Newbie Battery Mistake

[moodyerdoc]

So, brand new fifth wheel purchase, Maiden voyage was from the dealership to our storage lot. Exciting, I know.

I went back today to stock a few things and the 2 batteries were DEAD. Multimeter confirmed. (0ne read 0, the other read 2.1) Everything was shut off when we left it (triple checked) but forgot to turn off battery disconnect. :face palm:

So, what's my next move? Are the batteries trashed? (ACDelco 24 Deep cycle)
Should I try to recharge them the next time I reach shore power and see what happens?

On a related note, I am wondering if I would be replacing them anyway.

Included in our intended uses of the RV will be occasional Walmart parking lot stays, in which it would be nice to keep the fridge running, run the heat, and have a few hours of TV (plan to wire one TV into the inverter). Whether I need to upgrade my inverter is a separate discussion (1000W currently).

I just don't want to take off on our first "real" trip in a week, risk having bad batteries, and stuck paying premium prices for new batteries on the road and having to do battery wiring in the Costco parking lot or something.

Should I just upgrade now to golf cart batteries? How many would be appropriate? 2? 4?

I am brand new to RV/fifth wheel world. Thank God for this website.

Many thanks....

[Sundancer330]

I would pull both batteries take them home and try to charge them. Good luck.

[Jagiven]

Pull them, and charge them. 0 volts is bad. But new batteries, might come back, for sure you have shorten there life, how much hard to say. Get them charges and a automotive repair shop can test the battery strength.

[robkelly]

Congratulations on the new rig and welcome!

Agree with the others, pull the batteries, try to charge them and have them tested. If you're planning to upgrade to golf cart batteries anyway, now wouldn't be a bad time to do it. My recommendation would be 4 vs. 2, especially if you're going to boondocks occasionally.

[oldmanAZ]

Congratulations on the new Northpoint and welcome to the forum.

[Desert RVers]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new Jayco! I did something similar with ours. I left the battery disconnect switch turned on when we left our trailer at the dealer for warranty work. I just assumed they would want it on. When we picked up the trailer a month later, the battery was dead. The tongue jack wouldn't move at all. Once the truck was backed up close to the trailer, we plugged in the towing harness and the jack would then raise. Since that time, the battery won't hold a charge as well. A trip to the Interstate store is in our near future! Have fun with your new FW. Post some pictures if you like. We love to see them.

[Bookemdanno]

Congrats on the 377 and welcome to the JOF. I echo what everyone else has said to try and charge them and see what the outcome is. I have 2 12v Interstates on my 377. They will run what you are wanting to do for a night, but that's about it. I will replace my two 12's for four 6's somewhere down the road, but not until I get some use out of these.

[BuddyRay]

Moodyerdoc,

Also - something else to know - cutting the battery disconnect switch may not, in all cases, stop your batteries from running down in storage. Jayco likes to wire some things around those disconnect switches. Turn them off and your battery is still dead when you come back.

See this thread for a discussion: http://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f6...ers-37682.html

And follow the thread inside that post to a second post with wiring pictures, etc.

[moodyerdoc]

Awesome advice! Thank you all. I'll follow up and let you know how resilient brand new batteries are to a full discharge.

[moodyerdoc]

Well, a NOCO genius trickle charger may have recovered my 12v batteries, to some degree. I'll take them up to get tested soon. In the meantime, I bought 2 trojan 6V and had a silly question regarding their install. When it came time to connect them in series, I realized there are 2 black cables and one red cable in the 377. Are both black cables ground? Do I connect them both to the same terminal? Or one to the negative terminal of each 6V battery?

And then, what to do with the left over 12V batteries now of questionable reputation? Since there's plenty of room, I was thinking of keeping them installed as backups and installing a battery switch. Good? No good? Also thinking about installing a battery cutoff switch since the main disconnect doesn't really "disconnect" everything.

With the new 6V install, any other mods I need to make to accommodate this change?

We hope to take a maiden voyage next week if the weather holds. I'll post pics of the battery set up to get some thoughts.