Battery Charging

Paddock · 01-28-2019, 04:36 PM

When unplugged from shore line, battery check only lights up in a very faint three dots. When plugged back it, shows full charge. Put a set of jumper cables from a new battery to the one mounted in the coach with same results.
New coach! 135 miles and that far from the dealer.

2019 Entegra Esteem 30X

WinnieView · 01-28-2019, 05:38 PM

Sounds as though there's a loose connection somewhere starting at the battery terminals.

jimp · 01-28-2019, 06:18 PM

Or one or more bad cells and won't hold a charge.

Bullitt6283 · 01-28-2019, 07:21 PM

You may be assuming that there is nothing wrong with the battery.

Dealers are known for not treating coach batteries with respect. Even a brand new battery, if fully discharged and allowed to stay that way for a short period of time, will be damaged and may not accept a full charge.

You could learn more about what is happening by using a voltmeter across the battery terminals. The on-board dot-gauge is rather worthless when diagnosing a problem.

xmtraveler · 01-29-2019, 04:42 AM

Sounds like a weak or defective battery. When you connect another battery across the one in your coach you will may not see a change in the amount of charge (volts) on the display. When doing this you have more amperage but the voltage across the terminals will not climb to 13.5V which is what a fully charged battery indicates after being charged. There may be one or more weak cells in the the battery. I had a similar problem with my 2017 Redhawk less than 6 months out. I removed the useless cheap Harris battery supplied by Jayco with a new AGM type.

stans02 · 01-29-2019, 03:49 PM

I would take the batteries to a battery sales store. Have them check the batteries. Then contact the place where you bought the coach, if you have a defective battery. Stan

RogerR · 01-29-2019, 04:23 PM

If you still have jumper cables handy pull one terminal off the battery, hook up the cable to the ends without the camper battery in the circuit and check your lights inside. If you now have reasonable lights inside it is the battery or:
Bad connection at the battery terminal so it won;t be charged
A dead battery
A bad charger

But I would highly suspect that the battery is toast due to dealer maltreatment.

I agree that it would be a good idea to haul the battery to any handy shop with a battery charger/tester.

If it is bad call the dealer and ask if he will reimburse you under warranty.

It is probably a cheapo 24 series battery. This is a good time to upgrade to a 27 series or even two 6 volt batteries after some research.

RetiredLEO · 01-29-2019, 05:48 PM

Other than Lithium any battery allowed to get below 50% is hurt.

Joan617 · 01-29-2019, 06:45 PM

We made the rookie mistake of leaving our rig in storage without disconnecting the batts until a few days later when I bolted out of bed remembering my mistake. The rv dealer had provided 2 group 27 marine batteries from Interstate. Remembering that we have an interstate dealer in down, I called them for advice. They offered to take them in and administer cpr with a manual charge and testing. Instead I went to them and bought a smart trickle charger with analytics plus an old school hydrometer battery tester. In my garage over several days the batteries were ressecutated and it’s estimated that I might have lost a couple of cycles over the life of the batts.

I would not have been able to make a warranty claim for my mistake and new ones would have been $130 each. Props to Interstate for the help, which btw was on New Year’s Eve day when others may not have.

Paddock · 01-30-2019, 09:19 AM

Thanks for all of the tips, I will be working through them today while we are dealing with -14 temps.

Paddock · 01-30-2019, 11:36 AM

Took battery out and it tested/load tested good.

When I unplugged the shoreline, put the battery back in and flipped the disconnect to turn on, light next to the switch turned on and the marker lights on the exterior of the coach came on along with the light over the first step inside the coach. Went to turn on interior lights, nothing. Tried to start the generator and it clicked while the interior lights flashed in sink with the clicking.

Think it might be time to take back to the dealer for this one. Strange for sure, probably just a new unit bug.

Bullitt6283 · 01-30-2019, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddock

...and the marker lights on the exterior of the coach came on...

That sounds odd to me. Do you mean the exterior marker lights that are usually controlled by the headlight switch on the dashboard?

Unrelated circuits that act weird like that are sometimes caused by a bad ground connection somewhere. Like if the ground wire from the marker light circuit is tied to the ground at the same point as something else that doesn't work right but the actual connection to the frame is bad.

New units with grounding issues are not unknown..

Paddock · 01-30-2019, 01:06 PM

Yes, the marker lights that are generally controlled with the truck lights. They do come on when you lock the cab with the fob.

There are several banks of grounds on the frame (bundles of white wires near the power step) Looks as if they were all connected then painted to keep from corroding. I will undo those, clean and reattach.

Thanks
Rookie Troubleshooter...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullitt6283

That sounds odd to me. Do you mean the exterior marker lights that are usually controlled by the headlight switch on the dashboard?

Unrelated circuits that act weird like that are sometimes caused by a bad ground connection somewhere. Like if the ground wire from the marker light circuit is tied to the ground at the same point as something else that doesn't work right but the actual connection to the frame is bad.

New units with grounding issues are not unknown..

Paddock · 02-03-2019, 04:15 PM

Thanks for all of the posts.

It was in fact a ground. There were two cables tucked up behind the generator that were attached to the frame with a self tapping screw that was fractured.

Re attached and all was good!

We had a break in the weather so we jumped in and headed south for a few days and then the hot water heater would not fire! It worked at the delivery but now not. IT clicks and you can smell gas but nothing. I held a lighter in there when it clicked and it started up for about 3 seconds before it quit again.

Beginning my search for the solution for this one. The electric portion did work but not very hot for very long at all.

Thanks
Mike

75H · 02-04-2019, 12:03 AM

This is going to sound silly and has nothing to do with your propane lighting issues, but....

If you are getting hot & cold water when on electric, make sure the water knobs on any outside shower are turned all the way off (they could be on and the shower not dripping water if the shower head is turned off).

Been there, done that.

Camper_bob · 02-06-2019, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paddock

Thanks for all of the posts.

It was in fact a ground. There were two cables tucked up behind the generator that were attached to the frame with a self tapping screw that was fractured.

Re attached and all was good!

We had a break in the weather so we jumped in and headed south for a few days and then the hot water heater would not fire! It worked at the delivery but now not. IT clicks and you can smell gas but nothing. I held a lighter in there when it clicked and it started up for about 3 seconds before it quit again.

Beginning my search for the solution for this one. The electric portion did work but not very hot for very long at all.

Thanks
Mike

That's a bad control board. WELL known and documented issue. In my case it was cheaper and easier to just order a replacement from Amazon, install it and move on with life. Dealer will likely put OEM board back in, but you'd think by now all those bad ones would have been cycled through.

Plenty of anecdotes where dealer installed new OEM that was also bad. One user (IIRC) even went through 3 OEM boards before one actually worked.

Just get a Dinosaur board from Amazon. It takes like 10 minutes to install. And that's if you're like me and want to see what else you can improve while you're in there.

Imazman · 02-09-2019, 02:04 PM

Yes, what Bob said. I had a hot water heater which worked on electric but not on propane. My was from a 2018 motorhome, we used it twice and the third time is when we found it to not work.
My issue was a bad control board. Two screws and disconnect a wire harness and it's out. The whole board is epoxied so you can't really fix the boards, just replace the whole thing (thats he American way). Since it was under warrantee I just let dealer replace it. I seem to recall looking at the receipt and the replacement part was somewhere around $100 give or take $25.

Johnynorthland · 02-09-2019, 03:05 PM

Had the dealer do some warranty work on the new coach. Battery was dead the day of pick up. They left the coach button on! Funny thing is battery indicator read 3/4 full. I purchased an Aux, digital volt meter with USB charger with On/Off switch, on Amazon. Wired right to the battery bypassing the coach switch. (I just have to remember to shutoff the meter but it doesn’t draw much) Now I truly know what the voltage is standing and while charging. And my daughter loves the USB charger and I love not running my generator so she can charge her phone!

bill737cal · 02-09-2019, 07:14 PM

Interesting about batteries. Bought a new camper, and after 3 camping trips I was having problems with the batteries. I'm very hand so I took them out and tested them with a hydrometer. Well 1 cell on these new batteries was completely dead. Called the dealer with my finding and they told me I would have to bring them to the dealer and they would charge them for 3 days, test them, then replace if needed. DA! I was going hunting and didn't have 3 days. Anyway took them to interstate batteries and they replaced the bad one, the other one was ok. The batters were over a year old in my new camper. I replaced them with two six volts.

75H · 02-10-2019, 05:21 PM

Switching from a TT to motorhome, I invested in a couple of diagnostic tools that work very well, help me keep an eye on things, and can be used on our other vehicles:

#1 (Stays at home) Foxwell BT705
#2 (Stays on motorhome) Nextpeak NX501

Think about the advantage of having an OBD reader with you on the road a hundred miles from nowhere when that check engine light comes on. Be nice to know it was just a loose gas cap!

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