MOD New Aire Chassis Battery Charger / Maintainer

[MarkMaxPayne]

New Aires with factory Lithium have quite the reputation on draining chassis batteries if parked for just a couple days without turning off the battery disconnects. I have also heard of and read reports of others who have them die even when connected to 50A shore power. Well after 3 months plugged into shore power at an RV "resort" while between sticks and bricks as we sell our home and buy a new one, my chassis batteries got drained to the point they wouldn't hold a charge anymore.

After replacing the chassis batteries with AGMs, I stopped by NAPA Auto and picked up a 12V/10A battery charger/maintainer. Like others, I mounted in the Spartan's chassis battery compartment and used a heavy duty AC power cord wrapped in split loom routed to the engine heater outlet in the engine compartment.

Now, as the vampire drain(s) hit it, this maintainer will keep the chassis batteries charged instead of relying on SilverLeaf to join/bridge them to the house batteries and the inverter/chargers. So far so good. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the prior posts on this workaround to this frustrating issue.

Best,
-Mark

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

We did this on our Renegade coach. One less item to worry about now.

 

[lostinfla]

I'm a little confused as to why this is happening. In almost 10 years now, our DS has never drained the chassis batteries while plugged in, which is 99% of the time when not driving. Our coach does not have Silverleaf, is that the issue?

 

[Joe Hogan]

In my opinion it sounds similar to our issue with a bad DIP/BIRD solenoid.
Or potential bad charging circuit

 

[Joe Hogan]

Newmar still seems unsure how to make the LiPo house battery option perform without some issue.

 

[Richpatty]

I have not seen this issue…my chassis batteries stay charged while on shore power using the LiBim.

Can you monitor the chassis batteries from one of the consoles in the RV? Can you see that it is declining over time?