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Old 07-05-2020, 11:07 PM   #1
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Battery Question

After a month of not running our Onan’s 6000 generator we got into the Legacy and traveled the day, then boon-dock for the night. When trying to start the generator the coach power dropped out the same time the generator was trying to start. It took a few times to start the generator and the coach battery finally started to show a charge, but they don’t seem to hold a charge. As soon as you shut the generator off the coach batteries fall so low the house power cycles Off an On, to fine the battery’s at 9 volts.
Reached a place where we could hook up to a 50 amp plug-in, notice the coach batteries fluctuate from 12.6 to 13.8 volts during float charging with nothing on, and now the house LED lighting flickers.
Metered inside outlets with a solid120 AC. I turning off the Absorb charging, the battery drops to 9 volts, and lights dim. So I tried it again turning off inverter, then turning off float charger, this time, Charger standby showed on the screen, the lights stop flickering, the battery dropped to 13.0 volt at first, then slowly dropped to 12 volts then suddenly dropping to 9 volts again, with dim lights. Next day the hydraulic pumped ran slow not able to move the big slide with it still plugged-in to shore power.
Right now we moved locations hooked up to a120 plug-in, the refrigerator runs okay, I was able to move the small slide out, but the auto levelers will not work shows Low Voltage, and the Generator will not stay running.
Found a 10 amp fuse going to a Positive post that was blown, I think its for the inverter. After unhooking batteries I Checked voltage, my first read 4.8, and the other three read 6.6.
My RV is a 2018 model built in 2017, not sure how old the batteries are? Is this a sign of bad batteries, our is their something else I need to look at.
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Old 07-06-2020, 07:39 AM   #2
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this is jut my take. all the symptoms you mention seem to be related to low batteries. what i can't tell is whether it is actually the batteries or the converter not recharging them. you mentioned being hooked up to shore power and a voltage of 13.8. this seems to imply that the converter was producing this voltage. but you also say you are hooked up to shore power and the lights are dim. they should not be dim if the converter was working.

the blown
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Old 07-06-2020, 07:45 AM   #3
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sorry, finger slipped before i finished.

the blown 10 amp fuse is not for the inverter. that is way way too low for a fuse in the cable between the inverter and the battery.

based upon your battery voltage readings it looks like you have 4 6-volt batteries. the fact that one is significantly lower than the other 3 might indicate a bad battery. could you remove the two that are wired in series and include the one that is low. this would still leave you two in series that have the 6.6 volts each. then try to see how things fun on just these two batteries. if the one battery was bad and it is now removed the two that you still have hooked up might operate normally.
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Old 07-06-2020, 08:04 AM   #4
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Been dealing with these batteries since forever. English cars in the past had dual 6 volts.

Back to square one.

First thing I would do is to carefully refill all cells with distilled water. Could check cells now.

Then remove all wires from the battery posts. I use the Autozone terminal cleaner, about $4. Clean and reinstall.

Then get the converter running.

Find the voltmeter and a set of alligator clip wires. Get your hands free light. Connect the battery ground to the voltmeter and start checking stuff out!

AutoZone has the device to check cells for not a lot of money.

The battery connections are important. There are so many!

What you describe sounds like a bad connection. Or a dead cell.
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Old 07-06-2020, 12:52 PM   #5
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a few things to consider, since my Palazzo is very close to how your Legacy is built:

- a 'low' specific gravity reading, or low 'voltage' for the whole battery, is a sign that something is amiss with that battery - it can bring down the WHOLE battery bank when a LOAD is then applied, causing a lot of differing, and sometimes confusing, issues...

- the Battery Charger, built into the Magnum inverter, if you have that same type as I do, can not really 'bring up' a bad battery, or bad 'cell' in a battery...meaning that charging the battery bank as a whole might render useless, at times.

- many times the Hydraulic levelers, and sometimes even slides, are run directly from the House battery bank - meaning that being 'plugged in' to power, or running the generator, generally will not effect that performance, even if the batteries are being 'charged'. So, when you use these systems, they are pulling all of the power from the batteries - which can lead to very slow movement, or an even quicker depletion of the battery bank, which is already low. 10volts would be my absolute low point, as this is also typically how the Inverter is 'defaulted' to turn off(LBCO setting) on it's own, due to low battery power. I custom set my LBCO to 11.5volts so that I can immediately 'know' if the batteries are low and are not being charged, even if I am plugged in. A loss of shore power doesn't always manifest itself immediately when you have 'whole house' Inverter, like the Magnum, since all outlets are powered by it. If you are watching tv, and lose shore power, you may not even realize it because the TV continues working, etc.

... I believe your described 'symptoms' mean that you probably have a battery with a bad cell, or cells. I had this happen to me several years ago. I could watch tv, while off-grid, but suddenly the satellite receiver would go off, for no reason. By the time I got up and looked at the Inverter's panel, the inverter would be back 'on'. After a few times, I finally realized that Inverter was kicking off, even if for just a second. If it 'thinks' it does not the full 12v power it expects, it is designed to shut down, or go into 'silent' mode.
Eventually, I diagnosed the issue as one of a bad couple of cells in ONE of my four house batteries, which where about 5 years old, and had a lot of use in that time.
I pulled the bad battery, flushed it out, filled it with distilled water and battery acid, and gave it a good charging over several days with a car battery charger, set to 6v charge.
The battery was then viable again, and I added it back to the battery bank, and had no issues for many thousands of miles, before i eventually replaced all four with Duracell GC2s last year.

Several things run off the batteries, as 12v items - including your air conditioner(S) Thermostats - so a loss of 12v power, or low power, can make you 'think' that you might have lost 120v Shore Power, when you really have only lost 12v power.
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Old 07-07-2020, 04:30 PM   #6
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Thank everyone on Battery Question

I found that two batteries of the four were bad. I set up for a haft bank and found everything is working good, no more flickering of the lights, hydraulic jacks and slide work good, Just need to fix our replaced two batteries.
Thanks again for the wisdom and time, greatly appreciate it.
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Old 07-07-2020, 07:52 PM   #7
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yippee, you're up and running!
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