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Inverter won’t charge
If I remember correctly someone said an inverter will not charge a deeply discharged agm battery.
A friend who does electronic service on telecommunication systems was relaying to me that he was trying to help a friend with a Newmar track down an electrical issue. He reset the inverter and measured the house voltage to be 1.9 volts.
Is it correct to say that you have to get a conventional charger to attempt to revive the batteries?
Also some one said a deep discharge would severely an agm battery, is that correct?
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6 Replies
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This doesn’t directly answer your question, I have brought back to life single lead acid batteries that were completely discharged and charger wouldn’t respond by connecting dead battery to a good battery then connecting charger
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When I inadvertently fully discharged my AGMs 4 or 5 years ago the inverters nor the alternator would charge them. Jeff Rowe from East Tennessee Luxury Coach instructed me to hook up a typical automotive 12 volt charger positive lead to the battery side of the house battery cutoff switch, negative lead to the frame. A few hours of that charging and the inverter would then charge.
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Dick,
You said the alternator would not charge the house batteries, which tells me two things.
First it tells me your chassis batteries had enough power to start the coach. The alternator gets power to the field through the chassis batteries so once it is running the alternator is functioning.
The second thing is on your coach which I believe has a single 50DN feeding house and chassis through the isolator, so it should be feeding current to the house batteries, yet you are saying that did not happen. Why? If the batteries would receive power from a battery charger, why not the alternator?
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The chassis batteries were fine, probably fully charged. To clarify, my house batteries were completely dead. The 50DN on the Detroit Diesel does charge the chassis batteries and the house batteries through the isolator.
Jeff might jump in here and explain better than I can.
I think the issue was that 50DN would not charge the house batteries unless it could sense a small amount of charge in the house batteries.
You might want to test this out on your coach by fully discharging your house batteries and experience the same conditions.
Second part of response … now you’ve go me thinking. The 50DN alternator shoulda seen voltage from the chassis batteries, and then sent power out which would then flow to the house batteries through the isolator.
Maybe the isolator needs to see at least a tiny amount of voltage in the house batteries before it will send current to the house batteries.
The 12 volt automotive battery charger was essentially hooked directly to the house batteries.
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I’ll let other folks deplete their batteries to zero and conduct the test.
The reason an alternator will not charge a dead battery is it requires some battery voltage to excite the field. In your case the chassis batteries would do that.
If the situation was reversed, and the house had voltage, and the chassis batteries were dead, there would have been no voltage for the field because house current is blocked at the alternator.
If you had two alternators, one dedicated to the house I would understand why you needed to use a charger, but you have one alternator, and as long as it is putting out power I cannot understand why that power is not charging the house.
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Keep me on speed dial when you completely deplete your Lifelines.
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