. Most multimeters have two ports for the red (+) cable and one port for the black (-) cable. You always plug the black cable into the black port for negative. For the red cable you use one red port for measuring amps (draw) and the other red port for all other measurements. Probably the easiest thing to do is you're not sure is measure the voltage of the battery using both ports until you know which one reads around 12 volts. Then disconnect and move to the other red port for measuring draw.
To measure draw you would

• Get two test leads with alligator clips on them.
• Unplug the trailer from shore power.
• Disconnect all the negative cables from the battery.
• Set your meter to measure amps (draw).
• Using one test lead connect the alligator clips from negative terminal of the battery to the negative terminal of the meter.
• Use the second test lead to connect the all negative wires that you disconnected from the battery to the red lead on the meter.
• You should see how many amps are being drawn from the battery.
  

One caution, do not turn on the furnace or other high draw devices or you may damage the meter. You should though be able to run the refrigerator and water pump and some lights and see what kind of power you are drawing.

My trailer at idle when boondocking pulls almost a half amp which I think is a bit much.

[jawsthemeswimmi]

opnspaces wrote:
Troubleshooting parasitic draw is usually in how you connect the test leads to the meter. For the amount of draw you are dealing with you can just run the trailer power right through the meter. Your meter should come with a basic instruction sheet for how to use the test functions. If not or if it's confusing, post us the make and model and we can help.

So when testing for parasitic draw, do I connect the multimeter to the battery? If there's parasitic draw how do you know which device it is coming from?

[ScottG]

One little cheat we use for instances like this is to leave the tow vehicle hooked up so the trailer can run partially off your truck battery for the first night. This assumes the charge line stays hot when the truck isn't running (Dodge & GM = yes, Ford = no). It's unlikely you'll run it down appreciably and you could even run the truck while you shower and keep the battery charged.

[travisc]

I’ve seen the noco battery box at Walmart for $10 we were going to upgrade my brother in laws trailer to dual 6v but realized there wasn’t much space on the trailer tongue and it would add quite a. It of tongue weight , he was already near capacity on the tow vehicle. We bought a bigger box and went to a group 31 battery. Make sure you check the water levels in the battery and read up how to maintain it.

[opnspaces]

Troubleshooting parasitic draw is usually in how you connect the test leads to the meter. For the amount of draw you are dealing with you can just run the trailer power right through the meter. Your meter should come with a basic instruction sheet for how to use the test functions. If not or if it's confusing, post us the make and model and we can help.

[allen8106]

Contrary to what some have posted a true deep cycle battery will do exactly what you are trying to do because I'm doing it.

We have two Crown 6 volt 240 ah batteries (180 ah available capacity) and run my wife's CPAP, television, refrigerator on propane, lights, charge our phones and laptop and run the furnace as needed. The batteries are at about 65% plus or minus by morning and re-charged to 100% by 1:00 -2:00 in the afternoon.

[jawsthemeswimmi]

I'm getting a multimeter to troubleshoot possible parasitic draw. How do I go about doing this? Is there a good resource to use?

opnspaces wrote:

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
If I went with the 2 6v is there anything else that needs to be done to accommodate other than wiring them in tandem?

You need one additional wire to hook the 6 volts in series. Icing on the cake but not required are 2 new 6 volt battery boxes and POSSIBLY a new charger.
Link to 6 volt battery box
Link to a battery cable
And a strap to make adding and removing the 6 volts a heck of a lot easier.
Link

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
Our current setup lasts less than 24 hours with the fridge, on demand water pump, and minimal lights. I think we were given a bum battery by the dealer when we originally purchased. It tested fine but we’ve had nothing but issues.
Maybe it is parasitic draw? Or something else? I’m not too handy with electrical. Is there an easy way to troubleshoot this?

You mentioned the fridge, water pump and lights. If that is all the power draw that you are aware of then yes the battery should last a few days and you have something else drawing down the power. If however you are also running the furnace then that is your big draw. Typically people figure one night of furnace for one battery. So if you have two batteries you should get two nights of furnace. Of course the real determining factor in battery longevity is how warm you set the furnace at night. If it's set for 73 degrees your going to drain the battery a lot faster than if it was set to 63 degrees.

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
The 2 x 6v setup sounds nice, but we only use it once a year. My TT is a 2016 and does have LED lights. We definitely don’t need the furnace on battery.

If your trailer is a 2016 there's a decent chance you already have a 3 stage charger. Did you get any paperwork with the trailer, maybe an owners manual for the power center with all the fuses and circuit breakers in it? that will probably give at least a model number that we can look up to help you out.

As far as troubleshooting your battery draw. The easiest way is with a digital multimeter. Even a cheap one $7.99 from harbor Freight (free with the right coupon) will help. If you have or can borrow a meter we can help you use it.

And here's a link to a recent battery discussion which has diagrams for hooking up 6 and 12 volt batteries. Link

[Flapper]

For basic use, the charger you have will be fine. Yes, there are better built ones on the market, but just increasing either the size of the battery or going to 2 6v may only mean that your current charger will take longer to charge. Yes, it will fully charge the batteries - but may take a few hours more. I've used the stock WFCO chargers for several years now with 6v batteries.

My old Jayco did have a "glitch" with 2 6v, however. They saved money by using smallish wire from the converter to the battery. And protected it with an in-line fuse. If the batteries were deeply discharged, the converter tried to supply more current than the fuse could handle, and it would blow. Per the master tech at the dealer, the cheap solution was to buy a resetting circuit breaker. It just plugs into where the fuse goes. If it blows, it automatically turns itself back on and charging continues.
My current Grand Design has "beefier" wiring and fuse, so that has not been an issue.

[jawsthemeswimmi]

time2roll wrote:

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
I am ready to replace my travel trailers factory installed group 24 rv/marine battery. I briefly searched the forum/internet and found a lot of good info but still wanted to post the question with my exact circumstances here. We have a 2016 Forrest River Flagstaff 23LB travel trailer. Most of the time, we camp with shore power. However, there is at least 1 time a year that we camp dry. With the factory group 24 we haven’t been satisfied. Mostly, the 1 time a year we camp dry is in the early fall. We want the ability to use the lights at night (sparingly), the on demand water pump for dishes and showering, and the fridge for a 3 day camping trip. Our fridge will run on propane but from what I’ve read the control board still needs 12v for power.
Would a true 12v deep cycle battery accommodate this? If so, what brand/model do people recommend? If not, what other recommendations are there? I know of the 2 x 6v golf cart battery setup but would that be overkill for once a year? I appreciate any help!

2x 6v is not overkill and is for many a basic minimum for off-grid camping. Possibly get 2x G27 from Costco/Walmart but you will not save much or anything.

Next issue is your charging system. Many trailers have a converter that just does a trickle charge and you lose capacity from chronic undercharging. Post your converter model for best answers.

Or the battery is often left to discharge in storage between trips giving permanent capacity loss.

Factory stuff generally is not really up to snuff for operating off-grid for more than 18 hours.

Sorry for the long delay. I found the info on my battery charger (I think). I looked in the fuse box and found the following model info:

WFCO
Model WF-8955PEC

Hopefully this helps?

[jawsthemeswimmi]

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:

opnspaces wrote:

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
If I went with the 2 6v is there anything else that needs to be done to accommodate other than wiring them in tandem?

You need one additional wire to hook the 6 volts in series. Icing on the cake but not required are 2 new 6 volt battery boxes and POSSIBLY a new charger.
Link to 6 volt battery box
Link to a battery cable
And a strap to make adding and removing the 6 volts a heck of a lot easier.
Link

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
Our current setup lasts less than 24 hours with the fridge, on demand water pump, and minimal lights. I think we were given a bum battery by the dealer when we originally purchased. It tested fine but we’ve had nothing but issues.
Maybe it is parasitic draw? Or something else? I’m not too handy with electrical. Is there an easy way to troubleshoot this?

You mentioned the fridge, water pump and lights. If that is all the power draw that you are aware of then yes the battery should last a few days and you have something else drawing down the power. If however you are also running the furnace then that is your big draw. Typically people figure one night of furnace for one battery. So if you have two batteries you should get two nights of furnace. Of course the real determining factor in battery longevity is how warm you set the furnace at night. If it's set for 73 degrees your going to drain the battery a lot faster than if it was set to 63 degrees.

jawsthemeswimming428 wrote:
The 2 x 6v setup sounds nice, but we only use it once a year. My TT is a 2016 and does have LED lights. We definitely don’t need the furnace on battery.

If your trailer is a 2016 there's a decent chance you already have a 3 stage charger. Did you get any paperwork with the trailer, maybe an owners manual for the power center with all the fuses and circuit breakers in it? that will probably give at least a model number that we can look up to help you out.

As far as troubleshooting your battery draw. The easiest way is with a digital multimeter. Even a cheap one $7.99 from harbor Freight (free with the right coupon) will help. If you have or can borrow a meter we can help you use it.

And here's a link to a recent battery discussion which has diagrams for hooking up 6 and 12 volt batteries. Link

Thanks for the links, I’ll check them out.
Correct, there will be no furnace use on battery power.
I’ll check when I get home later on the paper work for the power center. If not, where would I find the charger? I’m not sure what/where they are usually located? I’d like to put eyes on it to verify the model number if that’s possible.

Sorry for the long delay. I found the info on my battery charger (I think). I looked in the fuse box and found the following model info:

WFCO
Model WF-8955PEC

Hopefully this helps?

[prichardson]

What make and model refrigerator do you have? Many have a heat strip between the doors to prevent sweating. This is in the 12 VDC circuit and is a high draw item. On some it can be turned off.