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House Batteries

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Lilhuffmans

RVF Regular
Joined
Jun 21, 2020
Messages
6
Hi! We have a 2003 fleetwood discovery. Our house batteries have been very finicky. We pulled them out (4 total), cleaned them and charged them. They worked but only for 5 min or so. We left them on a trickle charge overnight and the same thing happened. We left for a trip and they worked off an on during the 1 hour drive, maxing our at 11 amps or volts. Side note, the generator would not crank before we left or while driving. We were plugged into shore power for 48 hours. Generator cranked, we hit the road and house batteries were at 13 amp. About 20 min into the drive generator turned off and so did house batteries. A few min later house batteries came back in and registered 9-11 amps/bolts. Why won’t they stay on or maintain connection? Carrying to decide if there is an issue with the batteries or if it could be a connection issues somewhere. I have googled a million things and nothing fits our scenario.
 
Welcome to RVForums @Lilhuffmans - do you know how old they are? It could be a number of issues but let's start at the end of the chain, the batteries. You can test them, consider replacing them. Make sure any battery cutoff switches are not in need of maintenance or cleaning i.e. are they failing?
 
Welcome to RVF, @Lilhuffmans; glad to have you.

As @Neal said, the first question is about the batteries themselves. How old are they? Has the coach been sitting for a while without being plugged in? Batteries don't like being discharged for any significant period of time and go bad. Charging bad batteries will provide a very short-term fix and then they will fail again. I suspect that is what you are experiencing.

Testing batteries is not just measuring voltage. They need to be tested under load and for a specific period of time. I'm guessing that you will find that the batteries are bad and need to be replaced. And, don't just replace one or two; they all will need to be replaced, even if some seem to test OK.

Other things to check are corroded ground connections, broken wires, etc. All connections need to be clean.

I'm guessing that your generator runs on gasoline and needs a battery for the ignition as well as for starting. When the batteries are failing, the ignition system does not get enough power to keep the engine running.

TJ
 
Welcome to RVForums @Lilhuffmans - do you know how old they are? It could be a number of issues but let's start at the end of the chain, the batteries. You can test them, consider replacing them. Make sure any battery cutoff switches are not in need of maintenance or cleaning i.e. are they failing?
They are 3 years old. They die bc we are new at this and do not have them on any sort of trickle charge when we aren’t using it.
 
Unfortunately, even three-year-old batteries can be damaged if they are not kept charged. If you can get them charged and load-tested, you will know for sure if they are damaged or not.

Good luck.

TJ
 
If batteries are discharged below 10V, they sustain some internal damage. Looks like you had them discharged more than once? Take them in your car to an auto shop or battery place to be load tested.
 
They die bc we are new at this and do not have them on any sort of trickle charge when we aren’t using it.
Don't be too hard on yourself; we've all been "new at this" one time or another. That's what this forum is all about sharing knowledge and experiences. We'll be here to help and answer questions as you gain your own knowledge and experience. (y)

TJ
 
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