Batteries not charging or not holding charge

[JaquelynK]

I am camped about 20 miles south on Seligman Arizona with Hull 519, delivered in September. From the beginning it seemed like I lost voltage too fast or the solar didn’t charge much. But it is much worse now. I ran the generator last night and got it to 12.1, dropped to 11.5 off of the generator. This morning I was at 9.1 volts running almost nothing but the heater (40 degrees at night). So I fired up the generator again at 4AM so we could go hunting. Got it to 12.5 and left it with nothing running in full Arizona sun all day. Came back to 10 volts at 2PM. My sister had 13.5 in her Forest River. I find nothing loose or obviously wrong in the battery tray, under the couch or at the panel under the dinette. The panel indicates charging on solar but voltage never gets very high and drops like a rock with no input. Seems to be getting worse, like something is drawing a lot of juice. I am running almost nothing. Is there anything at all that I can check or fix or work around? I can’t stay on the hunt like this.

[Overland]

Is the fridge on 12 volt?  Unless the inverter is on, that’s all I can think that would draw that much power. 

[SeaDawg]

I'm thinking the same. Change your fridge to gas only, and see what happens. 

[John E Davies]

You need to remove all possible loads and see if the situation improves. As overland pointed out, the fridge running on 12 volts would be a HUGE and constant drain. Make sure your converter is actually charging properly. Look at the remote display for your surge suppressor, if you have one, when you are on generator power and it should show a large amount of charging amps.

I hate to say it, but if they were not damaged to start with they may be now. Complete discharges like yours are very hard on even RV deep cycle batteries. After your trip you need to get yours checked out by a shop (all fully charged followed by a load test). If one of your batteries is shorted internally, it will drag the others down, causing them to discharge. 

Good luck on the hunt, what are you after?

John Davies

Spokane WA