Battery surprise!

[jelmore]

Jon and others,

Do you know about "power sharing"? I've always had a bit of a hard time getting my head around charger, inverters, batteries, amps and voltage but I'm coming along. In the dip switches, there's one that controls power sharing and from what I read, if enabled, you can set the charge rate to unlimited and the charger will adjust how much is going into the batteries based on the AC loads, and that is supposed to keep the breaker from being overloaded. Do you know about that power sharing feature or do you use it? I like what you said about fire the generator and get the batteries back up quickly, but I think the way I (and you?) have the inverters set up, one provides a fair amount of charge and the other only a small amount. If power sharing works as I described, the Liberty's instructions of unlimited power available to the charger makes sense. I guess it's easy enough to try, it would just be a tripped breaker. I just haven't done that.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

When checking the batteries immediately after a charge they will show a higher voltage than they really are. You have to wait 3 or 4 hours after the charge cycle is over to give them sufficient time to rest and come down to the actual voltage.

I have charged batteries 1 at a time and a bad battery will really show up if you check it the next day, occasionally some dropping 2 or 3 volts overnight.

The longer you let them rest after charging but before checking the more definitive results you will see.

Kinda tough to do when your living on board and moving around every other day.

If your house is 12 volt you can unhook 1 at a time from the bank and still use everything. You may have to buy 2 longer battery cables so you do not have to remove the batteries, so when you disconnect one of the middle ones you can re-hook the 2 on either side of it together.

Be careful wear gloves and glasses

[jelmore]

Never mind on my comments. I just reread the manual and am confused again. On the Freedom 25 units, there's also the issue of how they are wired into the source AC that affects power sharing.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Jim,

The power sharing phrase has been used in many different contexts. I have given up on trying to determine what it means.

Some coaches are set up so the inverters "know" how much shore or generator power is available and the inverters adjust their current draw for charging so as to not trip a shore power breaker. But not all coaches are set up that way, not all inverters have that capability and not everybody considers that feature power sharing.

Adam's inverters and remote panels sound exactly like what mine has and if I am correct he has to manually set rates of charge. He has no control over which inverter is doing the battery charging. It could be one or both.

[adamdegraff]

Jon,
it does sound like we have the same set up. If I do go ahead and do an equalization, could I do it with the generator only? That is... that manual says it takes 8 hours. Could I just turn the gen on before I go to sleep, flip the #1 switch on then off to trigger an equalization, let it do it's thing and see what the verdict is tomorrow? I do NOT have gel cells. I have 6, 4D Lifeline AGMs. They are a bitch to reach. Even to unhook all the cables would be a multi-hour, warm weather job. Something that won't be in the cards for a while. For now, the best I could do would be to re-inspect for tight, corrosion free connections and, advice pending, run an equalization, and, make sure after that, that my dip switches are set for the proper charge. I just assumed that since Marathon replaced the batteries, that they would have set the inverters up correctly. In fact, I know that the previous coach batteries were also Lifelines. That is not to say thought that the settings were correct.

Am I correct that to check the remote panel switches, all I need to do is unscrew the panel and take a look? I'm a little afraid :-)

~Adam

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Adam you may be learning maintenance cycles here. It is getting close to a year now. That overnight may help with the gen as you questioned. If not you need to check your batts. Is the house 12 volt?

You went from being pretty good to terrible in a matter of 60 to 90 days (some pretty good record keeping too) That is a sign of a possibly bad apple in the bunch.

I would want to know if there is a week battery in the bank dragging the others down. If there is, the earlier you yank it the less harm it does the rest.

I think full timing as you do, frequently on Batts, isolating and then load testing each one separately at once a year should be on the list.

[phorner]

Adam,

If your remote panel looks like this one, it is simply a matter of removing the four screws to pull the panel out. The dip switches are found on the back.

Real easy. You'll need something small to flip the tiny switches into position.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Paul, would you please post a picture of inverter no. 2 panel.

Thanks JIM

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Jim,

The two panels in Paul's, yours, mine etc are identical. What would the second picture show you?

Adam,

.....the inverters don't care or know the source of power so your plan to run the generator makes sense. While access and removing cables may pose a problem it is something that is ultimately going to have to be done. It will be nice if equalization is the silver bullet, and it is certainly the easiest thing to try before going any further, but if it fails to work you or someone will have to access the batteries, remove the cables and do a test.

As a practical matter if I were in your shoes this is what I would do. Run the equalization, and then reset the dip switches to suit your particular situation. If the batteries are still prematurely losing power then testing for a bad battery in the set only pinpoints the issue. It will not change the next step.

If you have a bad battery the entire set needs to be replaced anyway. So who cares which battery puked? Replacing one battery is false economy and Dale Farley did an excellent piece of research that he posted a while back (after Spearfish) that you might wish to review.

Once you decide the batteries need to be replaced you can shop the market, determine which batteries to purchase (each type has its advantages and disadvantages) and figure out how and when you will get the job done.

Unlike my case where a failed battery is something I can deal with at my leisure, and I can test to see if I can learn something (won't change the required response) you depend on your batteries so you need to react sooner rather than later otherwise you are going to end up nursing a sick set of batteries.

[truk4u]

Adam,

If you do any battery or cable removing from the house batteries, make sure you first unhook the ground wire to the Equalizer that is behind a panel in your battery bay. Regardless of what anyone tells you, it's a nightmare to just remove the cables one at a time for load testing in your Marathon. The fact they're hooked in series/parallel makes getting the cables in the proper place is critical. I changed out all my house and gen batteries in my Marathon and it was a BIG job, something you wouldn't want to do in a campground. If you get near north GA anytime soon, stop by and I'll help you out, but we would have to get Jon to fly down to do the heavy lifting.

IMG_0263_1.JPG
Yours proably looks like this....