Power Issue

[Zambini]

Aloha my fellow Jayco owners,

I have a 2020 Jayflight 27xls and am having very unusual power draw. We like to dry camp and the last few trips have been cut short due to loss of battery power and I was originally thinking it was due to a bad battery, so bought 2 new ones, charged them full, hooked up and was out of power within 6 hours! (We got woken up at 2am when the CO2 detector started chirping due to the power loss) Got home from the trip, recharged the new batteries, put the fridge on propane and made sure everything else was off and within about 5 hours, was down to one light on the battery power indicator. I know the CO2 detector draws a bunch but everything was off so should 2 brand new batteries lose charge in 5 or 6 hours? We are still under warranty so it’s going in ASAP but was wondering if any of you have had a similar issue and if yes, did you find a fix?

Thx and happy camping.

Scooter

 

[GHen-JAY]

Sounds like you do have something going on. If the furnace is not running, and your refer is not running on 12 volts and you don’t have an inverter that is on, the only thing I can think of is the emergency brake cable is pulled and energizing the brakes.

 

[SB_James]

It could be a grounding issue. Can you put an ammeter on the battery to see how many amps you’re drawing? Maybe pull fuses one at a time to see which circuit is the Amp hog.

 

[JimD]

The CO2 detector does pull some power but it would takes a number of days before that alone would run your batteries down. For a total drain in 5 hours you are pulling major power somewhere.

Other than the obvious furnace, the big draw item would be the inverter. It should be turned completely off until needed and then only used sparingly. Inverters simply suck the juice from batteries.

I am not familiar with the breakaway feature on trailers but that sounds like a candidate to me. Other small draw items are lights. Are any accidentally left on in a cabinet maybe? That would not account for the large draw but still something to keep an eye on.

Are you 100% sure you charged the batteries up to 100%? If you are using a 10 or 15 amp charger it may take longer than overnight for 2 batteries to charge. A built-in converter typically will put out a higher charge.

You need to get a voltmeter and see what the batteries are at and monitor them that way. The idiot lights pretty much suck for essential battery monitoring.

When I get off my lazy butt I want to measure the amp draw in my rig for all items. This is easily done by using an ammeter inline with the battery feed. As long as you don't exceed what the meter can handle you should be able to measure. A better bet, although may not be as accurate, is the clamp on ammeter. You won't hurt it with an overload.

Lastly, if you take your batteries down below 12.1 volts they may be permanently damaged and not come up to a full charge.

 

[JFlightRisk]

I haven't put a meter to check the amount of draw on ours, but it's been sitting since June 14th and with the CO detector and the stereo powered up, it still has 4 lights on the monitor panel. Not an exact science, but that's on the original, single Gr24 Interstate battery. I'll check it with a VOM to get a proper voltage.

Could there be one or more compartment lights left on?

 

[OurJayco]

Just another thought....Is your Television antenna booster ON?
That is also a battery pig.