Battery or Electrical Issue?

[erich02]

Hello, my wife and I were in our Wolf Pup 16FQ camping and on day 3 she called me and said there was a beeping coming from somewhere. I went to the trailer and the beeping was coming from the inverter. Battery voltage dropped and continued to drop according to my TM-2030 battery monitor. We had it plugged into shore power with a Surge Guard EPS that had no warnings on it.

She had the TV going and using her laptop, both were plugged into a surge protector that was plugged into the inverter. Also she had a light on and the Max Air bathroom fan on. On top of that she had a ice maker going plugged into one of the outlets that runs off of shore power.

The Dometic fridge check light came on and stopped cooling (it was set on auto).

We turned everything off. The charging light on the battery monitor did not come on and voltage continued to drop even though it was plugged. Later that night the Carbon Monoxide alarm started beeping.

Does the fridge not work if batteries are too low? Shouldn't the batteries recharge off of the shore power? Could it be bad batteries or possibly a converter problem?

Fuses looked fine. Breakers looked fine. Removed batteries when I go home and charged them. Have had them off the charger for 48 hrs and with a multimeter they read 6.4V.

The batteries are 2 Trojan T125 6v

[ddphillips52]

Have you checked the breaker for the converter?

[erich02]

I did and it looked fine. I turned it off and on again too. The converter is a Progressive Dynamics Inteli-Power converter/charger which has a little pendant light that was on and green

[5picker]

Have you tested the voltage at the battery with the converter (you also mentioned inverter??) when not connected to shore power and then when connected?

Unless you have a residential fridge, the fridge won't work if battery levels get too low.
The control board works off 12v

[erich02]

I haven't tested at the battery with the converter. I will do that tomorrow. So when I test connected and not connected to shore power, should the voltage be higher when connected?

Also is there a way I can test the converter without the batteries in, if it is connected to shore power?

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question. This is new to me.

[Flybob]

Why were you running items off the inverter if you were plugged into 120VAC. It is possible that between inverter current draw on the 12V system and the other items on you blew a reverse polarity fuse ( 30 or 40 ) am fuses usually in the distribution panel. The Fridge and the Furnace both use controllers that are 12VDC powered and will not work unless 12VDC is availble and above a min level.

[erich02]

We didn't realize that the surge protector that the TV was plugged into the inverter. This was our 4th trip out in the trailer since we bought it used. I should have known that but I never had removed the seat above the space where the inverter is at.

I pulled the fuses and all looked good. I noticed when I removed a fuse the red light illuminates in its spot. Does the red light come on when a fuse is blown as well?

[U.S.ArmyVeteran]

Originally Posted by erich02

. Does the red light come on when a fuse is blown as well?

Yes, that is normal.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by U.S.ArmyVeteran

Yes, that is normal.

When a fuse is pulled (or blown), the corresponding LED will light if there is a load on that circuit. If there is no load on that particular circuit (e.g., circuit is lights and fans, and all of them are turned off), then the LED will not light.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by erich02

Hello, my wife and I were in our Wolf Pup 16FQ camping and on day 3 she called me and said there was a beeping coming from somewhere. I went to the trailer and the beeping was coming from the inverter. Battery voltage dropped and continued to drop according to my TM-2030 battery monitor. We had it plugged into shore power with a Surge Guard EPS that had no warnings on it.

She had the TV going and using her laptop, both were plugged into a surge protector that was plugged into the inverter. Also she had a light on and the Max Air bathroom fan on. On top of that she had a ice maker going plugged into one of the outlets that runs off of shore power.

The Dometic fridge check light came on and stopped cooling (it was set on auto).

We turned everything off. The charging light on the battery monitor did not come on and voltage continued to drop even though it was plugged. Later that night the Carbon Monoxide alarm started beeping.

Does the fridge not work if batteries are too low? Shouldn't the batteries recharge off of the shore power? Could it be bad batteries or possibly a converter problem?

Fuses looked fine. Breakers looked fine. Removed batteries when I go home and charged them. Have had them off the charger for 48 hrs and with a multimeter they read 6.4V.

The batteries are 2 Trojan T125 6v

The batteries are probably fine. With the converter on, you should read 13.3-13-7 volts across the pair of batteries. If you are only getting 12.8 (6.4+6.4), then the converter is not working.

Besides the fuses that are near the LEDs, you should have two 30-amp or 40-amp fuses elsewhere on that board. They are labelled "Reverse Polarity." If one of them is blown, there will be no charging. It is easy to blow them when you are connecting or disconnecting batteries. Check those fuses.

[erich02]

I'll give that a shot.

[CedarCreekWoody]

Originally Posted by erich02

I haven't tested at the battery with the converter. I will do that tomorrow. So when I test connected and not connected to shore power, should the voltage be higher when connected?

Also is there a way I can test the converter without the batteries in, if it is connected to shore power?

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question. This is new to me.

Do you have a battery installed or are running everything directly off the converter? Do you actually have an INverter or did you mean CONverter? Have you checked the voltage on the battery while it is connected to the converter?

[erich02]

Hello when problem happened I was plugged into shore power. Batteries were connected. I haven't checked the voltage of the battery while connected to the converter yet. I have the trailer parked about 30 minutes away from my house.

But I did remove the batteries and charged them, checked them with a voltage meter and hydrometer. That all read fine. But maybe there is some sulfation going on, not sure how to test for that.

[Rango]

I always try to go back to the point that everything was working and look at the simple things first.

Since you said you charged the batteries before leaving home, did you disconnect them or leave the camper wires connected?

Remember that everything that is 12 volts inside the camper should run from the converter with the battery "floating" on the 12 volt bus. Since you drained the batteries, my guess is that all is fine inside the camper, it sounds like the converter is not putting out power to to the batteries so ...

1. If you disconnected them make sure they are all reconnected correctly and tight.

2. Make sure the wires from the converter are connected to the batteries on the correct terminals.

3. Since you said you have 2-6 volt batteries verify they are connected in series (positive to negative).

If you did not disconnect the batteries, disconnect the converter wires from the batteries and check the voltage on them alone.

If these things fail then start looking at the fuses from the converter to the batteries. You may have blown reverse polarity when you connected the charger leads.

Good Luck and I hope this helps somehow.

[Comanchecreek]

Be sure to "Load test" the batteries.

[erich02]

How do you load test a battery? I took it to Autozone and Advance Auto but they couldn't load test a 6V.

The battery charger I used is a NOCO Genius 10. They seemed to charge fine with no warning lights.

I am on my way to test voltage with the batteries connected to the trailer. Also going to double check all fuses. In reading the Progressive Dynamics converter manual it showed some fuses right on the converter itself. Going to try to check those as well.

Will report my findings as soon as I finish.

[Comanchecreek]

Originally Posted by erich02

How do you load test a battery? I took it to Autozone and Advance Auto but they couldn't load test a 6V.

The battery charger I used is a NOCO Genius 10. They seemed to charge fine with no warning lights.

I am on my way to test voltage with the batteries connected to the trailer. Also going to double check all fuses. In reading the Progressive Dynamics converter manual it showed some fuses right on the converter itself. Going to try to check those as well.

Will report my findings as soon as I finish.

You can connect the 2 6 Volts in series and load test both at once with a 12 volt load tester. You won't know for sure which of the 2 is the bad battery, but probably if one's bad, the other is not far behind and you would want to replace them both. Be sure to use a big enough gauge wire between them as you would in your install in the trailer.
The other way to check them is to fully charge them, then do an electrolite test on them if they are not sealed batteries.

[erich02]

Update - It ended up being a fuse that is located on the converter itself. Fuse looked fine but the converter was only putting out 2.1V I swapped out the fuse and then it put out 13.3V. Thank you all for the advice and input! It helped out a lot!

[Bama Rambler]

Thanks for coming back and letting us know what the problem was. It's always good to know the resolution.

That reinforces why we stress to always test fuses and not just look at them. A lot of times they 'look' good but will be blown.