RV Batteries

[Grapehound]

I just bought my third deep cycle marine battery in three years for my Rockwood Fifth Wheel. They keep going dead. I bring them indoors in winter and keep them connnected (plugged in) in the RV all during the camping season, even when I am not camping. I treat my batteries better than I treat my wife!

I had a battery guy tell me that the trickle chargers cannot charge the heavy plates in the deep cycle batteries so you have to plan to recharge them on a big charger and not by trickle charging, or by battery maintainers (which I haven't used) or even by just keeping your RV plugged in.

We took a three day camping trip last weekend after I had fully charged my new battery to 100% on the big charger. Now that I am home it is down to 50%, even though it was charging on the way down (140 miles), it was plugged in the whole time camping, and charging on the way home.

Do I need to fully charge the battery with my 6 amp charger after each camping trip?

Larry

[WTP-GC]

Grapehound wrote:


I had a battery guy tell me that the trickle chargers cannot charge the heavy plates in the deep cycle batteries so you have to plan to recharge them on a big charger...or even by just keeping your RV plugged in.

Well, first off, maybe there's a misconception of what a trickle charger is, but I have always maintained my boat batteries with a "trickle" 2 AMP charger. Never an issue.

Something must be wrong with your inverter. The rig we just got rid of had a cheap battery installed 3 years ago when we bought it. We kept the rig plugged into shore power 24/7 and the battery operated fine till day we got rid of it.

[Grapehound]

Re: Questions.

Yes, we were plugged in to power all weekend so I am sure we ran mostly off AC to DC power the whole time. The battery did not die, everything was fine all weekend. Plenty of power, since we were plugged in. It's just that when we got home, and I connected to the big charger to see how the batter was doing, my battery was no longer showing 100% charge; it was down to about 25% charge, which makes no sense. I may need to just have the RV power system (charging system) evaluated.

I will also take this new battery in to have a diagnostic done. Not sure about "specific gravity."

And yes, I need to show more attention to the wife. That's for sure.

[azrving]

What is the specific gravity showing?

[MFL]

Charging while towing is usually more maintaining than charging, as the charge is pretty slow. I'm thinking your converter could be the issue, as it should do a good job charging, while camping/plugged in, and at home plugged in. Some converter/chargers do work better than others.

BTW...may want to take better care of wife, as that can get much more expensive than getting new batteries. 🙂

Jerry

[stickdog]

Is your converter putting out power? If your plugged in to power pole your converter should provide most all your 12volt needs and charge your battery when that demand is low.

[Bumpyroad]

you were plugged in to 120 v the whole camping trip and your battery "died"?????? something is drastically wrong. and it is not just the fact they were marine DC batteries.

bumpy