[needtocamp]

Whatever you do … be sure to replace them all or you will be wasting your money and possibly ending the life of an inverter… I suspected your batteries in the beginning from what you said.. you will be a happy camper when you see the difference… we just replaced ours about a month ago… and got them from Tom his price and service was unbeatable… delivered in two days and the best price we could find… I have also heard from others too who have said how great Lifeline is to stand behind their products… Tom even has a few beyond the call of duty stories about them… they must really respect him.

Best wishes,

Diane

[Archived]

Hello again Thomas,

The way Vantare has things hooked up you have two banks of batteries. Each of the banks is hooked up in parallel to increase the Amp hours. Then each of these two banks is hooked up in series with the other bank to increase the voltage from 12 to 24. I do not understand why they mark one bank 12 volt, and the other 24 volt since if you test each bank spearately they will register 12 volt. Only when testing from the output from both banks do yo uget the 24 volt reading. Our inverters are 24 volt inverters.

What Truk had to say is 100% the best advice. If you have a bad battery, especially if older, replace all.

Hope everything else OK

Kim

[Dean]

Thomas,

Yes you should replace all batteries in bank, especially if the batteries are old. Now you need to determine if you have one bank or two. Vantare should have configured all 8 batteries as one bank. That doesn’t mean they did. It’s easy to check. Turn on just one charger. If all batteries read over 13VDC then you have one bank.

Your voltages suggest you have two banks or one half of the bank supports the 12V Vannar equalizer. Even though your house bank or banks are 24V, you most likely have 12V house requirements. These are supported through an equalizer which splits a 24V bank in half taking 12V from one half and then the other ensuring equal load over time for the entire 24V bank.

[Thomas]

Gil:

I did not have the generator on when I unplugged from shore power.

I have unplugged it a couple more yimes the last couple of days and have not got any shock so maybe it had to do with the fact i was standing in wet grass.

From some of the other posts I have read am I correct in thinking that my problem with my heat pumps blowing the circuit breakers could have something to do with a bad battery or two. Is it possible to have an intermittantly bad battery because last night again they worked fine all night so it appears it is an intermittant problem.

[Davy]

I sploke to the dealer today and reported my findings. He was going on what the seller had told him that the batteries had been replaced last year and did not check himself. He said he should have caught it and offered to pay $2000 toward the replacement so I’ll get with Tom and get them ordered.

[glen]

I just ordered the batteries, they should arrive by thursday. Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to get them installed. Not looking forward to that. Two back surgeries and a neck surgery has taught me not to lift them myself. I may have to get creative and make some sort of lift.

[Bob]

I replaced my house batteries in June last year. These guys here were invaluable.

I used a floor jack to lift them and some young men with muscles too.

http://www.prevostcommunity.com/forum/threaddetails.asp?Category=Electrical&ThreadID=509

This should link to the thread and lots of pictures.

DKO

[Archived]

Thomas,

Don’t
hurt yourself, those bad boys are 135 lbs each. I do the same as DKO,
transmission jack, one at a time, being sure to isolate and mark the
cables. I’m not familiar with Vantare, but since your 12/24 wired
series/parallel, you most likely have an Equalizer and you should
remove the ground wire to assure you won’t fry the Equalizer if you
happen to arc a cable. Take a picture before you remove any cables,
mark them for correct placement and protect the cable ends from
touching anything.

Glad
the dealer stepped up and helped you out, as well as taking care of
the other items, they did the right thing.

[Paul]

Tom

Not sure who your dealer was but it sure sounds like you choice was a very good one. Great to hear.

[Archived]

I noticed in the link that removing power would cause the inverters to loose their settings so I’ll need to record all of them before I start the replacment. I also noticed that each inverter has a temp sensor on a battery so I’ll need to remove those from the old batteries and re-attach them to the new ones. What is the proper way to attach them. I would think that there should not be anything between the sensor and the side of the battery but rather an silicone or whatever would be around the edge of the sensor only.

[Archived]

Thomas,

Most temp sensors attached to a battery lug, it doesn’t matter positive or negative terminal. These should be located where the most heat is likely. A battery on the to rack is preferred.

Most converters wire the batteries in daisy chain fashion. When I replaced my batteries I had each battery ran to a buss bar. This is common in the marine industry. It results in more even charging and discharging. It also allows you to isolate a battery from the bank with ease. If you have 2 banks, this may not be worth doing.

[Archived]

Thomas,

Regarding the inverter settings reach out to Diane (Seabyrd) or Ed (Sawdust) because both are very much up to speed on the settings that will work for you.

Glad to hear things are now heading in the right direction.

[Archived]

The exisiting sensors appear to be siliconed to the side of the battery, one on each bank, presumably one for each inverter.

[Archived]

The batteries are run to bus bars but unfortunatly I’ll need to get an orignal set of wiring diagrams to see if they are still currently they way they should be as the labels on everything may or may not be correct.

[Rod]

Thomas,

You can attach the temp sensors to the battery case with double sided sticky tape. I doubt there has been any change in your battery wiring configuration.