Monitoring battery drain
!VanLife - Working on our #HinoRainbow #motorhome conversion we have an issue with occasional drain of the motor batteries. (I guess something somewhere is being left on despte an isolation switch being used when we are parked up) - I' trying to figure out someway of monitoring battery drain on them so we can be alerted.
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Frater Mus
in reply to abeorch • • •Is the isolator a manual switch or does it work automagically ("split charger", relay, diode isolator, dc-dc, etc)?
If the leisure and starter batteries really are isolated then it's a chassis problem. The classical approach is to youtube.com/watch?v=G7BvKNfY6h… and pull chassis fuses until the current stops -- that circuit is the problem.
How long does it take for this to happen? A day? A month? If you have solar on the rig you could leverage it to keep the starter battery[s] charged. This would also work if you are on shore power while parked up.
- YouTube
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abeorch
in reply to Frater Mus • •Yeah its taken a day or two to flatten the battery so something is going on - its got an isolatation switch which controls a solenoid. I need to look into this more - will need to check that video.
Our house and engine electrics are completely separate but we had been thinking of using the solar to charge the engine batteries. We dont have shore power connection as such because everything is 12v.
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Frater Mus
in reply to abeorch • • •Parasitic drains can be frustratingly hard to find, so don't be discouraged if you don't find it right away. I had a '72 beetle with a slow drain. Took me weeks to find it -- it was the original AM radio, which I never listened to. The volume knob was turned just far enough to power the radio on but not far enough to make any sound. Argggh!
Shore power can be used as-is (120v, 240v, whatever the local standard is) especially on larger RVs. On vans it usually feeds a converter/charger that run 12v loads and charge 12v banks.
electrical:converter [RVwiki for vanfolk and others who live in vehicles]
rvwiki.mousetrap.netabeorch
in reply to Frater Mus • •Frater Mus likes this.
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abeorch
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