battery death over night

[shane102]

2002 Alpenlite camper batteries will go dead in approx 6-8 hrs.  while boondocking I have tried new batteries, charging old batteries and still will go dead over night with nothing on except the indicator light on the radio and the O2 sensor.  If I plug to shore power I get power to converter and 13.64 volts out of converter and 13.64 volts at batteries for charging.  All fuses test good on shore power and 12 volt power while not hooked to shore power.  While Boondocking if I put new batteries (fully charged) everything works great for 6-8 hrs then nothing will work and batteries are drained and need charged to work again.
Cant figure it out?????   

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Obviously there are more things "on" than you are aware of.  You need to put an ammeter on the battery ground connection and measure the current (amp) outgo. Or start pulling fuses one at a time to see what alters the amps.

 

[shane102]

copy, I will do that now

 

[solarman]

2002 Alpenlite camper batteries will go dead in approx 6-8 hrs.  while boondocking I have tried new batteries, charging old batteries and still will go dead over night with nothing on except the indicator light on the radio and the O2 sensor.  If I plug to shore power I get power to converter and 13.64 volts out of converter and 13.64 volts at batteries for charging.  All fuses test good on shore power and 12 volt power while not hooked to shore power.  While Boondocking if I put new batteries (fully charged) everything works great for 6-8 hrs then nothing will work and batteries are drained and need charged to work again.
Cant figure it out????? 

phantom loads.. like Gary suggests.

say you have a 12 V 100ah battery and it's discharged over an 8 hour period then
your unaccounted loads may be in the order of  12 V * 100 ah = 1200 watt/hours divide by 8 hours = 150 Watts

that's a hefty phantom load.. !!

 

[shane102]

yes, whatever is the phantom is drawing down battery quickly.

So, i tried measuring the current but got no readings.  Maybe you need to explain to me how to measure it.  I unhooked the positive lead to battery and hooked the red lead of meter to positive terminal of battery and hooked black lead of meter to positive cable of camper (no reading).  I also took black lead to negative terminal of battery which still had negative leads hooked up (no reading).  Not sure why I had no readings and I tried it several other ways also.  I should have seen at least .001 draw with nothing on.  ???????

 

[sightseers]

is there an Inverter hardwired into the battery leads ?

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

So, i tried measuring the current but got no readings.  Maybe you need to explain to me how to measure it. 

Do a YouTube search on 'how to find a parasitic draw'  you will find several good videos showing how it is done.

 

[sightseers]

it may be too much currant at the battery leads for the average volt meter,  you may need an actual D/C amp meter.

 

[John From Detroit]

I am going to ask. a question I have not seen  in fact two but first the reason

Someone up thread talked about "Assume you have 100 amp hours of battery"

I don't like assuming. What batteries do you have.. Size. or group class and DEEP CYCLE or Marine/deep cycle or RV/deep or Marine/RV or what (what's on the label)

Also what converter do you have Make and model.

Note I may not be the one who responds if someone beats me to it.

 

[kdbgoat]

Do you have a three-way fridge and are you running it on 12 volt setting? Are you running the furnace?

 

[shane102]

fridge is 3-way but it does not matter if it is on or off and not running furnace.  If I turn everything off it will still drain bats in 6 hrs.

 

[captsteve]

A "poor mans" way to check: pull all the fuses, check and see if it still dies overnight. if it does, pull the battery and take it to an auto parts store and have them load test it.
if it is still good, put in fuses one at a time and see which one sparks slightly when you put it in. the one that sparks is the circuit with the draw.

However, I would personally first have the battery tested then when hooking it up, put each wire on the terminals individually looking for one that sparks. My suspicion is that the converter may be direct wired and have an issue. Hooking only the converter up will tell you...

 

[shane102]

Captsteve, battery load tested good.  The converter is direct wired and I do notice a spark when I hook up the positive side to the battery but that is with all the fuses in.  Are u saying to take all fuses out and then hook up battery.

 

[shane102]

Sightseer, no inverter. 

John the battery is a les Schwab deep cycle rv 24DC-550 and the converter is an IOTA DLS-45.

 

[captsteve]

Disconnect the converter, then try the fuses 1 at a time, then with all fuses out try just the converter.

If the converter is sparking leave it disconnected and see if the issue is gone.

 

[sightseers]

I would think any converter or inverter would have a capacitor draw, and spark when initially connected.

 

[lynnmor]

Sounds like the emergency brake is on.

 

[solarman]

Sounds like the emergency brake is on.

Brakes ? I thought this was a truck camper..

anyway, your re-branded car battery is approx 100 ah and my estimate of 150 w load is not unreasonable.
perhaps as suggested earlier, you have a bad converter.
although the IOTA does have an idiot diode on the output to prevent reverse current flow..
ah.. if it's a truck camper then you may have a faulty battery isolator backfeeding.. ?

 

[Ernie n Tara]

Note that 150W is about 12A. Most multimeters  are good for 10A max. And you're talking a healthy spark that should be easy to idebtify. Sounds  more like a weak battery to me.

Ernie

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Brakes ? I thought this was a truck camper..

The Alpenlite brand (Western RV) included both trailers and truck campers.