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Questions about plugging in
Hi…I’m a new owner of a 2002 Liberty Classic, and my initial questions involve leaving the coach garaged & plugged in.
1. I have a fan running in the electrical bay 24/7. I know this is a cooling fan, but it’s loud enough that I can hear it when I walk into the garage. Is this normal?
2. Below are a couple of photos of the interior electrical panel. I’m trying to learn what should/should not be on. I have shut off the “Outlets FWD,” but I have left “Battery Charger 1,” “Battery Charger 2,” “Battery Charger 24V,” and “Refrigerator” on. What, exactly, are the chargers controlling, and do they need to be on if the inverters are on?
3. In two weeks, per my Hughes Power Watch Dog, the coach has used 221.3kWh of power. I’m no electrical guru (obviously from question #2), but this seems high for battery charging, a fan, and a fridge that’s not being opened. The entertainment bay fridge is shut off. Thoughts?
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19 Replies
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The Battery Charger #1 & #2 should be the inverters.
24 Volt Charger is the auxiliary onboard charger for the chassis batteries. You shouldn’t need to have that on unless the chassis batteries are depleted for some reason.
Our coach just sat for seven weeks plugged into 50amp shore power and the chassis charger turned off.
Do you have the original chassis battery charger that Liberty installed? Huge. It’s probably a single stage high amp 24 volt. I’m told when on it just hammers the batteries and isn’t good for them. You need to replace with a modern three stage charger like a Guest/Marinco Charger.
I’m not an electrician either.
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Welcome Robert… The 24v chassis charger should not be on unless it’s a 3 stage charger that goes to float. The old dumb chargers if left on would cook the batteries.
The house battery charges 1 & 2 should be left on. The fan you hear running is probably the bay cooling fan and Liberty hard wired those to the inverter, you can’t turn it off. The last one I had I installed a temperature controller rather than having the fan run full time.
It’s been awhile since my Liberty days, so if I’m wrong above they’ll rag on me.
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My way of operating / storing the coach:
Leave the 24V chassis battery charger off. If you do not use the coach for 2 or three months or longer you might wish to top off the charge after a couple of months. If it does not have a 3 stage charger for the chassis, get one. It is important you charge the batteries correctly. If the batteries go dead in less than 2 months you have old bad batteries or a phantom load that must be identified and turned off.
When parked for an extended period I have shore power connected all the time, and at the very least have the forward and aft outlets turned on as well as the 2 inverter switches. The inverters are maintaining the house batteries in the best manner so keep power to them.
Allow the fan you hear to run all the time. In fact you need to be aware it is operating, as well as verifying the inverter internal fans are operating also because heat is the enemy of your inverters.
Depending on circumstances I may also leave on the switches for the refrigerator, TVs, and other devices, such as the aux compressor if the bus is in outdoors in weather to keep the slide seals inflated.
As to power consumed, I have no idea how much the loads I keep on consume. I know inverters will draw power, plus the house has a number of phantom loads you cannot control like antenna boosters, inverter fan, clocks, temperature sensors, burglar alarms, etc. so my guess is the total average load is somewhere between 2 and 4 amps at 120V.
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Here’s what we do and the success we’ve had doing it this way. Different strokes for different folks.
Our bus lives at our TX home with us, 50′ away. When we get home from a trip we don’t plug into our 50 amp shore power. We empty the frig/freezer/ice maker. We turn off both inverter/chargers and all switches in the electrical cabinet, and turn off the water pump.
A day our two before a trip, the bus gets plugged into shore power, the 2 inexpensive portable chargers(see below) are disconnected, the bus inverter/chargers are turned on, the frig/freezer/ice maker are turned on, and the water pump is turned on.For battery care we do the following:I own a lot of batteries. It pays to take care of them properly. One of the worst things you can do to the batteries in the bus is nothing. Another bad thing is over charging.We bought our bus almost 7 yrs ago with the 4 NAPA commercial #7234 mx free lead acid chassis batteries that are in it today. And I don’t know how long they were in there before we bought the bus? I rotate a cheap $5 harbor freight 12v trickle charger back and forth between the 2 easiest to get to outer most batteries every week or two. All 4 chassis batteries are connected to each other, so when one gets charged, they all get charged to some degree. A little Lifeline Concord 12v battery in my airplane lasted 12 yrs with one of these cheap chargers hooked up to it 24/7/365.When we bought our bus it already had a built in Marinco Guest dual 24v/12v smart charger installed for the chassis batteries. If I’m ever on the road parked somewhere for a week or more, I will turn it on for a few hours once a week.Our bus when new from Liberty was built for three 12v 8D house batteries. Previous owner had at some point in time installed three Deka brand 4D batteries. I replaced them almost 4 yrs ago with 3 Lifeline 8D. When the bus is at home I have an OLD $10 Craftsman manual 2 amp dumb charger hooked up to the post on the battery isolator that allows it to charge both the house batts and the gen bat. It keeps a 13.1 float charge on both banks. The gen battery is a cheap Autozone group 27 Duralast wet cell that I installed immediately after we bought the bus almost 7 yrs ago. It is still going strong and has never needed any water added.When we’re parked away from home(usually at a race track) we use the inverter/chargers to keep the house and gen batts charged. Of course the charger portion of the inverter/charger get their power from either shore or generator.When driving, our bus has 2 engine driven alternators, a 12v for the house and gen batts, and a 24v for the chassis batts. Voltage regulators on both are set to operate at about 14v and 28v which is a good compromise between too high and too low. There is an alternator on my gen too. I have it disconnected because the non-adjustable voltage regulator in it is set to high, 14.9v, and would shorten the gen battery life. The gen battery gets charged by the house batts thru a battery isolator anyway.We installed a PulseTech PP-12-L on the house bank to prevent sulfation.Seems to be working OK for us so far? -
The cooling fan in the driver side , bay #2, is a pancake fan in the upper left corner in that bay. I had to replace mine last year as the bearings went out.It makes quite a noise when it goes bad. In the bottom right side of the cabinet you should find 2 round soffit vents that let air into the cabinet, make sure they are clean on both sides to allow air flow through the cabinet.
The fan is a 110V unit in my coach held in by 4 screws, and 2 female electrical connections. An easy DIY project, and the fan is easily found on Ebay or Amazon. It is live with the inverters so shut them off before removing the electrical connections.
My fan was a Sunon SP101A, PN# 1123 HST, 115V/60Hz running 0.21A
They make cheap plastic replacement models, but this one is aluminum.
I live in South Florida and keep my coach in a covered storage facility, but it is open to the ambient temps of South Florida. So I always keep 2 A/C’s on and alternate their use about every 2 weeks. This to keep the humidity down in the coach. I turn off all other power sources except for the A/C that I am using, Keep the engine 24V charger and both of the inverters on. I have no slide so I keep the Aux compressor off.
When returning to the coach, I power up everything and turn on the Aux compressor and let it run for a while before starting the engine, so the engine belt tensioner has air to it to avoid flipping a belt off at engine start up.
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Been on the road all day, so I’m just seeing all of your replies…lots of helpful information, so thank you all very, very much. I don’t know what type of charger the 24v unit is…will have to locate/identify once I turn it off. Is it likely to be driver bay 2, or elsewhere?
I also appreciate the part number for the pancake fan. My gut says mine is noisier than it should be, so I’ll check to see if your part number will be a match.
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In reviewing the online manuals, I see that the chassis batteries are behind the right rear engine bay door (head swimming with what I can remember!). Would that be the likely location to find the 24v charger?
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Look up and to the right in the engine compartment, next to voltage regulator. Our’s is a Marinco Guest smart charger, gray and blue.
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Thanks to your guidance, I found the ProMariner Gen 3 ProSport 12 charger on the ceiling above the chassis batteries. It has a 2018 date code on it, so it’s newish.
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Very likely the original 24 volt single-stage boat anchor charger that was original to your coach was fastened to the roof of the engine battery bay too.
If you don’t have slides, you shouldn’t need the auxiliary air compressor on. If you have air leaks (and almost all of us do) it will cycle on and off all the time.
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Another thing to consider: For longer-term, unattended storage I make sure to put the inverters in “Charge” mode only. This prevents the inverter draining the batteries during prolonged power outages. This is useful if power outages are relatively common.
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I leave my coach plugged in all the time now with the new inverters Magnums 2812 only 1 of the inverters I leave on charge while it’s sitting there. The new inverters will go into charge off mode till like 12.6v then back to 13.5 it bring them up then back down a bit. with both on they will never sink to go up and down. Un like the old inverters heart interface Xantrax inverters they will not be kind to batteries left charging all the time. And on chassis batteries I got rid of the old bread box charger 1 step and installed a 3 step 24v charger, I only charge them once and a while, When coach is sitting I keep knife switch off to chassis.
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People have asked “why don’t we leave the bus plugged into shore when we’re not using it?”
The #1 reason is: we’re not made of $$$. If you are made of $$$, there is no good reason to read any further.Since nothing lasts forever, and I prefer to replace things later and not sooner.In case you didn’t know? when plugged into shore power:#2, the transfer switch is activated and there are various parts in it that don’t last forever#3, inverter/chargers aren’t 100% efficient and don’t last forever. We eventually had our old Freedoms fail us, once when we were on the road, so we lost use of everything on that inverter. We installed 2 new Magnum units at a DIY cost of nearly $4k. The Guest chassis charger is cheap either. Again, they won’t last forever and they’re not 100% efficient. Since we’re smarter than a smart charger, we’re able to use two $10 battery chargers to keep all the bus batteries charged. We make sure they do a good job. When and if one fails we aren’t out a bunch of $$$ like we would be if we were using the onboard chargers.#4, we empty the frig/freezer between trips, so there’s no need to leave the frig/freezer on. It does no harm turning it off. Its a freon refrigeration unit like an air-conditioning unit.#5, from what we can see, keeping an air-conditioner on all the time only makes our hard earned $$$ fly away to the utility company and the CruiseAir parts manufacture(s).There’s more than 1 way to skin a cat, this is ours. We hope it helps. -
I’d like to circle back to replacing the pancake fan that runs 24/7 in the Liberty electrical bay. Above, William says that it runs with the inverters, so they need to be turned off. I also see the yellow “Important” placard on the fuse panel which warns about turning off house battery switches without battery watchdog disconnected. So, obviously, my question is:
Does “turn off the inverters” mean flipping the On/Off switch on each unit, and, if so, do I need to do anything else before/after?
Sorry for the idiocy…
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Robert, Liberty has done a good job and if you choose to get creative and modify anything make sure you have thought everything through.
Apparently there are owners that object to hearing a fan. The fan you hear runs 24/7 as long as you have the inverters on and power to the coach. It is to insure the electrical bay does not get too warm because heat is the enemy of a lot of electrical devices, including inverters. For me when my coach is stored I have it plugged into 50 amp, my inverter #1 and #2 on and forward and rear outlets on. Anything else is dependent on what you want to power. like a refrigerator or A/Cs.
As soon as I walk into the bus garage I hear the fan. If I do not hear the fan something is wrong. I like hearing the fan because without looking further I know the coach has power and life is good. Adding a thermostat introduces a failure point to the system and the last thing you want if for the air in the electric compartment to be stagnant and heat building.
I’m surprised Tom objected to the noise of the fan. He can’t hear.
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