DC power drain

[dstallworth]

i have a 2007 Montana 3485SA 5th wheel that i love. However, I have found that the single, 2 year old 12 volt battery is drained after about 2 days use in normal weather without using the heater- just normal lights and stuff. Any ideas as to why? I replaced the converter with the same one and it did not help. Should I try to put an ammeter in line or what? any ideas about tracing a possible short?
david

[HappyCamperMN]

Please help define normal use...

Are you at a campsite where you have shore power or are you remote and boondocking (running only off your 12V battery)?

Assume you are NOT using shore power and running only off the 12V battery... Are your internal lights LED or "regular" incandescent?

Do you have as many things powered off when not in use as possible?
Antenna amplifier for the television?

[Ken / Claudia]

It's been a long long time, since I had a RV with only a single battery and they did not have power drains like current RVs. If not using shorepower, genny or solar. I am thinking 2-3 days may be as much as 1 battery will do. Even off the grid camping I run a genny every day, 2 to 4 hours or so just to keep up.

[Barbell]

Our '14 Montana (new in May '13) has always drained the battery within 24/48 hours even when the disconnect switch is off. When still in warranty, the only thing we could get done was a new battery, which did not solve the problem. Battery will stay up fine only if both terminals are disconnected. Obviously we do no off-grid camping but did not intend to anyway. There is a short somewhere but everything electrical works fine. I would love to hear if anyone has figured this out.

[GaryWT]

From reading various posts through the past couple years, that sounds about right. Lights, radio, sensors etc etc drain the battery within a couple days.

[JRTJH]

When we had our Springdale with a single 12 volt battery, we could sometimes get "almost" 2 days of dry camping with some pretty significant "power conservation". I installed a pair of group 31 deep cycle batteries (12 volts) and extended that to about 5 days. On the Cougar we have two 6 volt batteries and can usually go 4 or 5 days and still have power to pull in the slides, hitch the truck and tow home.

A single group 24 battery is the smallest and "cheapest" battery available and usually what is installed by a dealership. As with anything else, small is not usually the best option.