12 volt problem in 2003 Holiday Rambler Endeavor

[TXfreeze]

We recently got this RV and for the most part the shore power system works fine, the entry steps work fine on 12 volt when not connected to shore power the 12 volt lights do not function the control panel does not function. One of these strangers symptoms is that when connected to shore power it appears that the batteries are not getting enough charge although the control panel shows around 11 something. These batteries are fairly new but they may not have been connected properly. There are four six volt batteries in series, when connected to shore power the refrigerator functions the water pump functions the switch to the propane valve does not light up nor do any of the other 12 volt switches the battery cutoff switch is not off this is a real head scratcher. If anyone can put me on the right track to finding a solution and greatly appreciate it attaching photos in case they help, thanks

 

[Kevin D Pem]

For starters a setting battery at 12vdc is considered dead, '0' charge.
Your bank is set-up as 2s, 2p, or better called serial parallel.

First question is how old is new, or fairly new?

If abused, 1week old can be dead.

We could work through the wiring, but it's important to start with charged batteries. Fully charged bank should read 12.67 when new and sitting.

To My thinking there are to many cables, or maybe not enough! All depending on where they go, so do some wire tracing and draw where things go to. Then get back with us!

 

[osuallen]

On the left rear battery, it looks like a negative cable is connected to the positive terminals???

 

[TXfreeze]

For starters a setting battery at 12vdc is considered dead, '0' charge.
Your bank is set-up as 2s, 2p, or better called serial parallel.

First question is how old is new, or fairly new?

If abused, 1week old can be dead.

We could work through the wiring, but it's important to start with charged batteries. Fully charged bank should read 12.67 when new and sitting.

To My thinking there are to many cables, or maybe not enough! All depending on where they go, so do some wire tracing and draw where things go to. Then get back with us!

I don't know I'll have to check I think a few months and there was no one living in it till we moved in. Right now the Xanteex is going crazy reminds me of the old intro for Lost In Space. On the panel it says 11.18. fluctuates. It won't charge. I'll trace some wires but what I really need to trace is the source of this problem do I have a fuse issue with the 12 volt system? Could it be the inverter? Could it be the converter? Maybe it's just the batteries? Right now I have the Norcold fridge connected directly to a 20 amp on the shore power and the light is on and getting a message says no AC no FL I have to look up to No FL before it wasn't doing that so everything's screwy at the moment.. so the Xantrex was an easy fix all I had to do was pull out the phone like coupler from the inverter itself and it reset. Interestingly the zantrex shows battery state as full with a current house battery reading of 11:19 fluctuating. To the best of my knowledge there are no energy vampires that could be hogging the 12 volt. I don't know if it's related but it's showing incoming AC breakers amps at 20. In addition to that I just discovered that there is a 50 amp smart EMS AC line and it can select service type and it can select either 30 or 20 amp select even though it does show 50 amp and then it shows gen set I'm going to have to consult the manual or something else possibly given that I'm not very familiar with us but what I don't understand is if we're on 50 amp why can't I select 50 amp? I read up more on the EMS and how it works I still don't understand why it won't show 50 am when connected to 50 amp but that really doesn't have much bearing here I want to update and say that I met her tested the batteries with outside battery disconnect off to both house batteries and chassis batteries which shore power off and I was only coming up with about a four at the most when restoring shore power the most I got on the meter is an 8 is xantrix continues to show 11 point something. Could it be the xantrex isn't set properly to charge these batteries? Or have the batteries failed? Update the EMS is now showing 50amps, there seems to be a real fould odor in the upper compartment where the working microwave plugs in, probably a dead mouse, are there are signs of previous rodent occupation. So this is interesting I'm reading in the electrical systems house parts in the manual that the 12 volt battery is actually six batteries in one case. When charged each cell has a voltage of 2.1 volts 16 cells are hooked together this makes a 12.6 volt battery fully charged. Given the current issue I'm not sure what to make of this? So after further study of the manual it's quite possible that the battery was overcharged because as I recall it had been connected to shore power and left on shore power I myself didn't do that but it's possible that they overcharged them because I would guess that it should have been more than likely on the control panel the charging should have been disabled so they're likely to be overcharged.

 

[TXfreeze]

If you're referring to that black cable on the left rear battery it looks like it's connected to the fuse but not a battery,

 

[TXfreeze]

What about ditching the whole lead acid deep cycle batteries and going with 12 volt LiPO batteries? I just don't know how that wiring process would be done and I haven't been able to find anything yet online but if that makes more sense someone chime in let me know if you've already done it and how it went thanks

 

[Kevin D Pem]

I don't know I'll have to check I think a few months and there was no one living in it till we moved in. Right now the Xanteex is going crazy reminds me of the old intro for Lost In Space. On the panel it says 11.18. fluctuates. It won't charge. I'll trace some wires but what I really need to trace is the source of this problem do I have a fuse issue with the 12 volt system? Could it be the inverter? Could it be the converter? Maybe it's just the batteries? Right now I have the Norcold fridge connected directly to a 20 amp on the shore power and the light is on and getting a message says no AC no FL I have to look up to No FL before it wasn't doing that so everything's screwy at the moment.. so the Xantrex was an easy fix all I had to do was pull out the phone like coupler from the inverter itself and it reset. Interestingly the zantrex shows battery state as full with a current house battery reading of 11:19 fluctuating. To the best of my knowledge there are no energy vampires that could be hogging the 12 volt. I don't know if it's related but it's showing incoming AC breakers amps at 20. In addition to that I just discovered that there is a 50 amp smart EMS AC line and it can select service type and it can select either 30 or 20 amp select even though it does show 50 amp and then it shows gen set I'm going to have to consult the manual or something else possibly given that I'm not very familiar with us but what I don't understand is if we're on 50 amp why can't I select 50 amp? I read up more on the EMS and how it works I still don't understand why it won't show 50 am when connected to 50 amp but that really doesn't have much bearing here I want to update and say that I met her tested the batteries with outside battery disconnect off to both house batteries and chassis batteries which shore power off and I was only coming up with about a four at the most when restoring shore power the most I got on the meter is an 8 is xantrix continues to show 11 point something. Could it be the xantrex isn't set properly to charge these batteries? Or have the batteries failed? Update the EMS is now showing 50amps, there seems to be a real fould odor in the upper compartment where the working microwave plugs in, probably a dead mouse, are there are signs of previous rodent occupation. So this is interesting I'm reading in the electrical systems house parts in the manual that the 12 volt battery is actually six batteries in one case. When charged each cell has a voltage of 2.1 volts 16 cells are hooked together this makes a 12.6 volt battery fully charged. Given the current issue I'm not sure what to make of this? So after further study of the manual it's quite possible that the battery was overcharged because as I recall it had been connected to shore power and left on shore power I myself didn't do that but it's possible that they overcharged them because I would guess that it should have been more than likely on the control panel the charging should have been disabled so they're likely to be overcharged.

Well yes!!! Technically a battery is a grouping of cells tied in series. When you tie more than one "battery" in series, you add both cell groups together to increase the number of cells in your newly configured"battery ".

Going lithium is the same with each cell having a different value (voltage). You will not be fixing the problems going with lithium. Truth is you may add to your problems,as some of the system will need to be updated to work properly.

Not to very long ago I installed a rack mount 48volt lithium to My RV I just decommissioned it about 2 weeks ago. I will be giving it back to the company that reworked it!!! It's not for me!!!

When I get a rats nest (someone else's mess), I label all wires, verify what I think there for, and connect everything one item at a time to find the issues. I strongly recommend buss bars or posts for the connections.

 

[TXfreeze]

Well yes!!! Technically a battery is a grouping of cells tied in series. When you tie more than one "battery" in series, you add both cell groups together to increase the number of cells in your newly configured"battery ".

Going lithium is the same with each cell having a different value (voltage). You will not be fixing the problems going with lithium. Truth is you may add to your problems,as some of the system will need to be updated to work properly.

Not to very long ago I installed a rack mount 48volt lithium to My RV I just decommissioned it about 2 weeks ago. I will be giving it back to the company that reworked it!!! It's not for me!!!

When I get a rats nest (someone else's mess), I label all wires, verify what I think there for, and connect everything one item at a time to find the issues. I strongly recommend buss bars or posts for the connections.

I did consider the fact, some of the system may need to be updated to run lithium batteries. So just to be clear, as far as the cables running to the batteries your recommending labeling them and buss bars or posts for the connections?

 

[Kevin D Pem]

I did consider the fact, some of the system may need to be updated to run lithium batteries. So just to be clear, as far as the cables running to the batteries your recommending labeling them and buss bars or posts for the connections?

They not only look better, they promote single point battery connection!

To be clear! It is not nessisary, but will reduce trouble shooting in the future. By far, the least expensive are posts. They can be a brass/steel bolt in a block of plastic (what I use).

 

[TXfreeze]

Would having the starter key in a ACC position cause the symptoms I've been describing. I discovered that I've been keeping the key in the ACC position instead of in the middle I would think that would be draining the battery. It would appear the battery is now charging normally last I checked it was at 7 or 8 on the multitester but it keeps showing as 11+ on the panel. I guess that's normal. I need to take another meter reading to be sure.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

That should have no effect on the house batteries. Coach batteries yes!

Where are you getting 7 or 8 volts? Each individual 6volt battery?

 

[TXfreeze]

That should have no effect on the house batteries. Coach batteries yes!

Where are you getting 7 or 8 volts? Each individual 6volt battery?

Yes each individual battery and no indication of going up, so now as I recall reading in the manual each cell will has around 3-4 and it should add up to around 12 if that makes sense? Also getting around 13 from the red wire that goes to the right rear battery.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Yes each individual battery and not indication of going up, so now as I recall reading in the manual each cell will have around 3-4 and it should add up to around 12 if that makes sense? Also getting around 13 from the red wire that goes to the right rear battery.

You have my head spinning! Although you can test voltage for each cell in a flooded battery, I won't! It's hard on test leads, that leaves us with testing each 6v battery using the terminals of the battery.

With the batteries isolated from the system (disconnected from positive or negative) for at least 8 hours. The voltage should read 6 33 if fully charged. 6.0 if fully discharged, or anything between 0 to 4.5 if dead.

If the voltage you are telling me about (13) is connected to the system, your converter is in floating mode. Should be about 13.8 or so, but an indication your converter is operating!

This 13 volts can be an indication of a couple of things. One is one battery is giving your converter a run for the money. You need to check the batteries isolated from the system, as described above.

The other option is a system load that is bringing the voltage down.

To find the problem, pull all 12v fuses and see if the voltage comes up. Then if the voltage reads 13.6-8 , replace each fuse one at a time till the voltage drops. When it does you know the circuit to find the problem!

It goes without saying everything 12v in the coach should be turned off before doing this test.

Good luck! Following this guide should get the 12v problem isolated! By nature, and experience, this is how I troubleshoot things.

When you get this far your problem could be as simple as a bare wire OR!!!!

 

[TXfreeze]

Looks like that's the only option I'm going to have I was thinking about pulling my good 12 volt house battery from the older RV and just putting that in instead of these four six volts, is there any reason why I can't? Also I unplugged from shore power and I couldn't get any thing 12 volts to work it was barely enough charging the batteries for a house light to go on the panel showed around 4 volts that's with the engine running. So either there's an issue with the batteries or there's a nice issue with the charger isolator this is going to be a trial and error figure out what's going on? I figure the fastest way would be to just put a known reliable battery on there and if that doesn't charge up then I'll know for sure it's not the batteries, what do you think?

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Looks like that's the only option I'm going to have I was thinking about pulling my good 12 volt house battery from the older RV and just putting that in instead of these four six volts, is there any reason why I can't? Also I unplugged from shore power and I couldn't get any thing 12 volts to work it was barely enough charging the batteries for a house light to go on the panel showed around 4 volts that's with the engine running. So either there's an issue with the batteries or there's a nice issue with the charger isolator this is going to be a trial and error figure out what's going on? I figure the fastest way would be to just put a known reliable battery on there and if that doesn't charge up then I'll know for sure it's not the batteries, what do you think?

Yes you can use your known 12 volt batteries. Pay attention to the connections in your trailer and duplicate that! Simply put, two 6v in series = one 12v battery! Ask for help if you have trouble sorting it out!

 

[TXfreeze]

But I only have a 12v house battery in my other RV.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

But I only have a 12v house battery in my other RV.

Yes, but if you hook them in series they will be 24v so hook them up accordingly. Examples are like pictures. While learning they are good teachers. So do what you can to learn from them. Maybe even draw out what you see, and label everything. Once you take everything apart there is no way to learn anymore from them!

The one thing in life that is certain is tomorrow things can not be relied apon so record everything! That's all I'm saying.

 

[TXfreeze]

Yes, but if you hook them in series they will be 24v so hook them up accordingly. Examples are like pictures. While learning they are good teachers. So do what you can to learn from them. Maybe even draw out what you see, and label everything. Once you take everything apart there is no way to learn anymore from them!

The one thing in life that is certain is tomorrow things can not be relied apon so record everything! That's all I'm saying.

Well that’s why I either take a photo or video whenever I can. Just for clarification I should put the dual volt in series with the existing 6 V batteries or I should take all the 6 V batteries out and just put the 12 V to see if there’s an issue other than the battery?

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Well that’s why I either take a photo or video whenever I can. Just for clarification I should put the dual volt in series with the existing 6 V batteries or I should take all the 6 V batteries out and just put the 12 V to see if there’s an issue other than the battery?

I would

 

[TXfreeze]

I would

So you would connect just the good 12v than?