Battery charging issue.

[cvizgo]

I posted this the other night and didn't get any responses, check it out. My concern is that maybe the so called "trickle charger" I have on the camper is actually a device that waits till the battery is nearly dead before it decides to charge the battery. The night this happened it was like a switch flipped and I went from dead battery, dim lights and about to blow a gasket to full power bright lights and everything was good. Please help me!

So I need more help with this battery thing guys. I've learned that when the a/c fridge and water heater are all on I'm bound to blow a circuit. So I've ran the water heater off lpg the rest of my vacation and had no problems. Tonight I had everything off in the camper as my wife and I sat outside by the fire. We came in and she's showering before bed. I notice the inside lights are very dim. All that was on was the inside lights, bathroom light and bathroom fan and next thing you know my fridge and radio start flashing simotaniously, I check the battery and it's as low as the reading will show. What the heck is going on? I turned all lights and fan off and the radio and fridge stopped. I turn lights back on and they are dim again! What's draining my battery? Why is this issue happening? Someone told me its bad to disconnect the battery while I'm plugged in, is this really true? Ok an now as I'm writing this my wife turns bedroom light on and very things bright again??? Just checked battery and it's at full power! Please someone, if you can understand all of this please help me!!! I love my camper I love camping I love my truck I love my wife but I hate I can't figure this out!! Thanks in advance for your help!

[f6bits]

Is your trailer plugged in to a proper 30A outlet? If so, then the battery isn’t supposed to be powering anything. What circuit are you blowing? And what’s the so-called trickle charger? Is it the built-in power center in the trailer?

Your power center should take the 30A coming in from the plug and splitting it off: Some for the 110V to power the Air Conditioning, Microwave, Fridge (in electric mode) and water heater (in electric mode). The rest goes to the converter to: Recharge the battery and also power your 12V utilities like the lights and stereo.

Also, when plugged in, your battery indicator on the display panel (with the tank levels) will display FULL because the converter is pumping out 12V power (more, actually) which feeds the battery.

[Festus2]

Is this the same problem that you asked about in your original post or something different? You did get numerous responses to the "circuit breaker" question you asked earlier as well as some replies about your battery question. Is your circuit breaker still an issue? the battery not being charged or ????
Repeating the question about the same problem in a different section doesn't always produce the answers you are looking for.

[cvizgo]

This is a different problem. I realized before that I was powering too many things and using too many watts therefore my circuit breaker kept popping in the camper. This is different.

I will be plugged into a 30A source at the camp ground. The power to the lights in the camper will dim way down to the point where they look as if they are fluttering. I went to the battery indicator and the last light of the four was lit showing it was barely full. Once it gets really low like that it spends about 2 minutes there and then boom all the lights come back up to full power and the battery is at 100% but the thing is I wasn't doing anything when this happened. I could understand if it happened every time I turned the tv on or every time I used the microwave but it isn related to anything.

The trickle charger I refered to was the built in power center that keeps battery charged.
The circuit blowing I was talking about was more of a warning type thing inside the camper. When it gets super low like that some times the fridge and radio start flashing back and forth simotaniously and are basically saying something's over worked.

Any ideas on what this could be?

Btw, I'm not a forum rookie I wasn't trying to reword something that didn't get responses in a different area. This problem is battery related before I needed help understanding Amps and how many I was using and why things were acting goofy.

[campingcpl]

Originally Posted by cvizgo

This is a different problem. I realized before that I was powering too many things and using too many watts therefore my circuit breaker kept popping in the camper. This is different.

I will be plugged into a 30A source at the camp ground. The power to the lights in the camper will dim way down to the point where they look as if they are fluttering. I went to the battery indicator and the last light of the four was lit showing it was barely full. Once it gets really low like that it spends about 2 minutes there and then boom all the lights come back up to full power and the battery is at 100% but the thing is I wasn't doing anything when this happened. I could understand if it happened every time I turned the tv on or every time I used the microwave but it isn related to anything.

The trickle charger I refered to was the built in power center that keeps battery charged.
The circuit blowing I was talking about was more of a warning type thing inside the camper. When it gets super low like that some times the fridge and radio start flashing back and forth simotaniously and are basically saying something's over worked.

Any ideas on what this could be?

Btw, I'm not a forum rookie I wasn't trying to reword something that didn't get responses in a different area. This problem is battery related before I needed help understanding Amps and how many I was using and why things were acting goofy.

My first guess would be a bad converter. When this starts to happen I would start doing a diagnosis for a bad converter. Here is what I would do and I'm sure there will be people that will give you other ways of doing it and I'm not saying they are wrong either. When the lights dim go out and disconnect the battery (make sure the battery leads don't touch any metal) and check the leads with a multimeter. You should be getting 13+ volts at the leads. This will tell you if your converter is putting out the voltage it needs to. We had a similar problem with ours while on a trip and we had to replace the converter. The reason I am thinking it is the converter is because you said even being plugged into shore power the battery meter showed the battery as being dead. Well, like f6bits said when you are plugged into shore power your battery meter should show full even if you don't have a battery connected to the trailer. This is because your converter is providing all the 12v power to the trailer and not the battery. That is another way of checking the converter, just disconnect the battery and if the lights go dim or stop working all together then the converter isn't working. Next check to make sure that all the fuses are good and that the breaker for the converter is good.
I hope these help you find the problem. Good luck!

[mobile42]

You have a bad converter! That issue with the fridge and radio flashing and lights dim, well that happened to me too. I was out of town and staying at a RV park with Full hookups with 30 amp service. I ended up buying a Schumacher XCS15 15/10/2-Amp Marine Battery Charger from Walmart and plugged it to my RV house battery. I left all the cables still hooked to the battery coming from the RV's converter and over night my battery regained a full charge. I needed that charger because I was commited to stay at least 5 days. Once I got home, I did the recommended testing for the WF-9855 55 Amp Power Converter as per the instruction manual. Luckly my converter was still under a 2 year warranty and so I requested a replacement from WFCO and sent the old one back. I guess my testing was okay because I didn't get charged for the replacement.

[cathcartww]

I agree that it is probably your converter going bad. One other thing to check is to make sure you have good, clean, solid connections. Check all the connections too the battery to makes sure they are clean and tight. Also check where the converter is connected to the incoming shore power. On many circuit breaker boxes, there is a regular 120 volt a/c receptacle on the back that the converter plugs into. Sometimes that regular plug gets worn and loose and doesn't make a good connection.

[randy69]

Have some questions about converter. When you are using shore or gen power, Does your batteries Run your tt dc and the converter.That helps to keep battries charged. And if that is so, What would happen to a bad converter putting out less charge what the bateries are putting out. Voltage goes backwards ( because diodes shot). tt lights flicker? Or Maybe shut down your gen because of 12 volt safety switches such as shutdown solnoid, oil pressure, auto idle control, Or I'm totaly wrong.

[hankpage]

Originally Posted by randy69

Have some questions about converter. When you are using shore or gen power, Does your batteries Run your tt dc and the converter.That helps to keep battries charged. And if that is so, What would happen to a bad converter putting out less charge what the bateries are putting out. Voltage goes backwards ( because diodes shot). tt lights flicker? Or Maybe shut down your gen because of 12 volt safety switches such as shutdown solnoid, oil pressure, auto idle control, Or I'm totaly wrong.

If the converter goes bad the battery either goes dead or over charges. DC power does not feed back to your generators AC connection. Before you do anything check your battery. If it was connected in storage it may have gone completely dead and can not recover. If the converter cannot charge the battery it will overheat and trip a thermal circuit. (No dc output) When it cools it resets and supplies 12v dc again until it overheats and starts the cycle over again. As mentioned by others ... disconnect the battery and see if all dc circuits work while on shore power. Replacing the converter and still having a bad battery will cause the same problem again. JM2¢, Hank

While on shore power or gen there should be no drain on the battery.

[randy69]

Originally Posted by hankpage

If the converter goes bad the battery either goes dead or over charges. DC power does not feed back to your generators AC connection. Before you do anything check your battery. If it was connected in storage it may have gone completely dead and can not recover. If the converter cannot charge the battery it will overheat and trip a thermal circuit. (No dc output) When it cools it resets and supplies 12v dc again until it overheats and starts the cycle over again. As mentioned by others ... disconnect the battery and see if all dc circuits work while on shore power. Replacing the converter and still having a bad battery will cause the same problem again. JM2¢, Hank

While on shore power or gen there should be no drain on the battery.

The solnoids on the gen I was refering to are 12 volts dc. not ac. I will disconnect the battries and check this out. I'm Always pugged into shore and I always check battery water couple times week and I run my gen. But I have had problems with DC lights flicker and deming and gen stopping after 6 to 8 hours dry camping. This Doesn't make sense to me. Whats does DC have to do with AC?? Couple hours cool down back in business. Just trying to trouble shoot this thing. Dealership does me know good, You have to own one to understand problems. Not just Sell Them.

[alien_scones]

If / when it comes time to replce the converter, is it possible to upgrade your rig from 30 amp to 50 amp?

Anyone done this?

Advisable or regrettable?

tyvm

[campingcpl]

Originally Posted by alien_scones

If / when it comes time to replce the converter, is it possible to upgrade your rig from 30 amp to 50 amp?

Anyone done this?

Advisable or regrettable?

tyvm

Upgrading from a 30 amp to 50 amp is a little bit of a major doing. It would reguire replacing the shore power cord, power center (breaker box) and the converter. This would also reguire rewirring the trailer circuits. If your trailer is already wirred for 30 amp the advantage to going to a 50 amp would be if you were going to add an additional a/c or an electric fireplace or outlets for electric heaters. You could move some of the circuits around to be able to use the electric water heater, a/c and micro all at the same time which is hard to do on a 30 amp service. So is it possible, YES it's possible but not without some work. Are there advantages to it, YES. Is it worth all the headaches and trouble of rewirring things, my personal opinion is NO.

[cvizgo]

I finally had a chance to get to the dealer. The final answer was the converter. The guy told me there were two things 1. The "smart" board on the converter was acting up and could adjust where voltage was going and 2. At the battery the converter when plugged in should be around 13.5, mine was almost 14 so it was sending too much to the battery. Either way they were very nice, changed out the converter in about 30 minutes and gave me a new battery as well. My wife and I are back on the road now and have ZERO problems with anything in the camper!!! Thanks for all of your input, safe travels!!

[mobile42]

Aha,

I told you! There is something going on with those converters that were installed on those 2011 RVs. I read that some where but I don't remember which forum it was.