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Darrell,
I suppose the way a person uses the bus has a lot to do with the longevity of the house batteries. My experience has been the 5 year magic number seems pretty close. My Marathon was a 97 and it had new lifelines in 2002 and then I had to do them in 2007 and they were toast. My Liberty may be close to the 4 year mark (I'll have to check the log) and I know I'll never make 5 years. We will probably be dry camping for close to 2 weeks out of the next 30 days and I'll let you know if the equalizing had any lasting effect.
If your not into dry camping, maybe you could get 6, 7 or 8 years out of them because you wouldn't care if they drop off in between hook ups.
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Just to change the topic a little.
Today I started the genset and turned on the converters on the main interior electrical panel. The house batteries were sitting at 12.9v and converters usually start to charge the batteries but today nothing happened until I turned on the range and one of the a/c cruiseairs, and only then did the converters start charging the batteries. It seems the generator or converters need to be excited before they start to charge the batteries...... does this sound normal.
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Darrell,
On my 87 if I turned on the converters they reacted right away.
If I was using my inverter (not inverter charger as most coaches have now) it had to be excited by a current draw. It would not power a shaver for example, so to insure it would always come on we left the 120 Volt AC lamp on in the living room.
I am not real clear on my memory of how the converters were connected to the house batteries so this is a guess. On my 87 the isolator between the chassis and house batteries was a relay that looked like the big solenoids that were mounted on the firewall of old cars. That had to close to allow charging of the house battiesis when the engine was running. I can't remember if it had to close when sensing converter output. In any event that solenoid was a high service item as it would hang up frequently.
But having said that, at 12.9 volts with no charging current going into the house batteries they are fully charged. The converters may need a small voltage drop before they resume charging. This is something you just need to monitor and may be normal.
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Jon, I was thinking the same thing. The batteries were fully charged, or close to it. The batteries need to drain to activate the charger of the converters.
But it seems it only does this when the generator feeds the converters. Switching to shore, the converters react immediately and begin to charge and no load is required to stimulate the charger. These are 3 brand new xantrex 80A converters installed last September.
My inverter is a 2000 watt Magnum that I have kept from my last motorhome. It works very well and it has a great controller to set the parameters. It only has a 30A transfer switch but has a 100 amp three phase charger. I would like to connect this to the the power sources because I feel the charger / controller is superior to the 3 converters I have and being used as chargers.
Your comments.....
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Our 87 had two 12 volt converters for the house, one 24 volt converter for the chassis batteries, and a 2000 watt inverter.
We had to turn a big black knob manually to select the source of AC power.
The bus was nowhere near as user friendly as our current coach with two inverter chargers that I never turn off. When the coach is not being used it is connected to power in the garage and the inverter maintain the batteries.
My point is that as functional as the original coach was (and trouble free) it can't come close to using inverter charger(s) with an automatic transfer switch. If you ever choose to update your systems that is definitely the way to go. The ease of operation is like night and day.
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Truk, sorry with the change of direction of this thread, but I just gotta know.
Jon, as mentioned before, I upgraded the converters last year. I also took out the old inverter and replaced it with the 2000w magnum inverter / charger with auto transfer switch and controller. This inverter is presently only utilized for the selected 120v appliances in the coach supplied by the D/C house batteries. I would like to connect this inverter up to A/C power to take advantage of the charger and controller.
Question; Here goes the madness. I would like to connect this to the AC power. The connection would be made to the same output A/C source (wiring harness) as fed to the converters. Will this cause issues. The converters and the inverter would be receiving the A/C power from the same source and would be both trying to charge the house batteries. Can they back feed each other and would this become a major issue... damage to either the inverter or the converters????
This electrical stuff gets a little complicated at times.
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On our coaches (all years, all converters I think) it is common to be charging batteries from multiple sources simultaneously.
For example, all of us have had our coaches powered by shore power or the generator and at the same time we have been running our engine. When doing that our inverter chargers or converters are maintaining the charge on the house batteries, while the alternator is doing the same. When that occurs the charging source with the highest set point is actually charging the batteries once they are at maximum voltage.
When modifying the coach electrical system the DC side can have multiple battery charging sources, but the AC side of the electrical system can only have one source supplying power to the AC panel at one time. When an inverter powers certain circuits in the AC panel those circuits are isolated from the other circuits, including the circuits powered by a second inverter if so equipped. The reason for isolating electrical circuits so no two AC sources can power the same circuits is related to phase issues.
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Darrell,
No problem on the thread... I have 2 Magnum's that Brian had installed and they are simple to operate and work great. Curious as to what the cost would be for you to dump the converters, add a 2nd Magnum and utilize the full capabilities of the inverter/charger functions?
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Jon, that's good news because I didn't know if I could or not connect the two charging systems (converter / inverter). A/C source can only come from one outside source at a time... generator or shore. The control is located in the A/C panel (black selector). On the A/C panel is the breakers for the converters also.
Truk, when I purchased the coach last year, one of the converters was toast. The old converters had no thermal protection and were late 80's technology. So I replaced all three converters with three brand new xantrex 80A RV converters. Simple install, no changes to the wiring and maintained the original liberty design. At the same time, I had the 2000 watt magnum /controller / auto gent start. So I removed the original 2000w pac inverter to upgrade to the magnum. The function of all 120V appliances are working great as designed through the inverter but I am not using the inverter charger to its full capacity because it isn't wired in to charge the house batteries.
The thought crossed by mind to fully intergrade the inverter, and even stack inverters, to upgrade to the newer technologies like the late 1990 designed coaches but this is where I am challenged. I believe there would be a nest of wiring / harness changes that would be very costly. I can do a lot myself but ..........
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Darrell, to integrate the inverter/charger will require you to get 120 volts AC from your 120 volt panel back to the inverter.
The circuits that are now powered by the inverter must be isolated from the AC panel bus bar. You will need a minimum 30 amp 120 volt AC cursuit (and likely a 50 amp) to come from the panel to the inverter. When 120 volt AC power is sensed by the inverter the inverter becomes a battery charger and maintains the charge on the house batteries. When the AC power is available for the inverter, the inverter transfer switch sends that power to the circuits powered by the inverter.
As soon as AC input power is removed from the inverter the batteries become the source of power and the inverter provides 120 volt AC power to the inverter supplied circuits.
The key to remember here is that you MUST isolate the circuits powered from the inverter from the rest of the 120 volt panel bus bars. Any power to those circuits, even if on shore or generator power must come through the inverter transfer switch.
If you do not understand the how and why there are some good sources on line to understand how to hook up inverters. This will be a fairly significant amount of work, only lessened to a degree if the 120 volt panel in your bus is over the electrical bay to make fishing wires easier.
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