[Allan]

Jerry,

There are two schools of thought on this and the choice is yours. Some coaches, such as my Liberty the auto-start is based on a low voltage, somewhere in the 11+ volt range. There is no adjustment so unless someone has modified the signal on their Liberty that is the voltage that initiates the auto-start. It is almost a total discharge of the batteries. It apparently works because there are not a lot of owners who rely on autostart complaining about short battery life.

The other school of thought is to auto-start some where at around 50% rate of discharge. That equates to about 12.3 volts. The reason for the earlier start to recharge is the number of life cycles of the battery ramps up significantly if the batteries are not deeply discharged so over the life of batteries they are healthier and they last longer.

A quick Google search will provide a lot of detailed information on this topic so if you can program your auto-start voltage you can decide what it should be based on how you want to manage and maintain your batteries.

I have a 5 year battery limit, and I never rely on auto-start so I am typically running the generator for charging even after relatively small voltage drops. I know at 5 years I throw away pretty good batteries, but I never have to worry about if they will get us through a trip.

[Archived]

Mine is set at 12v Jerry, which is just under the 50% discharge target.

[DON]

Ok, the reason I’m asking is, I have to leave it for a few days not plugged in. In the past, when checking that the Gen will start as the batteries go down when on auto start, the voltage shows 23.2 Volts (I have a 24v system). I just thought that this was too low, guess that equals 11.6 volts.

Should I raise that up, if so, what menu do I go into on the inverter?

I very rarely use the auto start, I normally like to start the gen when I want to before they get too low, but since I won’t be with it this time, I want it to start.

I will have someone there with it, but they know nothing about the coach.

[Rudy]

If yours are Trace 4000’s, I set my LBCO, low battery cutout to 24v and use that as the auto gen setup start.

I’m like you, rarely use the auto-start, but sometimes it’s needed.

[Tim]

I’ll do that, thanks Tom/Jon

[Roscoeapproved]

I think the reason the auto-start voltages are low (at least to us) is that we aren’t thinking of them in the context of being loaded voltages. In other words we think of resting voltages at the batteries when there is no load.

But the auto-start doesn’t kick on instantly at a specific voltage, it must detect that voltage for some time period, and usually the low voltage is because something has loaded the batteries such as the tivoli lights or maybe some electric device powered via the inverters. But when the coach is in storage and there are no loads on the batteries those voltages are the resting unloaded battery voltagees so the batteries really are deeply discharged.

If you do have the option of adjusting the auto-start voltage you will do your batteries a big favor by increasing the voltage level for auto-start.

---

Jeff and Lindsay

91 Marathon XL

[Harry]

what should the low battery cut IN be?

[Larry & Diane]

My bus isn’t home Jerry, but I believe mine is set at 26 volts.

[Archived]

Explain to me what happens when LBCOout is reached, and what happens LBCut in is reached? Does this trigger the Gen to start/stop or what?

I found a cheat sheet that came with my coach, it says to set LBCO at 21.8v and set low bat cut in at 23v

And High bat cut out at 30

What does all this mean or happen at these voltages?

[Corey]

0. GENERATOR MODE (2) MENU HEADING
   

   Allows the generator to be turned ON and OFF or enables AUTO-matic and EQualization operation. This
   menu display always starts in the OFF position when the inverter is powered up. Pressing the green GEN
   MENU button on the control panel can access this display. Use the SET POINTS button to move the
   single space cursor under the desired selection. You can also push the green button again to move the
   cursor to the right.
   

   • OFF – Disables the ‘auto start’ system or turns off a generator that has been started by the
     inverter. Also resets the automatic generator control system after an ERROR condition has occurred.
     

   • AUTO – Enables the automatic generator control features. When the battery voltage or load amps
     reach the auto start settings for the required time period, the generator will be started unless the timer is
     in the “quiet time” period. The generator will only start if the SET LOW BATTERY CUT OUT VDC setting
     under the INVERTER SETUP (9) menu heading is reached for over 30 seconds continuously. If the
     generator is started automatically based on battery voltage, the generator will shut off automatically once
     the battery has completed the BULK and ABSORPTION stages of the battery charging process. If the
     generator is started automatically based on load amps, as set in under the GEN AUTO START SETUP
     (12) menu heading, the generator will turn off once the load current has decreased below the LOAD
     START AMPS continuously for the LOAD STOP DELAY MIN period. The AUTO-matic generator control
     operation is disabled if the ‘CHG’ mode under INVERTER MODE (1) menu heading is selected.

     Jerry,

     I have the LBCO delay set for 15 minutes. So the gen auto-start will trigger at 24v before the inverter shuts down. If the auto-start wasn’t engaged and there was no AC power to the bus, after the inverter saw 24v or less for 15 minutes, the inverter would shut down protecting the batteries. Then when power was restored and chargimg starts, the inverter would turn back on after seeing the low battery cut-in voltage of 26v and provide AC power to the inverter circuits.

[Tim]

Jerry, being a Vantare I would ask Ben the if, what and how for settings. Geo.

[Dick]

Jerry, Going to agree with George on this one. Ben’s cell is 813-830-8619. He will return your call.

While I have the floor, be very careful if you are planning on running for a political office. In January, Tom was elected to his Home Owners Association as Chief Predator, or something like that, and from looking at his post above, he has already been hacked by the Russians..

[June]

Thanks,

I agree on Russians……….

[Archived]

Is that Russian or Hebrew? I think its Hebrew … that might be artifacts left over from surveillance the Moussad is doing on Tom.

[Archived]

Do you guys see the finger I’m holding up?