equalizer your house batteries

[terryweber]

how offen should do this. i have a 2006 prevost country coach note i have a g m batteries. life line. thanks 5194654101 terry

[truk4u]

Terry,

I've done the equalization of AGM's and didn't really gain much. Your nearing the magic 5+ year mark on your batteries and you should make sure they're fully charged, then unhook the cables and load test them to make sure they are still good. It's pretty easy on a CC because they put them in an easily accessible location and being 12v, they're in parallel. You may find one or more are already bad.

If you need batteries, I would appreciate a call.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Ditto what Tom said. I replace mine regardless of condition every five years and in between I never make use of autostart on the generator. The life of the batteries is reduced when they are deeply discharged and the number of cycles of charging changes significantly depending on whether they are recharged at a 50% level or allowed to approach a 80 or 90% discharge.

As they age there is a significant degradation in the amount of time from fully charged to a specific discharge when dry camping. I just run my generator a lot which is good for the generator and the batteries.

[jack14r]

Terry,I don't know what voltage Country Coach auto starts the generator but if it is like some of the other converters it is way too low,Lifeline does not want the battery discharged below 50%,when I replaced my gels with Lifeline AGM batteries I had a discussion with Lifeline and they suggested 23.6 volts as the auto start voltage,so I changed mine to that.You can usually change the auto start voltage in the inverter menu.If Country Coach was like the other converters they were at 22 volts or less.

[truk4u]

So Jack, they had you drop to 11.8 instead of 12.2 (23.6 or 24.4). That sure throws out our theory of not going below 50%, but will result in less cycles. I've had the same conversation with them and it seems like it all comes down to cycles.

[jack14r]

Tom,If the circuit is loaded then the voltage will be less,if you take the load off and measure the voltage after 2-4 hours you will find that the voltage is right at24.2-24.4.If I were to start at 24.2 it would really be at a much higher percentage than 50%.I am always inverting with at least 1 cruiseair running,if not I can adjust the voltage and it is unlikely that I will discharge them before I start the generator anyway.Try loading a set of batteries and then when they reach 23.6 volts let them rest and then measure the voltage every 15 minutes for several hours,I did and the Lifeline person that suggested 23.6 was right on target at 50% discharge.

[Prevost.Rick]

the batts are not at that voltage they are usually under load if you took all the load off you would see a much higher voltage,the trace 4000 was programmed mc2.2 by the orignal owner of lifeline when i was at marathon in 1995,it also has 4 different periameters and temp compenstion,the heart of course did not,and a after market auto gens looks at one voltage.that is why when putting in life lines you must put in warm wet setting not to over charge batt,s,and of coarse always look at the alt setting if to high for the old batt,s it could damage the batt,s in a matter of ten hours of constant driving.the equilizing done with bad batt,s well you can touch for temp,or smell,it was,nt used after 98

[terryweber]

thanks to all of you

[jack14r]

Tom,what dies lifeline say?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

"Conditioning/Equalizing Charge: 15.5 volts for 8 hours
Conditioning/equalizing should only be done when the battery is showing symptoms of capacity loss. If conditioning/equalizing is necessary, first go through the normal charge cycle. Once the battery is as fully charged as possible, start the conditioning/equalizing charge. "

From the Lifeline web site.