Removing batteries for storage with solar panel

RTWright

Member
Joined
Nov 4, 2021
Posts
11
I wanted to remove the batteries from our FBS19 with the factory solar package so that I could store them in my garage and maintain them over the winter.

I asked our dealer and was told that I had to cover the solar panel and remove some wires from the back of the solar controller to disable the solar system before removing the batteries.

This sounded more complex than I was hoping for so I asked what the downsides of just leaving the batteries in place over the winter are. He said that there aren't any.

Any 2nd opinions will be much appreciated.
 
After making sure the battery control switch is OFF, I leave our rig parked and winterized with the rig trickle charged by the 100 watt solar panel.

Works fine, no troubles at all.
 
If you don't cover it, the solar will keep your batteries topped off. As long as you don't use battery disconnect switch.
 
Leave Batteries In

He didn’t mention the size of your solar collectors, but I’m going to assume afternoon for a pedicure there more than a little ten watt job.

I have 340 W of solar and left all six of my batteries in the coach overwinter. I also made sure the coach batteries were topped up with water early in the season. Solar collectors kept the batteries topped up all winter without any difficulty. I did have to sweep the snow off the solar collectors a timer to though. It was much nicer not having the batteries somewhere in my garage but in the motorhome or there’s a place for them.

My solar collectors connect through the controller directly to the batteries. Therefore, I turned off both battery disconnects, the one to the coach batteries in the one to the engine batteries and they still charged fully from the solar collectors.
 
I recommend you leave the batteries in the RV. My case for this and much more...

If you have shore power available, the easiest way to maintain your battery bank is to leave the rig plugged into shore power. A modern RV converter/charger is a 3 stage charger...the last stage being a "maintainer" much like the trickle charger you might use on your ATV or other small equipment (I have two...one on an ATV and one on a whole-house standby generator).

I have 400 watts of solar on my roof, currently topped by 24 inches of snow. The solar doesn't do much under those circumstances. :eek:

If your parking spot doesn't have shore power, and if you live where two feet of snow are unlikely, well, the solar will happily maintain the batteries as long as the panels can get some sun.

Here's the catch: parasitic loads on the battery often run about 3.5 amp hours (AH) per day. Over the course of 10 days, that's 35 AH. If you have a group 24 "marine" battery, that's all it can safely deliver. Over the course of 10 more days, you drain the battery dead...which will potentially ruin it and will definitely substantially shorten its life.

Either shore power or solar handle this parasitic load with ease and then some (of course). So does disconnecting the battery, but then you are faced with the monkey motion of trying to cover the panels and disconnect the panels from the input to the charge controller. That's a royal PITA. Thus my recommendation to plug in if possible. A 15 amp outdoor circuit is plenty, and you can run a 100' 12/3 extension cord to reach the rig.

Plug in and forget about it. About once every two months check the electrolyte in the battery(ies) and top off with distilled water. This is a hundred times easier than devising and installing a cover on each panel combined with pulling the wires out of the input to the charge controller and taping the ends to prevent a short.

Now some unsolicited advice. Brace yourself. Your rig is a first rate boondocking machine. It's ideal for going back into the boonies for days with no hookups. But, the specs say your rig has a 12 volt compressor fridge (rather than a conventional RV absorption fridge that runs on shore power or propane), so if you plan to boondock, you need more solar and more battery.

In very round numbers, your fridge will consume at least 35 AH per day. Where did I get that number? Here are the specs for a 12 volt, 10 cubic foot Dometic fridge.
Note that it consumes 156 watts when running. Let's assume a 20% duty cycle in fair weather...running only 20% of the time. When running, it draws 13 amps at 12 volts x 24 hours x 20% duty cycle = 62 amp hours (AH). You can see that 35 is a very generous estimate. Get the specs for the fridge in your rig and look for the "watts" it consumes.

On a good day in full sun, your panels might generate around 50 AH or so over the course of the full day (ideal conditions). (The rule of thumb is about 5 amps per 100 watts of panel in full sun around midday. They continue to work whenever there is daylight, but output declines considerably. and then there's shade, clouds, rain, etc.) But if you have a puny group 24 marine battery (likely what the dealer stuck you with), it can only hold a USABLE 35 AH (50% of its rated capacity). Sounds like enough, right? Well, what about the furnace (about 10 amps when running), lights, stereo, water pump, parasitic loads, spark ignition for the hot water heater, running the awning in and out a couple times a day, extending the slide, using the tongue jack, and so on? Suddenly, that little battery is not much better than a D cell.

If your charge controller can handle more amps (30 amps is a common capacity), you could add another 190 watt panel or a couple 100 watt panels. This way your solar can generate surplus capacity and supply your fridge throughout the day while still charging your battery.

When it comes to batteries, the gold standard is a LiFePo4 (lithium, iron, phosphate). But you'd probably have to upgrade your charge controller and those batteries are expensive. Plus they need to be babied in cold weather. An upside is that you get to use about 80% of their rated capacity instead of 50% with conventional FCLA (flooded cell lead acid) batteries.

An easier, less expensive answer is two 6 volt golf cart batteries in series to make 12 volts. Conventional old tech that's reliable and relatively inexpensive. I have two, and I have USABLE 115 AH. You can buy decent ones at Walmart, Costco, and so on, or the gold standard in these, Trojan, is also readily available. I have two of the Duracells.

And that 1000 watt inverter? Fuggedaboudit. At 1000 watts, it will suck power out of the battery at the rate of 83 AMPS!!! And when you pull those kinds of amps, the battery essentially drains much faster than the amps imply. Batteries are tested at 20 amps for the rated number of hours. 83 amps inhales the batteries, and my 115 AH would be gone in about an hour.
If you want to microwave something for 30 seconds? Go for it. If you want to run an induction cooktop to make dinner, your battery will be toast before the food is cooked. Furthermore, inverters eat power whenver you turn them on, so you must be sure to turn it off as soon as you're done with it. (I have a 500 watt inverter in my rig that I use to run the electric blanket for 20 minutes to take the chill off the bed - 320 watts for 10 minutes = 10 AH)
Answer? Buy a small inverter generator to supply 120 volts when boondocking. Save the inverter for those must have power needs after quiet hours...say nuking a muffin. :rolleyes:

I don't know what the manufacturers are thinking putting a 12 volt compressor fridge and 1000 watt inverter in a rig with minimal solar and an grossly inadequate, dealer-installed marine battery. They should get their heads examined. For those who go to RV parks with hookups, no big deal, and the solar will keep the fridge running going down the road, but as a boondocking machine, this is a ludicrous recipe for disaster.

Do some basic math on your loads, charging capacity, battery capacity and so on. This calculator will help. https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-volt-amp-calculator.html Remember to always use 12 volts as your voltage, because that's what the primary source of power is...your battery bank. For example, my 360 watt, 120 volt electric blanket running through the inverter is actually running on 12 volts: 360 watts, 12 volts, 30 amps per hour, for 1/3 hour (20 minutes) = 10 AH. Easy.

So, I ventured far afield and made some nasty claims about your fridge and anemic solar and battery. All intended to help you get the most out of your very desirable rig when boondocking. Meanwhile, the easiest way to care for your RV battery over the winter is to plug into shore power.
 
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I leave the batteries in the RV during winter storage in long cold Minnesota winters, from September until late April. The temperature can get down to 35 below zero at night. No solar panel, no shore power and never have an issue with the batteries. Just make sure batteries are fully charged before storage and disconnect the negative battery cable. When the RV goes into storage the batteries are at 12.85 volts, in the spring 6 or 7 months later they are still at 12.75 volts.
 
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I leave the batteries in the RV during winter storage in long cold Minnesota winters, from September until late April. The temperature can get down to 35 below zero at night. No solar panel, no shore power and never have an issue with the batteries. Just make sure batteries are fully charged before storage and disconnect the negative battery cable. When the RV goes into storage the batteries are at 12.85 volts, in the spring 6 or 7 months later they are still at 12.75 volts.

X2
That is the easiest way of doing it.
That's the way I do it and my 8 year old batteries are still going strong.
 
My 181fbs had a fuse between controller and battery. I replaced it with a disconnect. Kills the solar feed to battery.
But I also removed battery for winter. Not a big deal since lifepo4 only weighs 27#.
 

Agree: no reason at all to remove the batteries. We leave ours in all winter in Minnesota. They are "disconnected" - NOT merely turned off at the wall switch.

However, if you park in a garage, there will obviously be no solar charging happening. You can just use the generator once in a while, or attach a battery minder. NOT a trickle charger.

It has to be a "smart" battery minder that knows when to stop charging and when to start again, to avoid cooking your battery. "Dumb" trickle chargers are not intended to be left on for long periods of time - even if 10 people come on here and say they do it no worries. People use the term "trickle charger" to mean different things. The issue is not the nickname, it's whether it is smart or dumb.

Solar "trickle charging" will be OK because most solar systems should have a charge controller ("smart") between the solar panels and the batteries.
 
I leave the batteries in the RV during winter storage in long cold Minnesota winters, from September until late April. The temperature can get down to 35 below zero at night. No solar panel, no shore power and never have an issue with the batteries. Just make sure batteries are fully charged before storage and disconnect the negative battery cable. When the RV goes into storage the batteries are at 12.85 volts, in the spring 6 or 7 months later they are still at 12.75 volts.

Absolutely agree, also from MN. People, even in warmer states, are way too worried about leaving batteries in RVs. What they should worry about is taking ALL load off the batteries by removing the ground wire or installing a "real" disconnect switch right at the battery so ALL loads are removed.

We bought our RV in fall 2015 so our two flooded lead acid batteries have 6 years on them now and are still going strong.
 
Disconnecting battery with solar charger

A warning on my solar controller, disconnecting battery while panels are supplying power to controller will damage solar controller. Disconnect panel supply power first.
 
I leave the batteries in the RV during winter storage in long cold Minnesota winters, from September until late April. The temperature can get down to 35 below zero at night. No solar panel, no shore power and never have an issue with the batteries. Just make sure batteries are fully charged before storage and disconnect the negative battery cable. When the RV goes into storage the batteries are at 12.85 volts, in the spring 6 or 7 months later they are still at 12.75 volts.

Exactly what I do. Fortunately I can access my unit every 4-6 weeks so might go and run my genny for 30 minutes and start the Ford E450 up. So far so good!
 
I leave the batteries in the RV during winter storage in long cold Minnesota winters, from September until late April. The temperature can get down to 35 below zero at night. No solar panel, no shore power and never have an issue with the batteries. Just make sure batteries are fully charged before storage and disconnect the negative battery cable. When the RV goes into storage the batteries are at 12.85 volts, in the spring 6 or 7 months later they are still at 12.75 volts.

Can't disconnect the batteries without also covering the solar panels and disconnecting the panels from the solar charge controller. That's the dilemma.
 
I bought a Noco Genius 5 trickle charger.
(We pulled the battery off the RV)
I’m hoping to keep the battery healthy while stored.
Do you know if the DC27 deep cycle Xpedition need the regular 12V charge or the 12V AGM.
The dealership didn’t turn off our rig and when we brought it home all the battery died.
 
Regular FLA charging cycle is fine. Mine has a cold weather mode I use, slightly higher voltage so it charges a little faster. AGM can tolerate the higher voltage. I don't have the AGM on my camper, I get no real benefit from AGM on the camper considering the much higher cost of AGM.
 
Took batteries out for winter

This is my first time . I removed my batteries for winer storage and can't remember how they go back in .it is a 2019 8329ss rockwood signature with two batteries and a solar package. Pictures of how to put them in wired would be great
 

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