Chassis Battery Charging

[Woody]

After finding the wiper timer running I thought I had my 24V problem solved but when trying to start yesterday - no luck.

I suspected the batteries as one had failed after after only 4 months last February.

Panterra had installed 4 Autocraft deep cycle marine batteries when I bought the coach in November of '09.

This time a second battery had a dead cell, found this after buying a battery load tester- good investment.

Advanced Auto Parts replaced the first one and gave me 40% on this one.

If I have another failure I will replace all 4 with ???????

[truk4u]

Woody,

Lifeline is the answer! I have been supplying batteries to Poggers since December and everyone has been happy with the cost and service. If your still coming to PSL, we could talk about then.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Woody,

Truk is not giving you the full correct answer because he likely doesn't want to be perceived as pushing his product. Since I am not selling batteries and have no dog in the fight here is something to be aware of.

Batteries should be changed in sets. Your new battery mixed with older ones is going to create a situation in which none of the batteries are going to perform as required over the long term. Battery manufacturers go so far as to recommend when replacing sets the date codes on the batteries all need to be the same.

Regardless of what you choose to do I would suggest you monitor the batteries in question. My chassis batteries literally go for months without being charged or losing substantial voltage. I recently had a 3 month span between trips, the chassis batteries were not turned off and I still had 25.0 volts at the chassis batteries. If your voltage drops measurably over night or even over a week start looking for phantom loads and try to determine if you have any why they might be pulling down the batteries.

[Woody]

Thanks Jon and Truk, I'll see you at PSL.

[gmcbuffalo]

What do you think of using deep cycle in a engine starting capacity? Those marine batteries may have marginal cold cranking amps to turn over that engine.
Greg

[truk4u]

At 32 degree's, Lifelines start battery is 950 cca vs 750 cca for the deep cycle. You probably can't tell the difference in normal starting operations.

[LNDYCHT]

I personally would not use anything but start batteries for chassis batteries. In a hard start situation starting batteries hold up much longer. Our starting batteries are always being charged when the coach is running. The alternator should have enough capacity to handle all chassis loads, the batteries should act as a buffer for loads and storage for starting. When the coach is not running generally there are no loads on these batteries. Cranking batteries release energy quicker and also accept a charge faster.

I don't know about the U.S. but in Canada cranking batteries are considerably cheaper than deep cycle. I sell around 250 batteries a year, we sell East Penn starting batteries and have had good luck we used to sell Exide and had a lot of returns.

I recently replaced all my 18 month old chassis batteries because of one bad battery. In my experience replacing just one doesn't pay off as when they have been connected together they are really just one big battery.

Just my 2 cents worth

[chtree]

Guys,

I have a real good friend that is interested in a CC Affinity and he asked if the CC service was back up and running. I was hoping you guys had some info I could pass on to him.

Thanks in advance, :-)

Chris

[truk4u]

Chris,

Ron Lee has the facility up and running and they are doing maintenance, repairs and troubleshooting via phone for a fee. It's been a hot topic on the CC Forum and at some point in the future, building new coaches is back in the plan. You can have your friend contact me about the Affinity, the Magna I have is an Affinity without some of the frills.

[travelite]

I'm puzzled why converters don't provide a dash controlled solenoid that joins the house banks with the chassis bank so that everything is kept topped up by the inverter/chargers. Blue Bird has been doing this for years. Recently I was viewing a 2007 coach, I asked the salesman to deploy the slides. He had to first start the engine so that the alternator could supply the load required by the slide-out motors. I questioned this and he said it's by Prevost's recommendation. In this situation, my BB's chargers would kick-in as much as 280 amps to supply the chassis power needs.