We have a 2010 Georgetown 330TS. What camping we've done so far has always been with full hookups. At all times, the status of the house batteries according to the electronic monitor panel have always showed full charge.
On the last night travelling back home, we had to stay overnight at our first "Wal-mart" campout........actually quite fun. The overnight temperature was cold enough (35F) that we had to run the furnace, set to maintain 68 degrees F. Before going to bed, the control panel showed full charge for the batteries.
At around 4AM, we heard a faint alarm beeping, and I found it was originating from the furnace compartment. When I checked the control panel, the LED status for the batteries showed 1 LED out of 5. I immediately started the RV engine, moved us away from the other campers, and started the generator to run the RV on AC power. Battery status improved to 5 LEDs and we slept for a few more hours.
Is it normal that the batteries should develope this failure in that amount of time? I would have thought that house batteries should be able to support "dry camping" with just the furnace for at least one overnight.
Anyone???????
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Ken and Terry
2018 Sunseeker 2430S-CD, nicely modified and carried by a 2017 Ford E450 Sport
Former Georgetown 330TS owner for 10 years with more mods than I can count, pushed by our 2017 GMC Terrain
Yup. Forest River supplies the batteries in their motorhomes. I Don't know the toal amp hours........documentation is not their strongpoint! nI do know that mine have stickers on them saying manufactured June 2008.
To Iggy.......
Are you sure your house batteries are 6 volt batteries? Your photo looks like they are 12 volt. I see what appears to be two rows of cover caps on each battery, and if there are 3 cells for distilled water under each cover cap, then that's 2 volts per cell times 6 cells per battery equals 12 volts.
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Ken and Terry
2018 Sunseeker 2430S-CD, nicely modified and carried by a 2017 Ford E450 Sport
Former Georgetown 330TS owner for 10 years with more mods than I can count, pushed by our 2017 GMC Terrain
Yup. Forest River supplies the batteries in their motorhomes. I Don't know the toal amp hours........documentation is not their strongpoint! nI do know that mine have stickers on them saying manufactured June 2008.
To Iggy.......
Are you sure your house batteries are 6 volt batteries? Your photo looks like they are 12 volt. I see what appears to be two rows of cover caps on each battery, and if there are 3 cells for distilled water under each cover cap, then that's 2 volts per cell times 6 cells per battery equals 12 volts.
Correct, the pic shows batts in parallel, not series
My Georgetown came with 2 group 27 12v batteries. No problem running a furnace overnight with some lights but I did replace them with (4) 6v golf cart batteries pretty quickly.
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Ron Hanson
2009 Georgetown 350TS (bunks)
400W solar, 440AH 6V GC2
2009 Ford Edge AWD Ltd towed
2011 Honda Fit Sport towed
Are you sure your house batteries are 6 volt batteries? Your photo looks like they are 12 volt. I see what appears to be two rows of cover caps on each battery, and if there are 3 cells for distilled water under each cover cap, then that's 2 volts per cell times 6 cells per battery equals 12 volts.
YEP they are 12 volt batteries and not 6 volt.
I have no idea why I said 6 volt....
Maybe I saw 12 volt batteris and saw 2 so I divided by 2....
Yup. Forest River supplies the batteries in their motorhomes. I Don't know the toal amp hours........documentation is not their strongpoint! nI do know that mine have stickers on them saying manufactured June 2008.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ronhanson
My Georgetown came with 2 group 27 12v batteries. No problem running a furnace overnight with some lights but I did replace them with (4) 6v golf cart batteries pretty quickly.
Hi Ken,
So assuming that you also have two group 27 12 volt batteries at about 105Ah each, you have a total of 200Ah. Since you dont want to discharge less than 50%, normally this would provide a useable 100Ah. Depending on how how much you were drawing while staying at Walmart, you should have had enough.
But with the batteries being 4 years old, I would check that they are holding their charge. It's hard to predict the life of a battery - lots of variables- but the one group 27 I had on our old camper only lasted about 4 years IIRC.
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Scott
DW, 3 Kids and our Goldens
2012 Shamrock 233S
2008 Toyota Sequoia 5.7L 4WD
A lot depends on the condition of the house batteries when you went to bed. For example:
If you arrived at the WalMart at say 3 PM
Ran out the slide on battery
Then cooked and cleaned up the dishes using the water pump
Then watched TV for an hour or so
Then used the lights after dark for a while
Then ran the heater all night
I would be surprised they lasted that long.
As to the "full" on the panel,
"Full" ain't 100% charge remaining
"Full" is only used when the reference is to the holding tanks (like pressing the "FRESH" tank button)
The "CHARGING" Light, the top most LED, (FULL in "tank talk") Will stay on until the battery voltage drops to 12.1 or 12.15 volts when the second to the top "GOOD" light comes on.
As you can see from the chart "GOOD" is 50%-55% battery remaining
"GOOD" will stay on until the battery voltage drops to about 11.6 - 11.65 volts (+ or - 5%) when the "FAIR" light will come on.
As you can see from the chart "FAIR" is 20% battery remaining.
NEVER use those lights to determine capacity remaining.
Since deep discharge batteries should be recharged before they get to 50% to extend useful life, you can see how utterly useless the battery monitor is in ALL RVs.
Also battery capacity (as a total of amps, available DROPS as the amps required increases - see chart) The blower is a high draw item and will suck a low battery quicker than a "more full" one.
Your batteries could have been almost shot when you went to sleep.
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Lou & Freya the wonder dog
2008 GMC Sierra 3000HD Allison Duramax
2019 Flagstaff 8529FL
Your attention to detail when providing answers is absolutely scary!!!!!!!
We had been travelling all day. We deployed the bedroom slide only, as we were in a Wal-mart. I was extremely careful NOT to run any lights anymore than maybe an hour before we turned in for the night. TV was not used.
I have to take the RV back to the dealer later this year for warranty work and I will have them do a LOAD TEST then to check the batteries. I agree that with the fact the batteries are 4 years old, maybe their time is up anyway.
Thanks for all your help and stats.
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Ken and Terry
2018 Sunseeker 2430S-CD, nicely modified and carried by a 2017 Ford E450 Sport
Former Georgetown 330TS owner for 10 years with more mods than I can count, pushed by our 2017 GMC Terrain
I've always said there is no such thing as a stupid question so here goes.
in the MH is an inverter or a converter installed. And short of traveling to the storage lot how would I know. We have a Sunseeker MH
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Life's a journey, enjoy the trip.
Phoenix, Az.
I've always said there is no such thing as a stupid question so here goes.
in the MH is an inverter or a converter installed. And short of traveling to the storage lot how would I know. We have a Sunseeker MH
This should be a new thread, but I will answer quickly.
The power center (where the circuit breakers and fuses are) contains a CONVERTER. It "converts" 120VAC (shore power) to 12 volts DC to run your campers DC equipment and charge your batteries.
An INVERTER (not normally part of the camper's package) takes straight line DC (battery) power Boosts it to 120 volts and "inverts" it every 1/60th of a second creating 120 volts alternating current that can run your TV and charge your laptop etc when you are NOT plugged into shore power.
A "pure" sine wave inverter creates a smooth wave form that is very computer and TV friendly. They are also pretty expensive compared to "modified" sine wave (more jaggies in the wave form) inverters (that just might work with your tv and computer; but maybe not.)
Unless you have a HUGE battery bank and a honking big inverter you will not be able to run large current draw items off the battery bank like the microwave, an electric heater, or coffee maker.
Hope that helps...
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Lou & Freya the wonder dog
2008 GMC Sierra 3000HD Allison Duramax
2019 Flagstaff 8529FL
You also might consider installing a battery monitor. I installed a Xantrex LinkPro about a year ago and so far I'm very happy with it. It'll give you a much better idea of how much power you have left. It'll tell you that both in apm/hours, percentage and time.
I really like it when I'm using the inverter and watching a movie and I've got some lights on. I can glace at it and know that I've got X hours of power left with all the stuff I have on right now.
Battery capacity....I just replaced the two 12 volt house battery's in my 2011 Georgetown. Rundown time had gotten to short for dry camping. some thoughts follow
Do a run down test by leaving your M/v in normal settings for gas detectors refrig etc and not connecting the house power to 120. The drop in voltage over the next several days will affect eventuall the door step operation and then the gas detector low battery alarm. Thats the best number of hours you can do with no additional load for lights,water pump, heater fan, inverters etc.
Now look at the amp load you would use in addition to the minimum and reduce the amps/hours appropriately. If you are not satisfied with performance replace batteries.
I have replaced all of the 921 base lights in the cabin with leds of equal output. They are expensive but add to battery life if you need light at night to read etc.
In replacing the batteries go to ones that have a see through casing/white that allows yo to see what the water level is. The access space restricts the ability to monitor water level and any improvement helps
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