House Batteries

[garyde]

I came home this afternoon and smelled the depressing scent of batteries gassing off. My Batteries are new lifelines. So, after checking everything on the inverter/chargers, I decided to turn the system off for the night.
Lifeline manual says a small amount of gassing is not unusual but I have never smelled anything before today with these new batteries.
I lost power to the Coach about a week ago and everything was drawn down but I have not had any other problems.
If anyone has additional information, I would appreciate some input or I'm faced with getting in there and testing each individual battery.

[jack14r]

Joe,I was out of town yesterday and could not answer,You asked what would be my voltage without AC or heat in the AM,I really don't know,but if it is cool enough on any of my next trips I will find out.Liberty has said that they will help with the watchdog to get it set up to auto start at 24 volts and I will also try to get it to turn off after 3-4 hours of run time.I will determine that after a few more trips.

[TG Transport]

I can concur with the same experience that both the Liberty and Marathon owners have had. The Watchdog on our Liberty was a source of periodic frustration which we had fixed on several occasions. I ended up writing some of its performance off on the age of the 1994 coach technology. Bottom line on that bus was that Autostart did work if you left the coach unattended for a significant period of time. Yet while we were in the coach I tended to run the genset to coordinate with our power usage and sleep schedule. AC would not run unless on shore or generator power anyway so battery life was as much as 12 or more hours merely running refrigerator and a few lights.

Currently I let the Marathon kind of do its own thing unless we are camping where there are specified hours for generator use. Batteries will run AC up to 2 AC units somewhere from 2 to 8 hours much like Jerry stated. My batteries are 2 years old and I am starting to see a very slight decrease in stored capacity. This thread has got me thinking about set points but in my past discussions with Marathon they have been pretty confident with their stock settings. I am open to any comments which would increase their lifespan....

[Richard Barnes]

Richard,

If your doing the work yourself, just call Lifeline, tell them your a POG member and they will ship them to you. If you have the work done by some shop or dealer who also sells you the batteries, you will obviously pay more.
I thought you were near Atlanta according to your screen address, so I know you won't be visiting.

I'm in Southern California now but will return to Atlanta late June. I'll do the work then. Thanks for the info.
RB

[Ray Davis]

Richard,

Where are you in SoCal? I'm sure many of the local guys would love to get together and meet up with you.

Ray

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Towson where does your Marathon auto-start, lower than you are comfortable with?

That mark is a moving target. If the draw is great you can go deeper between charges than if the draw is minimal.

If you are just running 1 light for security during outdoor storage you would want it kicking in right at 12.2 but if you are regularly running a couple of a/c's on them they can get down into the 11's safely.

That point should be able to be conveniently adjustable to some degree.

[0533]

Richard here is the contact and pricing for Lifeline:

Yes we do offer special pricing to POG members.

Normal retail cost for the GPL-4DL is $466.59 + shipping

POG Member price is $380.45 (freight included)

Let me know if you need any more assistance.

Thank you for contacting us.

Best Regards,

Justin Godber
Lifeline Batteries
955 N. Todd Avenue
Azusa, Ca 91702
Tel - 626-969-6886 x 221
Fax -626-969-8566
Email - justin@lifelinebatteries.com
Web - www.lifelinebatteries.com

[Jon Wehrenberg]

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.

Take this with a grain of salt because it may not apply to all Libertys.

My Watchdog has a voltage sense wire that runs through a 1 amp fuse. It is located on a multi fuse block on the LH electric compartment side panel. Assuming from Jack's post the generator run is a timed event rather than one controlled by a battery voltage such as 27 (or 13.5) volts then the Watchdog start voltage can be adjusted by an addition of a resistor that will convert and actual voltage of XX to the lower value that starts the Watchdog. Someone with electrical skills beyond mine can figure the resistance value required, but it should be an easy thing to do.

[Richard Barnes]

Richard,

Where are you in SoCal? I'm sure many of the local guys would love to get together and meet up with you.

Ray

Ray, I'm in Long Beach and I work here M-F and then fly home to Atlanta on the weekends (when I can). I'd love to meet up with folks here as would the lovely Mrs. Barnes when she comes out. I keep the coach in Long Beach except for work related travel or weekend get aways. We just returned from a weekend in Yosemite.

RB

[Richard Barnes]

Richard here is the contact and pricing for Lifeline:

Yes we do offer special pricing to POG members.

Normal retail cost for the GPL-4DL is $466.59 + shipping

POG Member price is $380.45 (freight included)

Let me know if you need any more assistance.

Thank you for contacting us.

Best Regards,

Justin Godber
Lifeline Batteries
955 N. Todd Avenue
Azusa, Ca 91702
Tel - 626-969-6886 x 221
Fax -626-969-8566
Email - justin@lifelinebatteries.com
Web - www.lifelinebatteries.com

Thanks for the info. I'll be in touch with them. I really appreciate it.