Coach is in covered storage with no electric
I have installed 200w of solar on roof of storage building and wired to house batteries. Negative to battery #1 positive to battery #3.
I have a trikLstart trickle charger wired to the isolator to charge the start batteries
Salesman switch is off
Generator has run for about 6 hrs this week to keep batteries charge.
Long term solution is to find the drain on the battery and resolve the issue.
Short term solution I'm thinking is to install a battery disconnect between the inverter and the house batteries. My thinking is this will allow the solar and the trikLstart to keep both sets of batteries charged. Is this correct thinking?? Any upgrade or better solution to this will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your thoughts in advance.
Tommy, you can't turn your inverter off? I know we have phantom draws on these coach's and as far as I know, the only way to remove them all is to disconnect the batteries.
200 watts of solar might put out 10 amps at best - probably more like 5 amps on average. IF you start with fully charged batteries, and IF there is no big phantom drain on batteries, then the panels might be sufficient to keep all of the batteries topped off.
If you don't have a residential fridge, then you don't need the inverter on. Like Joe says, turn it off.
A manual disconnect switch between batteries and inverter is a good thing to have. Allows instant isolation of inverter for maintenance and/or for trouble shooting.
If your inverter controls don't allow you to turn off the inverter, then your plan might work. My SW 3012 with the inverter on and at idle draws 3 amps or around 60 watts. With the inverter function turned off it draws .25 amps or around 3 watts.
I will turn off the inverter, didn't know I could. Thanks.
Can you turn off inverter at the panel inside or do I have to crawl into the bay to turn it off?
With inverter turned off will the trikLstart still charge the start batteries?
I was hoping 200w of solar would keep the batteries trickle charged when in storage?
On mine it is the control panel mounted in the coach. Only need to push one button to shut the inverter off or back on.
1. If your Trik-L-Start is correctly connected to both BATTERY posts on the isolator, then "Yes" it will steal
some of the charging current going to the house batteries and send it to the start batteries.
2. Maybe it will - maybe it won't. Reduce your phantom loads to a bare minimum, and see how it goes.
If your generator has been running because the Auto Start control is kicking it on, check what "start" voltage is set in the Auto Start program. It is
possible the generator is coming on more often than necessary.
Somebody else will have to tell you how to check the program, cuz I don't have Auto Start.
Do you have a solar controller, if so, what is the bulk and float settings? What are the settings for your inverter/charger?
For 10 years I dry camped with only 150 watts solar on both a 91 and 92 Signature. 200 watts should be more than enough to keep your batteries up, unless you have a bad positive or ground connection on your batteries, charge controller, or inverter/charger. I would start with monitoring the voltage of these three. You can do this with a simple 12 volt meter. The inverter/charger and the solar controller actually charge your batteries, not just monitor the voltage and rate of charge like the battery monitor..
A Victron BMV- 712 with temp sence is about $225 and $206 without temp sence. You can monitor from your phone and it will pair with Victron solar controller to moniter temperature and voltage. The 712 by itself will only monitor temperature or voltage, not both unless you pair it with a Victron solar controller. If you do not need temperature monitoring then you save about $20.
Temp sence is not as important on the 712 as its primary function is to monitor. The primary function of theinverter/charger and the solar controller is to charge you batteries, thus temp sence is mandatory.
I have 3 new AGM 8d o'rielly batteries for house
Solar controller settings are 14.4 and 12.2V
The inverter charger is set to 100% on High AC Volt and Low AC Volt is set to 12.2
Turning off the inverter seems to have helped a lot. When I checked last night the charge was at 13.3V and when I looked this morning the charge was 12.7V on the solar controller which is mounted right next to the battery bank. Does that seem normal? Thinking about turning off the breakers also??
Thanks again for all of your comments and help!
It should go back up to float again today if you have sun.,
My me-arc panel on my magnum setup has a adjust the search functions watts its looking for and/or to turn off the search function. Default was 5 watts. So depending on your set parameters of how often the inverter was turning itself on to look for 5 watt loads it will consume power.
I removed the isolator and installed the industry standard now auto combiner instead.
I had two trickle chargers blow internally and still have a green light on its face.
It you exceed it's rated output my much they fail.
The combiners auto function makes running down a battery bank extremely unlikely.
My guru buddy normally does not add my upfront control box.
He adds the starter sense wire now and that way the house batteries are not auto connected when the starter relay is engaged.
Otherwise it covered up weak engine batteries.
I can manually connect or manually lock out the combiner from the front.
Switch is where the boost was.
My 270 watts solar works great to charge both banks. Unless low sun angle in winter and dirty at the same time
Since your rv is in covered storage, your solar is not charging except when in sunlight. I would install a ground cutoff on both house and chassis batteries. This is what I did. I will also personnel message you to call me tomorrow after3pm Pacific time.
"While in storage, batteries should be boost charged every 90 days or when the open circuit
voltage (OCV) drops to 12.5 volts for a 12 volt battery (6.25 volts for a 6 volt battery and 2.08
volts for a 2V battery). This OCV corresponds to approximately 75% state of charge. Boost
charge batteries using a constant voltage charger set at 14.4 to 15.0 volts for a 12 volt battery." from Lifeline for AGMs.
Jack,
Tommy's solar panels are on the
roof of his storage building. See first post.
The Magnum inverter chargers can be added to with a fully adjustable auto gen start module.
Including operating hours and exercising of the gen.
Can be temp triggered if you add a 10 button Dometic control panel and change the roof airs circuit board.
Either hot or cold could trigger the auto gen start or battery SOC or any combo of the triggers.
Turns off the gen when the triggering conditions are addressed
I have found that invertors draw about 3 or 4 amps whether they are on or off,
Best cure is disconnect the Invertor when not in use,
Many inveters have an ON-OFF switch. Particularly true of inverter/chargers.
The magnum can have its "search for a load" five watt load parameter adjusted as needed and can be turned off. I turned mine off.
Inverters have two different OFFs.
Turning off the inverter from the inverter control panel will turn off 120 VAC to your power panel but still leave the inverter connected to your batteries. The inverter will consume less wattage this way but not ZERO. Disconnect a battery cable will cause the other "OFF" condition where inverter will consume ZERO watts.
Inverter may also have a "Power Save" mode which will consume less watts than "Ready" mode, but may require waking up the inverter with a light load (light bulb) before it will work with a heavy load (microwave). This is how my "pure sign" Xantrex 1800 inverter works, so I do not use the "Power Save" mode.
The no load watts that an inverter consumes depends on the configuration or model. Inverter/chargers with a pass through capability consume more "no load" watts then an inverter without a charger or pass through capability.
My Xantrex 1800 "pure sign" consumes a 2/3 amp when in "Ready" mode (Xantrex says 0.8 amps), so It is only turned on when being used. Most inverter/chargers with pass through consume 2 or more amps when in "Ready" mode. I boon dock a lot so inverter no load watts is important to me.
Tommy D:
I doubt that 200 watts of solar is sufficient to provide for your phantom load.
On a bright sunny day 200 watts will provide circa 50 amp hours which will be consumed by a 2 amp phantom load over a 24 hour period.
So, how many amps is your phantom load?
When I purchased my 1996 U320, the phantom load was 6.5 amps which was consuming the power produced by 600 watts of solar on the roof (on a sunny day).
I reduced that phantom load to half amp which could be satisfied by a 50 watt panel.
What did I eliminate?: A burglar alarm which did not work, a satellite receiver I could not use, new inverter replaced old inverter/charger with pass through, dash AM/FM and CB radios (installed switch on dash), propane safety valve and over the bed AM/FM radio (also switched).