New batteries not lasting past one day

[bobquest]

Fritzee, are you charging your battery with a deep cycle charger at home? i hope so, the battery will not last long on a regular charger pumping high amperage into it and can take as long as eight hours to charge properly. It has to be low amperage to charge properly and do get the battery checked for a dead cell. Just cause its new does not mean it cannot have a shorted cell. Charging with high amperage will fry a cell in a battery.
May i suggest you purchase LED lights for new R/V, the draw is next to nothing amperage wise and is alot safer than candles..
i hope you get this problem resolved quickly, i get 2 days easily on one battery of dry camping....good luck.

[rana]

Unless I'm missing something.. you're batteries are the problem. Those are not "deep cycle". Possibly RV/Marine hybrids, but if it is it's sure a lil'n. The first battery you listed only has 53ah's capacity.

Average parasitic draw around 1-2 amps.. without turning a single thing on, at 1 amp your battery is flat dead in 2 days.. tops. At closer to 2 amps it's dead in a day.

If you follow the common practice of not drawing your battery down lower than 50%... starting out a one day trip with a fully charged battery allows you zero "available" amps.

The second battery is nearly double the capacity, so starting out for a 24 hour run, in the best case scenario, you would have 22 ah's available... or 46 if you want to run it completely dead.

Assuming that you have your reefer running, and on propane... your first battery isn't capable of making it 24 hours... more like 16 hours before it hits zero.

Just sayin...

[mikes86gn]

I had this exact same thing happen once. When I unhooked the TT I accidently stepped on the brake away wire and energized the brakes.

[boondocking]

bobquest

I think you have been misinformed about the procedure in charging a deep cycle battery.

When selecting a charger, the charge rate should be between 10% and 13% of the battery’s 20-hour AH capacity. For example, a battery with a 20-hour capacity rating of 225 AH should use a charger rated between approximately 23 and 30 amps. Chargers with lower ratings can be used, but the charging time will be increased.

[bobquest]

Boondocking, you are right. After reading my reply I failed to mention that if your charging your deep cycle battery you need a deep cycle charger is what I was trying to say, my bad..

[jimmyt11664]

Both batteries need to be matched with the same amp hr rating and construction. I would have to say your batteries are done. I would put them on a 10 amp charge and check with a volt meter. It should be around 12.6 volts. Load the battery for 5 minutes. Take load off. Something that draws 10 amps. Let it rest for 5 min. If the voltage is greater than the starting point of the test. The battery is sulfated. Needs replacement. Or you can check the specific gravity of each of the cells. If charge voltage is low to begin with like 10.2 volts. You have a bad cell. Good luck. You can install a 12v test light in series with all draws turned of. If the test light , lights, you have a draw in the system. Pull fuses 1 at a time to isolate the circuit.

[boondocking]

Originally Posted by bobquest

Boondocking, you are right. After reading my reply I failed to mention that if your charging your deep cycle battery you need a deep cycle charger is what I was trying to say, my bad..

It's all good, happens to the best of us.

[Bushbunch]

Did not read all the posts. Check TV antenna booster (power hog) and the LP detector uses juice too.

[yetavon]

Originally Posted by mikes86gn

I had this exact same thing happen once. When I unhooked the TT I accidently stepped on the brake away wire and energized the brakes.

So I'm not the only one

[fritzeee]

Thanks to all. There was a lot of good info. Some things I didn't know about, some I did. Turns out it is a bad battery with some bad cells. Put the other battery on line charged it up to full power per the trailer panel, pulled the plug on shore power and let her sit for a week. After one day power down to 3/4 and there it sat for the rest of the week. I need another bigger battery. That one is too small as one said. I'll try for the biggest one available.

Many thanks

[Evereddie]

Originally Posted by fritzeee

Thanks to all. There was a lot of good info. Some things I didn't know about, some I did. Turns out it is a bad battery with some bad cells. Put the other battery on line charged it up to full power per the trailer panel, pulled the plug on shore power and let her sit for a week. After one day power down to 3/4 and there it sat for the rest of the week. I need another bigger battery. That one is too small as one said. I'll try for the biggest one available.

Many thanks

Be careful when you do tests like this. Draining a battery too low, even a deep cycle battery, will definitely shorten it's life. Be aware there are a lot of parasitic power drains in a trailer, especially the LP gas alarm that eat up power like crazy just sitting. Your results of leaving it sit for a week and finding it drained down to 3/4 is not unusual at all considering the power drains.

[SuicideSaints]

Originally Posted by Evereddie

Be careful when you do tests like this. Draining a battery too low, even a deep cycle battery, will definitely shorten it's life. Be aware there are a lot of parasitic power drains in a trailer, especially the LP gas alarm that eat up power like crazy just sitting. Your results of leaving it sit for a week and finding it drained down to 3/4 is not unusual at all considering the power drains.

I agree, a disconnect switch can be used or manually disconnecting it would work. The battery will last much longer.