Battery Question

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gps42

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Apr 20, 2017
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I just brought my new travel trailer home about 10 days ago and parked it in the backyard.  Have not managed to go camping yet.  About all I have done is to try out the furnace a couple of times to make sure it worked OK and monkey with the radio a little.  Last night when I left the camper, I pushed the "battery check" button and only 1 light came on.  Can the battery drain down that fast?  Today I went out and pushed the button and no light came on.  So, I drug out the cords and plugged the camper into 110 volt.  Then I again pushed the button and all 4 lights came on, although obviously the battery was not charged yet.  Is this normal?
 
It was fully charged when we left the dealer, and if I understand things correctly, the battery should have been charging thru the pickup wiring harness on the way home if it was not already fully charged.
 
With it plugged into 110 Volt AC and you check the lights, it will sort of indicate full charge but that's false. You are actually seeing the converter, doing it's job. You'd have to check the battery when not plugged into shore power.
Check the water level of the battery if it's a wet cell.
Is this a new RV covered by a warrantee?
 
If it was a new battery, it probably didn't have a full charge.  The vehicle wiring is so small, you will not get much of a charge while towing.  There are several parasitic power draws on your camper.  Radio, LP gas detector, are just two.  Yes, they will kill your battery in a week or 10 days.  If you don't have a battery disconnect, you need to install one.  You can also pull the negative battery cable but that is kind of a hassle. 

When the 120 volt wire is hooked up, the converter is charging the battery and will give a full charge reading on your meter even though it is not fully charged. 
 
So, apparently most people either leave their RV plugged in all the time or disconnect the battery as was suggested above.  If the battery is disconnected does this not cause some problems with all the electronics incorporated in RV's of today?
 
Perfectly normal for a travel trailer with only one battery, both the draining that quick, and the lights showing normal when plugged in. There's a good chance that the dealer installed a marine dual purpose battery, and they aren't equal to a true deep cycle battery. Also, running the furnace is one of the largest loads on a travel trailer. The blower motor eats up the battery's capacity pretty quick. As was stated above, when you plugged in to shore power, the reading you were looking at was the voltage being put out by the converter. To avoid battery drain you can either stay plugged in to shore power, or disconnect the battery to help prevent drain. You can disconnect by unhooking the negative lead off of the battery, or install a disconnect switch on the negative side of the battery. If your battery was that low, it will take hours to get back to a full charge. Unfortunately, you may have have damaged the battery by discharging that low. If you're just weekending with the trailer, the battery probably isn't hurt too bad for that use.
 
Furnace is a major battery sucker

Last night.. (I am parked at a truck stop so noise is no issue, no such thing as "Quite Hours" here) I ran Genny till midnight, 5am I had to restart as the low voltage alarm was beeping,.

I hgave over 2x the original capacity in the RV
 
gps42 said:
It was fully charged when we left the dealer, and if I understand things correctly, the battery should have been charging thru the pickup wiring harness on the way home if it was not already fully charged.
I am not sure of your TV but I was unaware that my 2010 Ford F150 did not charge my TT until after the Fuse adapter that was located in my glove box was installed. I found this out when I tried to hookup at the dealer after the TT had been sitting in their yard for about a month and when I hooked up my cord I still could not use my electric to raise the TT. The mechanic came over asked if I had installed the fuse and installed it and immediately was charging the battery and raised the power jack.
 

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