[Glenn]

Do your inverters have temperature sensing?

The charge is affected by temperature and those inverters equipped with sensors adjust the charge accordingly.

You have a lot of battery power, and if you do not do a lot of dry camping have you considered reducing the batteries by maybe 2 or 4?

[gary]

My coach, and my previous coach, are/were subjected to the same storage conditions in the summer as yours. I have been using Lifeline 8D’s and the average life of my batteries is 5 years.

Obviously, I don’t know the extent of your dry camping (number of battery cycles) or your charge protocols. I probably do about 15-20 days/year dry camping. I do have temp sensors on my battery bank to limit charging relating to temp. You also need to be certain the charging profile of your inverters matches what is recommended for your battery type.

[Tom]

The inverters are temperature controlled however they reside outside of the battery compartment which is an enclosed unit vented to the bottom of the vehicle on this CC. Dunno if they are all like that or not. I think it would be safe to assume that the “battery compartment” temperatures will always be close to ambient. I have lived in Arizona for the past twelve years and its not just the bus that eats batteries. Motorcycle batteries last about a year, car batteries last about two….the fix on the later is to purchase a battery with a three year replacement which, in effect, is about the same as an automotive battery lasting four years as they will only replace them once. Also, ALL of my battery failures have happened during the summer!

What I have been able to learn is that batteries like standard days and when they are requested to operate in either extreme heat or extreme cold their service life is substantially lowered. Looks like they really begin to degrade at 40C and are pretty much toast by 60C. I used flooded deep cycles early on and replaced them with AGM’s. Funny, every battery I have ever installed has been a Johnson Controls unit, cleverly marketed as Interstate, AC Delco, Optima, Varta, Hellar, Powerframe, Les Schwab, BMW, Mercedes, Die Hard and more.

[Archived]

question do you leave your Ac on in storage unit. It keeps my coach cool inside but puts out a lot of heat inside storage unit on outside of coach. Have it stored in Baton Rouge la and gets mid 90’s

[Bernie]

I shut everything down on the coach when it is inside, When outside I keep the interior at 85 degrees. I already know the answer and its just a fact of life when one lives in the hot climes, it, and everything that uses batteries will have a significant lower battery life. Probably the best way around this is to remove all batteries when the bus is stored and put them in a cool area, like inside of a commercial Sub Zero….drawback is that the damn things are heavy and I am not willing to schlep 8 8d batteries and 4 commercial start batteries into a fridge that I would have to purchase. I will be honest here, my airplane battery I bring home after every flight and stick it in my garage fridge……little bitty Gil Battery with a not so little price tag, am on year 4 now and all is good with that!

It’s been kind of a cool year here this year, didn’t break 120 once (50C), but a number (like 30) above 115. We are in a cold snap now, temps are in the low 100’s…….. its now cooling off into the 90’s at night….

[Larry & Diane]

Wouldn’t your airplane and your bus like it a whole lot better if you even put a swamp cooler or 2 in the hanger.

I have the same weather as you and my barn never exceeds 85 degrees, it’s only 1800 SF but just sayin.

Later

bv

[tom]

You get what you pay for fly dude. I could have fixed you up with Lifeline’s probably cheaper than you paid for Bubba’s Batteries and you would would have had a 5 year warranty to boot. And, if you would have ordered during our OKC Rally, you could have taken another 10% off.

Have you not seen my signature?

[Archived]

John,

I’m not sure from what you say that the inverters have temperature sensors on the batteries. Yes an inverter has a cooling fan that keeps the inverter itself cool, but a temperature sensor on the batteries is used to adjust the charging voltage. I believe all later model inverters are adjusting voltages using sensors on the battery arrays.

[Bob]

John,

Maybe you live too close to Area 51!

[John]

Jon, I guess I was not very clear. My Country Coach has two compartments within the bay where the batteries are mounted. While I wouldn’t say that they are air tight, they are sealed off from the rest of the bay where the balance of the electrical components are located. The floor of the battery compartments were cut out during conversion and heavy mesh screen installed that vents the battery compartments to the outside.

After I noticed that my bus, like all of my other vehicles, had reduced battery life I inspected all components of the electrical system, even brought in an expert who checked more than everything…….no defects found. It is a given that Yuma Az is the hottest city in the country as average temperatures run 5-7 degrees higher than Phoenix which has the distinction of being the hottest major city. Each summer we average 107 days with temperatures above 105 degrees. That said it is not difficult to imagine that, unless the bus is stored in a climate controlled garage, the batteries are going to be constantly very hot during the summer months, which by the way, is when my batteries fail, without exception.

By no means am I a battery “expert” but I do think that it is safe to state that any kind of battery exposed to constant heat is going to have a shortened service life. Mine all out last the 1 year replacement guarantee but by say two and one half years a battery is well into that pre rata thing and the guarantee thing is pretty much a moot point.

So it looks like I have three options, gut it out and deal with it as a fact of life in the desert, move, or conjur up something to keep the compartment cooler……………

[tom]

Tom, appreciate the offer but you know Country Coaches…….gotta have that DC for the mother board and control. When we had the FBO (Repair Station) we were a Concorde dealer (sound familiar)? My first set of AGM’s came from their sales rep…… I did notice that they make an 8D for the “off the grid solar dudes”….kind of wondering if they may be more heat resistant, and probably bullet proof in the true sense of the word!

[Davy]

So what batteries are you buying that only last a few years?

[Archived]

Probably Dekka batteries… they don’t last long at all… they sure didn’t like the TX heat but the Lifelines last twice as long !!

[Archived]

Nope, all have been Johnson Controls, save one set……..truth be known JC makes nearly every major brand automotive/truck battery sold in the US, the AGM’s are made in Toledo. The list of brands made by JC is endless; huge multi-national corp thats an S&P component….Bubba’s Batteries they ain’t. Lifeline is made in SoCal by Concorde Battery Mfg., much smaller company but produces a decent product, no doubt….started out just producing aircraft batteries. I was a Concorde Dealer and according to the factory rep the company was started by a group of ex Gill Aircraft Battery employees…all SoCal organizations. Think that Lifeline is made in San Bernadino, or very close…. That’s all I know.

[Dean]

Charging voltage lowers as temperture of the battery rises, which can be higher then the ambient tempature. If you do not have temperture sensors on the batteries then the charger can not lower the charging voltage as the battery temp rises.

See page 38 table 5-1 in the this doc.

Lifeline manual

From the chart:

Temp absotption charge float chage

70 14.41 13.39

110 13.95 130

The key is the temp of the batteries when being charged, which will be higher the the air temp. So if your charger is using to high a voltage for the battery temp then it will cook your batteries.