Battery / alternator issues

[Ryan Wright]

Hi folks,

There seems to be a problem with the charging of my batteries. I'm not
even sure my alternator(s) are working at this point. With engine
running, ammeter shows "0", voltage is close to 11. I think coach
power is coming from the batteries while on the road. Shouldn't the
engine alternator(s) be keeping the batteries topped up while I'm on
the road, or at least providing enough power to not be draining the
coach batteries?

If I bring the genset up ammeter goes all the way up to +150 and
voltage comes up between 12-13 like it should, but coach batteries
seem to die faster than they should once I turn the genny off.
"Charge/discharge" meters appear to be working correctly; when I shut
all coach lights off the "discharge" drops down to 0, so there isn't
any draw that I know of dragging the batteries down.

Any thoughts? My coach has 6 Optima batteries in back; two for the
engine, four for the coach. All are blue-top Optimas, a mix of 50 and
55 amp hour, all with a manufacture date of 10/05 and seem to all be
in good condition with solid, clean connections. Curious to know how
the batteries are supposed to interact and why mine seem to be always
dead despite little to no draw.

Of note, however, is I've not had any problems starting the engine.

-Ryan
'86 PT-40 8V92
Tri-Cities, WA



On the last day of our trip home from buying the coach, I accidentally
left the marker lights on all night. The next morning, turning the
engine over was a little slower than normal, as the batteries were
low. On the road, many of our systems were not working - cruise would
not engage, etc. We turned on the low battery alarm and it was
sounding, so I flipped the generator on to recharge them - everything
worked fine with the gen running. I left it run for many hours and
turned it off; when we got home a few hours after that, the batteries
were low again - fluorescent lights not coming up fully, etc.

So I ran the generator for ~4-6 hours to make sure the batteries were
topped off. Next morning, drove 3 hours to a local camping
destination, went to use the leveling system - it ran slowly and the
battery alarm sounded. Ran the generator 7 hours that afternoon to
recharge, turned it off just before bed (midnight). This morning, went
to leave @ 9:45am, coach batteries dead again. Only used the LP
heaters & the isle "night lights" - virtually no use of lighting or
anything else.