Batteries Discharging?

[lewpopp]

Paul,

You must tell these guys that you are at Marathon Fl. and not at Liberty. This a very important piece of the puzzle. Jon thinks you are in Stuart at Liberty.

I have not heard anything about the PDI process that everyone insists on before leaving the lot. Paul, PDI does not mean "Put Diesel In".

This coach is a lot higher tech than my vintage. Good luck. None of these guys will let you down.

[phorner]

Very good point, Lew. So far, the PDI process has been going well. The coach had a good once-over by the staff here at Marathon, and they're responding to any and everything that pops up as we are using/living in it.

Of course, this just HAD to occur on a Saturday, just to make my weekend a challenge....

But the good news is that so far, after turning both inverters off, then back on, the batteries have charged and appear to be staying up.

The morning will probably tell the tale....

Of course, I'd much rather have it display these symptoms when the tech's are here to check things out.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

OK, I thought you were at Liberty Paul. I don't know how your house batteries are. Check their age and if they are approaching 5 years they might be nearing the end of life. I don't think your problems were due to a battery failure, but a failure to keep them charged.

Specifically the Liberty panel is set up with separate 120V circuit breakers for the inverter and battery charger. All four switches have to be on. Plus the switch on the small panel has to be on.

The small panel will verify AC power in, and it will tell you the battery voltage and the charge rate. It sounds like you had shore power on both legs but maybe the battery charger circuit was off or something needed to be reset in the Heart panel.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

You mentioned your overload light was on. This has happened to us too. Very simply the inverter on ours is not capable of running everything that is wired through it simultaneously. Like the toaster and microwave together or other similar scenarios. When we error the overload light comes on and we have to reset. Our battery charger also will not function with the overload light on. It is a Heart 2000.

On ours we have to watch the inverter amp. gauge and keep it under 22 or so.

There is also a circuit breaker on the inverter itself. When it trips everything that is wired through the inverter will not work.

[phorner]

Thanks for everyone's input and help. After turning the Heart inverter panel switches off, then back on, the batteries appeared to be charging based on the load displayed on the panel.

This morning, all guages read normal, and the house battery voltage is 13.5 volts, so this looks good.

So, it would appear, that the problem was a failure of the battery chargers to charge the batteries at some point. The dealership confirmed last week that the batteries had been load tested and appeared fine.

Next, I'm going to check to see if the full battery charge "resolves" the other symptoms that I mentioned earlier.

I'll keep ya posted...

[Joe Cannarozzi]

You mentioned that you were showing 40amps on both legs with nothing on but the chargers? That is way more than our charger pulls when in full charge rate. It's more like 15amps.

I may have misunderstood. Was that 40 amps the charge rate or the draw?

[dalej]

Paul, I bet it will. These bus's like to be used, it helps keep the systems working better. If I don't use our bus for say two months or so, I always expect a little problem or two, mostly It's me though, forgetting the simple and obvious things.

[truk4u]

Paul,

I would not just accept the fact the batteries where load tested. In order to do it properly, they have to all be unhooked and checked independently. If they are Lifelines, look at the code stamped in the case near the terminals. I recently posted on how to tell the age by the code numbers. I had great service at Marathon in San Antonio, but on a 2000 Coach, if the batteries haven't been changed, your looking at a bunch of money.

Just another thought on your charging issue... If you had a loss of shore power even for a micro second, the inverters would kick in and if you had lots of heavy loads going, you could get the overload problem.

[phorner]

That's a very good point. I wasn't here for the battery test, so I don't know first hand how it was done.

Another quick question, what exactly does the "DC amps" guage on the Heart inverter panel indicate? Is this the rate of charge for the inverter/charger? Or, the DC load that the inverter is handling?

[dalej]

DC or direct current is the amps that are being pulled from you house batteries. Has nothing to do with the AC side of your bus.