Solaire 247RKES: Battery or parasite?

[eialbur]

I either have a bad parasitic battery draw or my almost new battery is bad. I am getting woken up almost every morning with a low battery alarm.

I ran thru all of the fuses with virtually everything turned off (including the antenna amplifier) and here's what I found (P.S. I am not confident about how the fuses are labeled).
TV: 15A fuse - 15 mA draw
Stereo: 15A fuse - 15mA draw
Thermostat/Furnace: 15A fuse - 75mA draw
Fridge: 15A fuse - 300mA draw
One of my slides: 30A fuse - 15mA draw

The refrigerator, of course, sticks out like a sore thumb - but I don't know what a fridge is supposed to draw. And I can't, for the life of me, figure out why one of the slides draws when resting (I even ran thru the slides and shifted them in and out some and rechecked - still drawing).
Any guidance would be appreciated.

[bikendan]

Do you not have a battery disconnect switch?

[eialbur]

Thanks for responding.

Yes, I have a battery kill switch - but I hope you're not suggesting I throw the switch every night when I go to bed :-) The refrigerator, for one reason, needs 12v to run, even in propane mode.

[bikendan]

Sorry, didn't get that you're occupying it now.

Since you didn't say it, I'm assuming that you are dry camping or boondocking.
All modern RVs have numerous parasitic power drains.
We primarily dry camp so we have a dual battery setup and a Honda 2000i to recharge every 3-4 days.

It's almost impossible to get rid of all power drains.

[eialbur]

Yeah - I expect some battery drain. But I am fully charged when I go to bed, and the low voltage beeper goes off before I wake up. There is definitely a problem.

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by eialbur

Yeah - I expect some battery drain. But I am fully charged when I go to bed, and the low voltage beeper goes off before I wake up. There is definitely a problem.

If you're using the furnace all night, you can easily drain a single battery in one night.

[SidecarFlip]

That furnace blower will eat a battery up in 8 hours for sure.

[NMWildcat]

If you only have one battery, getting through the night is tough, especially if you run the heater. We have always installed the biggest 2 batteries we could fit in every rig, from pop-ups to current. We boondock 80% of the time so 2 batteries and a way to recharge them is essential.

[eialbur]

No - not running the heater. I have no active drain on the battery. The only draw at night is parasitic.

This is a recent development. It used to be the trailer could sit a week without use before the low voltage alarm went off. Now, it goes off after about 7 or 8 hours.

I don't know if something has happened to some component, or if the battery has gone legs up after only a couple of months. That's why I listed the draw on the different circuits, in hopes you could identify if one of them was way out of line:
a) Is that too much current drawn by the fridge? it is a lot.
b) Why would a stationary slide draw current?

In another forum on FB someone suggested that the battery may not be getting fully charged by the converter. Today I disconnected it from the trailer and charged with a Schumacher 8amp charger. I'll let you know if that helped ... but my two questions above are still hanging - especially b)

I do appreciate your help. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough about the situation at the start.

[rockfordroo]

Depending on your fridge model, you may have a door heater that's killing your battery. The door heater is supposed to eliminate condensation around the door. Older fridges had a switch that allowed you to turn it off, but I guess that switch cost them too much - they've now removed it and the heater is on all the time.

Open the outside door on your fridge and look for the schematic. You may see a heater in parallel with the inside light. In the pic of mine below, it's that squiggly thing at the very bottom left side labeled "K".



I've attached a document I shamelessly stole from another poster on how to kill the door heater.

Anyone attempting to boondock should do this mod.

[Stikman]

It sounds like you may have a battery going bad. It probably came with a group 24 deep cycle battery. I always replace it with a group 31 deep cycle and if you have room, add two. The 31 will have a greater reserve than your factory 24 battery. As far as your parasitic draw, remember that there may be more than 1 circuit on each fuse.

[clintbonnie73]

Don't forget your gas detector draws 100% of the time..
Just curious, do you have a Interstate Battery. ? I have had no luck with the Interstate Batteries.. Just bought a new 2017 Rockwood.. the batteries are bad already.. will not hold a charge..
Suggest you charge for a couple of days and check each cell with a hydrometer.. you can get one at any auto part store for about $20..
Next Spring I am switching over to 6 volt golf cart batteries like my old Arctic Fox had.. no problems ever..

[JR Smith]

A battery can develope a shorted cell that will run the battery dead overnight.The way I test a battery is charge it up then disconnect it overnight.If it is good it will still be charged.

[camaraderie]

Suggest you get yourself a clamp on AC/DC meter for about 50 bucks so you can run some of this stuff down.
1. To check converter operation...measure voltage at battery terminals with converter on. Should read between 13.2 and 14.5V or so if it is working correctly.
2. Check battery by plugging into shore power overnight AFTER checking and filling with distilled water. Then disconnect for 24 hours by REMOVING the negative wire. A good battery will run 12.6-7 V ...a partially damaged battery will read 12.3>>12.5V and a badly damaged one will read less and needs replacement.
3. With a clamp meter you can determine where you drains are coming from... simply clamp the red battery wire with everything off to get a base parasitic draw. This is the stuff draining the battery when you think it should be ZERO. Pull 12V fuses until it does read zero ( or thousandths of amps) and you'll learn where those drains are.
4. You can similarly find what the drains are of the things you turn on by throwing their switches and watching the rise in amp use.

A group 24 battery in perfect condition has 75 amp hours... and you can safely use about half of those....call it 40 amps...before you need to recharge. Going beyond 40amp hours of use will greatly shorten any batteries life...particularly the cheap dual purpose ones typically supplied in new coaches. The advice to get as big a true deep cycle battery as you can fit is good if you do need to replace yours.
BTW... With your Schumaker 8 amp....trying to put back 40 amp hours into a half discharged battery will take approximately 8-10 hours. Not taking enough time to charge fully is another leading cause of battery death. Simple rule is to divide amp hours needed by the charger amp rating and then double that number.
Ex: 50 amp charger trying to put back 100 amp hours = 2 hours x 2 or a minimum of 4 hours of charging needed.
Clamp Meter: https://www.amazon.com/Mastech-MS211...dc+clamp+meter

[CedarCreekWoody]

All of the draws you list only come to 430 milli amps. That is less than 1/2 amp! Certainly not enough to draw down a good fully charged battery. I would take the battery in and get it tested.

[rockfordroo]

If you decide to buy a clamp on meter, make sure you get a very good one. Make sure you read the specs and are certain that it will measure DCA (DC amps). Most cheap ones do NOT measure DC amps. Measuring DC amps is difficult, hence more $$.

[camaraderie]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

If you decide to buy a clamp on meter, make sure you get a very good one. Make sure you read the specs and are certain that it will measure DCA (DC amps). Most cheap ones do NOT measure DC amps. Measuring DC amps is difficult, hence more $$.

The one I linked to DOES do a good job of reading DC amps at the specificity needed and is not a "mini" unit or an AC only amp meter. It ain't a fluke but a Fluke ain't needed for casual use. A few years ago you couldn't get an AC/DC decent meter at anywhere close to this price!

[camaraderie]

Originally Posted by CedarCreekWoody

All of the draws you list only come to 430 milli amps. That is less than 1/2 amp! Certainly not enough to draw down a good fully charged battery. I would take the battery in and get it tested.

That draw can take out a Group 24 battery in less than a week if it is just sitting.
.430x 24 hours = 10.3 amp/hours draw per day... 72.1 amp/hours/week - dead flat.
Of course we don't know charging regimen etc. so even a new battery is no answer IF that is the passive draw in the system. I would like to hear from the OP what those amp draws represent and how he obtained them?

[rockfordroo]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

The one I linked to DOES do a good job of reading DC amps at the specificity needed and is not a "mini" unit or an AC only amp meter. It ain't a fluke but a Fluke ain't needed for casual use. A few years ago you couldn't get an AC/DC decent meter at anywhere close to this price!

Understand. But there are LOTS of folks out there who think all clamp-ons are more-or-less created equal. When you look at 4 or 5 sitting on a shelf at your local store, usually only 1 will do DC amps and if you're aren't aware of that, most folks will probably grab the cheapest and go. I know when I looked at Harbor Freight none did DC amps.

[camaraderie]

Originally Posted by rockfordroo

Understand. But there are LOTS of folks out there who think all clamp-ons are more-or-less created equal. When you look at 4 or 5 sitting on a shelf at your local store, usually only 1 will do DC amps and if you're aren't aware of that, most folks will probably grab the cheapest and go. I know when I looked at Harbor Freight none did DC amps.

We are agreed!