Hi and Happy Easter everyone.
I have apparently drained our two new optima Red top starting batterys [2- 8D house batterys OK }
6/2 amp charger will not charge them both. is it suppose to ? the head lights show dim at night bot no dash lights or
instrument gauges work. the battery surge button does nothing and the 50 amp start on the charger doesn't help.
thinking of trying to charge the batterys one at a time ,
BTW I thought the heart 25 charger took care of the house and engine batterys.
Think I am going to have to use the sears diehard trickle charger all the time or do I need to buy something I am missing ?.
I have 50 amp and 20 amp hooked up at home.
also noticed the 12v water pump stays on just de -winterized drained anti freeze and flushed and filled fresh water tank.
turned off pump so as not to burn it up as luck may have it, LOL.
Inverter charger does not charge engine batteries. You can use your boost button to temporally charge the engine batteries. Most people have an auxiliary charger such as Trikl start or Echo charge to maintain the engine batteries. The 6/2 charger will charge them but very slowly. But if they are completely drained sometimes auto chargers won't get them started charging.
If you can jump the batteries the alt does a great job.. if not take them off and charge 1 by 1
Thanks,
I will have to move some things out of the way to get my truck close enough to boost.
can i jump off the mh using my truck if both batterys are still hooked up to the motor home ?
Does the boost not work? If it works that should charge the engine batteries. After filling the water tank did you turn off the fill valve under the bathroom sink? If not the pump will continue to run.
How do you use the boost ? Sorry, Just getting to know this Old Gal been treating her real good since We got her last Thanksgiving
in Texas.
We put solar chargers on house and engine batteries to keep them up while in storage. Works great.
If the battery voltage is below the threshold voltage that the newer electronic chargers require to recognize the battery they will not charge it. Hook up a good battery to the discharged battery (+ to + - to -) and connect the charger. That should work. If you can leave a trickle charger connected when in storage that will fix your problem. Engine batteries have a small parasitic drain on them all the time unless you disconnect them.
Keith
Yes, you don't want to burn the pump up.
I'm guessing to fill the water tank you pressed a switch? (verses opening a manual valve)
If so, then this is most likely caused by the fill valve being stuck open. The water just circulates in a loop. In older coaches like mine there is a manual fill valve located under the bathroom sink. In newer coaches there is a solenoid valve located next to the water pump. It can get clogged with debris that makes it stick open. The repair is to disassembly and clean it.
These valve look a lot like a sprinkler valve. On some there is a flow control on top that might close the valve as a temporary measure. From the photos I have seen it appears there are brass valves and plastic valves.
Here's prior thread with a photo of the fill valve: Water Fill Valve (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=19042.msg132785#msg132785)
The forum has a search function under the "Community" tab on the left that is very handy once you know what key words to search for. In this case I just searched for "fill valve".
RE: dead batteries.
If House batteries OK I would start the generator and turn the Boost Switch on.
That should charge the starting batteries. (it ties the two banks together)
Later I would also suggest getting a Trip-L-Start or something similar to keep the starting batteries charged.
Ultra TRIK-L-START Starting Battery Charger/Maintainer (http://lslproducts.net/TLSPage.html)
Your answer lies here:
Start battery drain (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=30656.msg266442#msg266442) Go no further than your Forum backyard