[Dick]

oh and when exactly should the autostart kick in? All invertor circuits where dead and the generator still hadn’t kicked in, even with autostart light still showing red)

[Chip & Pam]

On your Liberty with what might typically be the loads, including phantom loads it would probably be reasonable to expect you could shut off the shore power or generator at 10:00 and in the morning still have 24.5 volts showing.

So maybe 8 to 10 hours your voltage might be at that level.

That has been my experience with the last two coaches, both of which had 4 8D batteries.

As to the auto-start, I have not used it. But those who use the Liberty Watchdog have said the voltage when it starts the generator is in the 22 volt range. I could never bring myself to abuse the batteries like that so I tried to never get below 24 volts.

If yours has not kicked on by around 22 volts the Watchdog may have an issue. If it has gotten so low as to shut down inverters something is not right.

[Archived]

Charles I have 4 8 D’s and mine can go about 7 hours or 8 before it hits 24.4, I always start the gen at 24.4 if I can at all cost , I test the watchdog once every 6 months just to be sure it’s working but it is to low of a start voltage for me , if I let the watchdog start the gen the batteries will go about 15 to 16 hours before it starts , with nothing on just phathom loads

Edit Charles mine where new Life lines last July and that’s what they did last year and the same this year , I dry camp two nights a week sometimes if temps are perfect without gen at night!!!!!!!!

[Archived]

Our Lifelines were new in April/May of 2014. I think we have four 8D’s, I’d have to look at the Invoice from Jeff’s ETLC to confirm.

When we’re dry camping, we usually will run the generator manually (unless it autostarts) in the late evening, shut it off at 10pm, and turn on the autostart. At this point when we turn in for the night the button lights, refrigierator, phone chargers, and CPAP should be the only things running plus any miscellaneous parasitic power drain. That usually will cover us until 7am or so when we get up, manually start the generator to heat hot water, use the microwave, etc. Once in a while, if had lots of lights on after we turned off the generator (i.e. up well past our bedtime probably reading late posts to the PC Forum) the generator will autostart between 5am and 7am.

I haven’t look really, really closely at the voltage on the house batteries when the generator autostarts, but I will in the future.

I rarely turn off the autostart feature on the generator. I’m deathly afraid of forgetting, being away from the coach longer than I anticipate, etc. and coming back to dead house batteries. Jeff has explained to me how to “wake up” a dead coach as there is a trick to it.

Managing house battery power, usage, reserve, and regeneration is important for new coach owners to learn.

[Archived]

The autostart voltage on the Liberty’s I have had is way to low for my liking and probably around 22 volts as Jon and Peter mentioned. Once and awhile an autostart at those voltages won’t hurt anything, but continued discharge below 50%, 12.2 or 24.4, will for sure reduce your battery life. Remember 22 volts is in the 90% discharged range.

[Archived]

In 26 years, the last 12 with coaches that had autostart I used it once to see how it worked, and if it worked.

As Tom mentions a deep discharge prior to recharging has an impact on battery life, so I have always tried to manually restart the generator or be on shore power, or be driving when the batteries are down in the 50% depth of discharge range.

But having said that I also have never tried to measure in the context of how I use the coach which is typically power pole to power pole, if I relied solely on autostart if my 5 year self imposed battery replacement schedule is affected. By replacing all house or chassis batteries at 5 years, and by atttempting to never abuse them I have had no battery related issues or failures. Reliability is important to me which is why I do not wait for problems, but change out good serviceable batteries based on age alone.

By manually starting the charging cycle when dry camping, I am also now in the habit of looking at my readings. I have always tried to be aware of the coach condition with respect to the electrical side of the house so I frequently glance at all readings and that has helped insure if I have issues I can respond before they become serious.

Charles original question is one each owner should answer in the context of learning the battery performance on their coach, and then when that changes, such as the time between needed recharging starts to shorten then it might indicate either a battery starting to go bad or maybe some unnoticed loads are pulling down the batteries.

[Dick]

No matter what u do if you dry camp you will have to start the gen to heat the hot water for shower etc.

Tom any idea if you let the auto start do its thing how many charge and discharge the life lines will go compared to always starting at 24.4 manual ?????

I am doing a study now on it on how long the batteries will go in years. Compared to always starting at 24.4 I have done that study already

[Jim/Chris]

So trying to understand based on my panel what I have.

I know it’s a 12v system, so DC Volts (on my heart interface panels) reads 14 when on shore/generator.

The DC Amps reads what I am guessing is he draw on the system.

I do know that as soon as I turn off the Generator, the DC Volts drops to about 13. The DC Amps vary depending on the draw. I am seeing with pretty much basic things on (refer and what ever is there that we have no control over) I see DC amps at between 20 and 30.

I have one switch panel that runs on the inverters (handles refer, micro, outlets, water pump, air compressor). By the morning, I will see this panel will be “dead” by the morning and the heart interface panel will be showning DC Volts at 10 and flashing. THis is even with autostart set and the generator hasn’t started yet. These are lifeline 8D batteries I bought about two years ago and these live about 99% of their life on shore/driving with very litle time on generator overall.

I think last night I ran the generator for a good while to get the batteries charged. Let it off around 7:30 PM and by 5:00 AM it was dead on panel 1 and the Heart Interface panel was blinking at 10 DC Volts. Not sure if this is expected or if I should be seeing better time on the iverters with very little running.

[Kim]

The clue you provided was you have a 12 volt Liberty conversion. That means you have 3 8D batteries or approximately 75% of the total amount a 4 battery 24 volt Liberty conversion would have,

Your endurance is expected to be less so the amount of time you have between charges might be what is expected.

The voltages and loads displayed seem to be within the expected range. If you have doubts, the only real way to determine if your batteries are OK is to get at them, separate them electrically, and test them individually.

[DON]

Thanks Jon. Makes me feel more comfortable knowing the numbers look reasonable. I’ll be in East TN next week so may have Jeff do a load test on all the Life Line Batteries just to make sure they are good.

[Archived]

I think you have some problems Charles, so Jeff need’s to check it out. If you’re on gen or shore power, 14 volts is way to high unless your talking about while in bulk or absorption charge. Once your batteries are charged, your float voltage should be around 13.3. If you run the batteries down to 10 volts, it should take almost 3 hours to bring them back up to full float charge. At 10 volts, you have probably killed the batteries and that could be your problem.

If you’re getting to 10 volts overnight, your watch dog isn’t working on autostart. I don’t recall Liberty’s start voltage being that low on autostart. On both my 12 volt Liberty’s, I could easily go from 10 pm to 8 am and not get under 12 volts and they had the same setup as you, 3 Lifeline 8DA’s.

[Bill]

Charles it should take about 5 hours for 3 8 D’s to go to 12.2 I know that for sure with phantom loads