What is draining my batteries?

[Leroy Eckert]

I had another thought. If your toilet is air operated as is mine, the slightest
leak would cause the 12v air compressor to cycle unless it is shut off. My shut
off switch in on a bracket on top of the air tank that services the toilet.
Disregard if your toilet is different.

Leroy Eckert
1990WB-40"Smoke N Mirrors"
Niceville, FL
----- Original Message -----
From: Ryan Wright
To: WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: [WanderlodgeForum] Re: What is draining my batteries?


Thanks all for the replies. Lots of excellent suggestions and I'm going
through them now. I'd like to "clean this up" for good if at all possible
rather than patch it, as I want to be able to boondock without the batteries
dying so quickly. So, I can run an extension cord for the chargers for now
(good idea there), but I still need to clean up the phantom loads.

Replying to some questions & comments:

Leroy:

> You indicated you set your fridge to run off of AC or gas. If you have an
inverter, are
> you certain the fridge is not running off the inverter?

Yup. Inverter is turned off. Fridge is running on gas - verified. LP gas
detector is on, however - gas won't flow with it off. Perhaps that is
draining the batteries? I'd be surprised if it pulled that much current,
though.

Curt:

> After installing the EMS system, I'm finding a fantom load of 3 amp as I
> watch the EMS system digital read out.

How does that monitor the 12 volt side?? I looked at the docs and it looked
like just a high voltage unit to me. Or do you have some other monitor for
the low voltage?

-Ryan

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[erniecarpet@...]

Jon, on our early PT's, i believe the block heater is 110 volts.

Ernie Ekberg
83PT40
Livingston, Mt




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[krminyl@...]

Hi Ryan,

Any way you can run a drop cord to your battery charger, and just keep it
plugged in? You don't have to run everything off the 50a cord if everything is
turned off...all you really need is a 110v extension cord, unplug your
battery charger/s from the coach circuit, and plug it into the extension cord.

As for the drain, the alarm causes a draw, along with the radio, LED's on
your monitor panel, overhead LED segment clocks and timers. If your optima
batteries have been discharged a few times, they might be toast...take them to
an auto parts store, alternator rebuild shop, or anywhere else where they can
load-test the batteries. Your coach came with deep-cycle 6v golf cart
batteries (I think) which can sustain a full discharge many times with harming
the
cells permanently. If your batteries are ruined, I'd recommend re-wiring it
back to it's original 6v configuration. If you leave your coach for longer
than a few days, and everything is shut off electrically, I'd also consider
some kind of battery disconnect switch, that removes the battery 12v circuit
completely from the coach (when located at the batteries, you won't even have
to kill the master or electronic master switch...just shut off the batteries
completely).

Good luck...

Kevin McKeown
Yorba Linda, CA
1986 38' PT



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[Jon]

--- In WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com, "Ryan Wright"
wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> My new (to me) coach has been parked for the past week in front of
my
> house while I create it a better parking spot. As a result I can't
> reach the 50 amp service on my house so it's disconnected from the
> grid.
>
> My batteries are only lasting ~48 hours before the battery alarm
> sounds so I'm having to use the generator to recharge. Every time I
> start the genset, "DC charge" meter goes up to 150 amps and takes
> hours getting back down. I've run it 6+ hours until "DC charge" was
<
> 25 amps and the batteries still die a couple of days later.
>
> So, how do I fix this? "DC Discharge" shows zero (and yes, the meter
> works, it goes up when I turn lights on). Nobody has been in the
coach
> so the lights haven't been used and I turned everything off that I
> know of. I set the fridge to run on AC or gas only (no DC, since I
> noticed it was hitting the batteries up for juice). The only things
I
> have on that I know of are:
>
> 1. Stereo (it's "off", but previous owner wired ACC right to +12v so
> it's always lit up - but that should take months to drain four car
> batteries, not days).
> 2. Battery alarm.
> 3. Fridge temp alarm.
>
> Coach has 6 blue top 12vdc Optima batteries (two engine, four coach)
> with 10/05 manufacture dates. Mix of 50 & 55 amp-hour batteries.
>
> Any advice would be appreciated!
>
> -Ryan
> '86 PT-40 8V92
> Tri-Cities, WA

Ryan while out in my coach today I thought about your electrical
problem and could your engine pre-heater be on? This takes quite
alot of juice to opperate-just thought I would through this at you.

Jon
Bremerton
78 Wanderlodge.
>

[Ryan Wright]

On 5/15/07, krminyl@... wrote:
>
> Any way you can run a drop cord to your battery charger, and just keep it
> plugged in? You don't have to run everything off the 50a cord if everything
is
> turned off...all you really need is a 110v extension cord, unplug your
> battery charger/s from the coach circuit, and plug it into the extension
cord.

Yup. I just did that last night - at least now my batteries should
stay charged. Had to run two 12 gauge cords off two different circuits
from the garage. I have a pair of "WFCO 75 amp power connectors" for
chargers and they draw a solid 13-14 amps each when charging. I
suppose I could have only plugged one in, now that I think about it,
but I don't know if they are configured to both charge both banks, or
one charger per bank, or what, so I plugged 'em both in.

> As for the drain, the alarm causes a draw, along with the radio, LED's on
> your monitor panel, overhead LED segment clocks and timers.

Oh, I figured that, but I can't imagine these things even combined
draw enough to drain these batteries. Unless they're of a really poor
design, the clocks and LED panels should only draw a small fraction of
an amp each. Something else must be draining here - I'm going to track
it down as soon as I get the coach up by my house where I can work on
it more easily.

> If your optima
> batteries have been discharged a few times, they might be toast...take them
to
> an auto parts store, alternator rebuild shop, or anywhere else where they can
> load-test the batteries.

Good idea. I think you may be right about the Optimas being toast.
Having used Optimas in my DeLorean for a couple of years due to the
sealed design (the battery compartment is inside the passenger
compartment), I know for a fact they don't handle being discharged.
They seem incredibly fragile in that respect.

> Your coach came with deep-cycle 6v golf cart
> batteries (I think) which can sustain a full discharge many times with
harming the
> cells permanently. If your batteries are ruined, I'd recommend re-wiring it
> back to it's original 6v configuration. If you leave your coach for longer
> than a few days, and everything is shut off electrically, I'd also consider
> some kind of battery disconnect switch, that removes the battery 12v circuit
> completely from the coach (when located at the batteries, you won't even
have
> to kill the master or electronic master switch...just shut off the batteries
> completely).

Good call all around. I may take your advice and replace 'em with 6
volt units even if the Optimas aren't toast. I have a brand new high
amp battery disconnect switch here, too, which I'll install when I
replace the batteries and re-wire.

-Ryan