Battery question

The house batteries have a button so you can check how well they are charged. There is a solar panel hooked up to these to keep them charged. A very nice feature, I think.

The coach battery also has a check button. I was checking them today and it said the coach battery was down to 1/4 charge. I don't remember seeing it so low before. I started the coach up and let it run for about 5 minutes and then turned it off. It said the batter was fully charged again. 1/2 hour later I checked it and it was back down to 1/4 charge again.

Is this a bad thing? I know the coach can jump start itself off the house batteries, but is having the charge so low something I should be concerned about? The battery date says Sept/06, so it isn't too old. Or is it on a MH? I can't think of anything that would drain them that fast.

Basically the battery is not taking a charge.  Remove the battery, take it into a battery store, get them to test it.  I have had to replace my batteries before and they were only a few years old.  Check for a warranty as you could get a new one FOC

It also could be the terminals need cleaning -

Oh and take a picture of the battery configuration before removing any cables

Jason

Couple of comments...I would not expect the coach battery to drop that much in 30 minutes, nor charge from that point to fully charged in 5 minutes.  Although the battery is less than 4 years old,  if it has been sitting uncharged for extended periods of time, it may be sulfated and essentially "shot."  I'd follow Jason's suggestion and take it to a battery place that can "load test" it.  Normally they like it to be fully charged (or as fully charged as you can get it) before load testing.  If you have a portable battery charger, you might want to hook it up overnight to get a good charge into it before the test.

Here is some additional useful info for you....the coach/chassis battery is likely not charged by anything except the engine running.  This means that even with shore power or generator running, this battery is "on its own."  Normally, a healthy coach/chassis battery should be no different than that in a car and should go for several weeks and still  have enough oomph to start the engine.  Second,  the solar array atop your RV won't really keep the house batteries charged.  The reason being that the parasitic loads on the house batteries (these are circuit boards/memory in the refrigerator and furnace and water heater, along with propane and CO sensors) are in excess of what you can get out of the array.  However, if you have a battery disconnect that removes the house batteries from the 12 volt onboard system and IF this solar array remains connected to the house batteries in the "disconnected" condition, then it will probably go a long way in keeping them topped off (charge-wise) while you're not using it.  My guess is that the array is on the order of 10 watts and at 15 volts, that equates to about 2/3 of an amp charge rate.

1/2 hour is not long enough to put much charge on the battery and at 1/4 charge.. I'm surprised the coach started.

I'd put a portable charger on it for at least a couple of hours and then check it... if it fails to hold a charge.. Good chance it's failed.

NOTE: on my coach every couple of years the battery goes bad... Or seems to... Only it's not the battery... It is a bad connection where Workhorse or Damon used the wrong type of connector (Wire Terminal) and I just need to crawl under and clean, clean, clean.

Went out this morning and the coach battery was on zero and the house batteries were only a 8 (normally 11.8-12.5). When I opened the door the steps only creaped open  I didn't try starting it yet and plan on taking the coach battery to get checked today. But in the mean time, this doesn't sound good. I've never had the house batteries drain like that over night, even with stuff on. I'm not staying in it yet and there isn't really anything on that could drain it that fast.

I'm a bit worried now because I'm leaving for a cross country trip on Sun and know the dealer won't see me today 

Your battery voltage is very low. 12.6v is the rated full charge level but you say yours are often down to 11.8v. That's only a 30% charge level.  Is your coach plugged into shore power or are you relying on that solar panel? Most such solar panels are quite small and connected to the chassis battery only. It probably isn't doing much for you.

If the coach is not plugged to shore power, run the generator for 2-4 hours to let the coach's built-in charger bring the batteries up near full charge (or as close as they will come to it). With the generator running, you should see at least 13.3v on the battery indicator. After you shut the generator down, let it sit for a couple hours and then check the battery voltage again. Should still be in the 13.3-13.6 range. If not, I suspect you need to replace the batteries. 4 years is not young.

If the coach is already plugged to shore power, then your charger isn't working.

Just went out and it started up instantly  ??? Everything went to 100% and now looks normal. If it wasn't for the steps going in and out like they were on slowmode, I would think it was a gage problem. I'll see what it looks like when I get back from breakfast in an hour or two. This started only yesterday morning before I made the original post. Everything seemed normal when I took it on a long trip last week.

I've checked the connections and they all seem pretty tight and clean.

Any ideas?

Edit.....the coach is not plugged in. I did run the generator yesterday when I was checking things over and it did read over 13v when running. The dealer said I could just leave the battery switch on when it was sitting around and it would be fine. Until now I've had no problems. Are they wrong or did I mis interpret what they said? Should I be turning the battery switch off everyday if i'm not fussing with it?

As soon as you start the main engine, or 30 seconds after the generator comes up to speed, Or within 1 second of plugging in to shore power.. You should see the voltages (battery meters) all go to 100%

What it's reading is the alternator (Main engine) or Converter (Generator/shore power)

This does NOT mean the batteries have instantly come up to full power.. that take hours.. Likely 2-3 hours to hit 90 percent and then 4-6 to completly fill them.  So keep it powered for a full day if you can, Shore power is best for this.

I'll hook it up to shore power today and see what happens. If things aren't fully charging by the AM, I'll have the batteries checked out. The coach battery is a 72 month and it seems to have been purchased in sept/06. It should have a bit more life in it. The date codes were never peeled off on the house batteries so I have no idea when they were purchased.

Could leaving the battery switch on while not doing anything with the coach drain them that fast? Like I said, no problems until yesrday and it was a sudden drop in voltage, not gradual.

There is always a "self discharge" power loss, even with the battery switch off. With the switch on, there will be more small loads and yes, the batteries will discharge faster. In some coaches, in just a few days, while others may last weeks.  I've got a lot of electronic gear in mine and the batteries are significantly down in about 5-6 days because my background load is over 2 amps. That's 2 amps x 24 hours x #days or using up about 1/3 of one of my big Group 31 batteries each day.

I can see the house batteries being drained because of the draw from all the little gadgets, but would it draw off the coach battery too?

There are some loads on the chassis battery too, though probably fewer. For example, the automatic entry step usually runs off the chassis battery. Some of the dashboard stuff does too, even stuff that is not strictly vehicle instead of house.

Thanks for all the info. Learn something new everyday 

I've had the coach plugged into shorepower all day and the charge is back up to 13.4 on the house and full charge on the coach. Everything seems to be working as normal and I can stop being paranoid.....for now  :.

So much to learn, so little time.......Thank for all the help.

While fussin' around today, I also found where another "mystery switch" connects. The TV in the main room has a wierd aftermarket switch in an outside rear compartment than needs to be on to work. The TV is aftermarket installed in a new place. Now I need to figure out how to hook up a blu-ray player to it because it's been sealed in the wall  Another project for another day.....

Could the outside switch be for the coax input to choose between cable and satellite tv? In many rigs, the external coax input jack is wired straight to a tv antenna amplifier, so an alternate path is needed if you want to hook up an external satellite dish. There are a couple ways to do that and a switch near the coax jack is one of them.

RVs need to have alternate ways to do common things, so they are often full of switches to make that happen. Sometimes they are manual switches and sometimes they try to be automatic, but rarely is there adequate documentation to give a clue as to what they are and how they do their job.  Examples: the tv needs to be able to use park cable, OTA antenna, satellite, DVD and VCR inputs and (ideally) each tv needs the choice of which to use independent of the other tv. 120v power needs to be able to come from shore, generator or inverter or maybe even a combination of those. Battery power can come from either the house system or the chassis system, and battery charging needs to do the reverse.  Etc etc etc

Photo that weird switch please. as much of it as possible.

Then we can tell you what it is in all likelyhood.

I'll get a photo of the switch and where it is. It's in a really odd spot, but needs to be ON for the TV in the main room to get power. I never would have made the connection between the switch and the TV on my own. It doesn't seem to power anything else.....that I've found yet.....

The mystery switch is on the left. It looks to be coming directly off the 30A cord box and then runs a cable back into the RV some where...presumably to the TV. The TV is aftermarket and is in a different place than originally installed. This may be the reason for the switch. The white cord next to the 30A plug in on the right side is where it travels back into the RV.
(http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x112/in2adventure/IMG_9361.jpg)

Just another picture to show the rest of the power stuff in the compartment
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x112/in2adventure/IMG_9362.jpg

Somebody has done a lot of wiring on that beast - no telling what it may do. I think we have a couple of early 2000's Dutchstar owners here, though, so maybe they can help.

New tv in a new location probably means they needed a new circuit to power it but why a switch back there? And what else is in that switch box - it is an unusual type.
Was an aftermarket inverter added too? I see an Iota converter, but no inverter.

On the opposite side is an 800watt inverter that took me forever to find the other end of. It goes to the TV in the bedroom, but nothing else.

The funny thing is, when they redid the TV setup in the main room, they left all the connection stuff in the front over the passenger seat. The TV cables are run along the inside of the coach and hidden under plastic cable covers. There's no DVD player in it and I need to buy a new one. I went to Sears to check out Blu-Rays because the TV's are HD's and figured it would be a good investment. I learned a ton about wiring. To hook up a HDMI cable, it has to be directly plugged into the TV and no one makes a cable long enough to reach from the front to the back of the living room. Makes me wonder how they had theirs hooked up  ???

Maybe there's a DVD player hidden somewhere I haven't found yet 

Chris

Monoprice http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=109&cp_id=10240 has up to 100' HDMI cables. I've used the 50' in my house & they work fine.