House Batteries

[Richard Barnes]

Anyone have pictures of house batteries for a 98 Liberty?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Do you have a Classic or Elegant Lady? Are they behind the small rear door on the passenger side or are they in the center behind the entertainment center?

[Richard Barnes]

Do you have a Classic or Elegant Lady? Are they behind the small rear door on the passenger side or are they in the center behind the entertainment center?

Center behind the entertainment center.
Thanks, RB

[truk4u]

Richard,

Here ya go, current work in progress... Jump in the car, come to Waleska and you can see them in person. Do yourself a favor and buy Lifelines with the POG discount. These junk Deka's only went 3 1/2 years.


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[jack14r]

Truk,I think that I might have an answer for why batteries may not last in our Liberty's.If your watchdog is like mine it will not auto start until the voltage is below 22 volts,this is well below 50% discharge.I have asked Liberty what can be done to bring the auto start up to 24 volts,I should have an answer soon.I understand that Liberty does not want its customers to be awakened by the gen starting or stopping during the night,the watchdog is programmed to run for 6 hours after a low voltage auto start,it doesn't matter if the batteries are charged in 3 hours the gen still runs for 6 hours.What I really don't understand is the newer coaches have outback inverters (which are user friendly)which will perform all of the auto start functions and interface with the Crestron system,but Liberty still uses the Watchdog to preform the auto start.If Lifelines are drawn down to 22 volts I doubt they will last any longer than the Gells.

[rodburtonmusic]

Ok...so needing to replace my house batteries as well. I have 4 of them on my Executive...and I don't have any sort of auto start. Is that a difficult retro fit? What's the best way to go on the house batteries? These pictured look just like mine...

[lewpopp]

Truk,

Did you have them shipped in from up around Charlotte? I'd do that but to get them off of the truk when it arrives.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Jack if you run your gen for 3 hrs right before you go to bed what will the voltages be in the morn? (excluding a/c or heat)

[truk4u]

Jack,

I don't use the autostart for that very reason and sure wish is was adjustable. The Deka's are AGM, Marine. Mine kicks on at 11.5, but will not turn back off because it's looking for a voltage thats higher than my 13.1 float. Not sure if Brian used it much, but I doubt it. I use 12.2 as the manual starting point. The batteries were so bad while at the Charlotte race, we just came back home and postponed the remainder of our trip up north. The equalizing I did a few weeks ago only helped for a few days and then they were back to 12.4/12.5 as soon as I took off shore power or the gen. I knew this day was coming, but I just put it off hoping to get one more trip in, but I have too much dry camping ahead of me for weak batteries.

My experience with Lifelines have been very good and 5 years is a good benchmark. I completely agree with you that the autostarts low voltage start point will shorten battery life. It's hard to figure out, lower voltage starting over the life of the battery would result in fewer cycles than starting at 12.2. It's all about cycles, so is more better?

Lew - Yep, shipped from Charlotte to my warehouse...

[BrianE]

Tom, To answer your question: I never used auto-start. As you said, 11.5v isn't a place you want to be for starting to charge low batteries. I disagree on your opinion of the Dekas however. The battery installation in the 40' Liberty was woefully inadequate in my opinion. Additionally, Liberty's support and assistance of the Watchdog system was very poor. The combination didn't give those batteries a chance to reach their expected longevity. Would suggest now is the time to add a fourth battery (as we've discussed) and contact Magnum and Powertech tech support for assistance in removing the Watchdog and using Magnum's user programmable built in auto-start feature.

As you know, I truly enjoyed the experience of owning the Liberty. The overall design, quality, and livability of that coach is superb in my opinion. It's incomprehensible to me how such an otherwise fine coach was equipped with such a poor dry camp capability. Thanks for giving me an opening to vent my spleen on this sore subject.