Orick
Well-known member
I'm near the tail end of a problem I've been working on another forum but thought I'd post here just for reference. My Ellipse 40FD Freightliner DP came with "maintenance free" starting batteries. Now a bit over three years old I started having trouble with them and have had to use the AUX booster switch the last couple of starts. The info panel showed voltage dropping to 12v and wouldn't rebound after many days of being hooked to shore power.
I removed and cleaned all cables and terminals and then drove 400 miles. Batteries came back up to 12.7v following the trip but dropped off after a few days so I was pretty sure that they weren't getting, or at least holding a charge while connected to shore power. I should probably make a confession here. Until this problem began, I was in the habit of leveling and running the slides (4) in and out with the engine off so I could listen for any unusual noises. I'm sure this didn't help my chasis batteries as they became weak.
I couldn't find any reference to how my chasis batteries would be charged from shore power in my manuals so I posted the question on the other forum. There were differing opinions until one member nailed it as being located in my electrical bay above the inverter. I had to remove about 8 screws to get to it but there it was. The 5 amp Trickle Charger has three LEDs: one for "charging" (which was lit)... one for "maintenance"... and one for "reversed polarity". So hopefully this might help someone else find theirs...
The second "ah ha" concerned my "maintenance free" batteries. Someone suggested that I should remove the "sticker sheet" which covered to tops of both batteries and see if I could remove the caps. Turns out there were caps to remove and on one of my starting batteries 4 of the 6 cells were dry enough to take nearly 3 qts of distilled water! So... I don't hold out much hope of the batteries being salvaged but I ran the engine for 30 min on fast idle today and we have about a 200 mile drive tomorrow so we'll see what happens but I'm guessing I'll be replacing both starting batteries this weekend. Maybe if I had known earlier I could have been "maintaining" my maintenance free batteries...
I'll follow up with what happens.
I removed and cleaned all cables and terminals and then drove 400 miles. Batteries came back up to 12.7v following the trip but dropped off after a few days so I was pretty sure that they weren't getting, or at least holding a charge while connected to shore power. I should probably make a confession here. Until this problem began, I was in the habit of leveling and running the slides (4) in and out with the engine off so I could listen for any unusual noises. I'm sure this didn't help my chasis batteries as they became weak.
I couldn't find any reference to how my chasis batteries would be charged from shore power in my manuals so I posted the question on the other forum. There were differing opinions until one member nailed it as being located in my electrical bay above the inverter. I had to remove about 8 screws to get to it but there it was. The 5 amp Trickle Charger has three LEDs: one for "charging" (which was lit)... one for "maintenance"... and one for "reversed polarity". So hopefully this might help someone else find theirs...
The second "ah ha" concerned my "maintenance free" batteries. Someone suggested that I should remove the "sticker sheet" which covered to tops of both batteries and see if I could remove the caps. Turns out there were caps to remove and on one of my starting batteries 4 of the 6 cells were dry enough to take nearly 3 qts of distilled water! So... I don't hold out much hope of the batteries being salvaged but I ran the engine for 30 min on fast idle today and we have about a 200 mile drive tomorrow so we'll see what happens but I'm guessing I'll be replacing both starting batteries this weekend. Maybe if I had known earlier I could have been "maintaining" my maintenance free batteries...
I'll follow up with what happens.