[Archived]

Thanks Jon and Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I am familiar with the difference in views between Gil and others at PC. I was going to post the answer to the electrical problems on the post that I started for reverse polarity but I’ll just answer it here. When Holland Motorhomes took on the work to trouble shoot the reverse polarity issue it was obvious that one of the inverters was fried so I decided to replace both Xantrex units with 2,800 Sine Wave Magnums from Inverter Service with input from this site.

They spent a lot if if time looking for the problem but could not find it. The new inverters came in, they were installed and then they fried another inverter on the same side as the other one. So off it went to Inverter Service for repair and Holland was off looking for the problem and were still struggling to find it. In their words they checked all of the wiring including a continuity test of the shore power cord. As a last resort, they checked the 50 A plug and they found that by moving it ever so slightly they could get one of the hot legs in the plug to contact the neutral and there was the reverse polarity problem. This explains why the I was seeing the problem intermittently.

The problem with the second inverter was found during the replacement of the second Inverter and it was totally unrelated. If I recall correctly, it was the ground connection that was made from the Inverter to to the house side wiring through twist on wire connector and that was easy to spot as it was pretty black and charred. They had seen this before and apparently the newer inverters have a bus bar and set screw setup instead of the wire nuts which is much more reliable.

I told them that the reason I bought two new inverters was so I had a known base from which to start and that I wanted the damaged Inverter replaced. They agreed without hesitation and also reduced the number of labor hours because of not finding the issue before installing the new inverters. So far, I feel comfortable with the result.

Regarding the 12.7 vdc reading above, that could have been with the shore cord disconnected, so I’ll check in a couple of weeks. I just cannot recall for sure – too much stuff going on right now but I appreciate your concern.

[Will]

Andy,

Suggest you get the batteries to float voltage around 13.3 unhook the cables and load test each battery. At 4 years and possibly being discharged way below even 12 volts, the batteries could be your problem. Since Inverter Service did your work, I would say it’s been checked out by the experts. Do you have the original number of batteries or has your bank been reduced? If you need batteries, I can help you out.

Also, there will be a white round sticker on your batteries with 2 letters. I can tell you the manufacturer date with those 2 letters. Oops, this is Tom, I see I’m signed on as admin.

[Will]

Thanks Tom. I will have to get out there without being rushed and see what is happening and not go by memory. It may very well be charging at 13.3 vdc but I will not be able to do any load testing where the unit is stored. A big issue that I have had is trying to learn the coach’s system while the coach is not operating normally. I need to spend some quality time with it when it is operating as it should so I can tell when something does go out of whack.

The coach has the original 2012 (6) 8D Lifelines. Gil thought about going down to (4) but never did. I’ll check in a couple weeks and hopefully I will see the 13.3 vdc with the shore power connected.

I was was hoping to get another year out of the batteries but we’ll see if I can. If they need replacing I am strongly considering Li-ion. Aside from the cost, everything else seems to run circles around AGM’s; performance wise. They charge faster, don’t have to be topped off and can be discharged to a lower state without affecting their life and they won’t discharge as fast on demanding loads. They are lighter and have a quite much more charge/discharge cycles. They are now available in 8D sizes with either a remote panel or monitored through an app on an iPad. I understand that temperature may shorten their life somewhat but I need to research them a bit more. We do plan on doing some boondocking and I would prefer to run the generator less. The Magnum inverter/chargers that I just bought will work with Li-ion so I should be covered there. However, I would be interested in knowing other counterpoints besides the price.

If I do go with AGM’s I will buy them from you.

Happy Thanksgiving,

[Archived]

You can also get at Farm Stores an outlet plug that turns on and off when the temp gets close to freezing if you dont want to buy a new heater.

[Jerry]

Andy

This is your 1st bus, is it the 1st RV you’ve owned too?

You sound like a smart guy. To me I would think most of your experience is all theory.

Do you chat with David and Gil on POG, you guys could talk tech for day’s.

Later

bv

[Brett]

Thank you Bernie.

I have owned tents, a pop up camper, a travel trailer, a 22 ft Pleasure Way Pursuit motorhome and now a Prevost. I have also owned cabin.

I am am an electrical engineer but manage a sales territory where I am responsible for selling a wide range of products including large energy storage systems which includes large UPS systems that can use either lead acid or lithium batteries. Just a couple months ago I sold a 2.25 MW UPS system that is expandable to 9 MW and it uses Lithium ion batteries. This was sold to a major university for their data center. We could have sold them lead acid but LI made much more sense. This application is also being used at medium voltage and specifically at 13.8 kV. Selling to data center guys on medium voltage or lithium is not an easy task because they are so entrenched in the way things have always been done. But times have changed especially the size of data centers and the energy density of modern servers.

I don’t consider myself particularly smart but this stuff is not new to me. I am trying to educate myself on the RV side of things and specifically as to how it can be applied to my coach. As for LI for RV’s, it holds a lot of promise especially to those that boondock and would rather enjoy nature than run the generator. If I added solar then I could limit my generator use to probably just the air conditioning and my electric range. For my wife and I this is attractive as we like the serenity of the outdoors. RV parks are nice but they would be used mostly as a base to do the outdoor stuff we enjoy.

If I was just concerned about cost there are better investments than a motorhome. We are fortunate enough that we can say that this what we want to do and this is how we want to do it.

I do communicate with Gil mostly regarding my bus (his ex bus) and not through POG and I do not know David. Gil has been very helpful. I am not a POG member but will be probably by tomorrow. The more information I can gather as well as listening to differing opinions the better in my book.

[Archived]

LI posts have been moved, please don’t add any to this thread.

[Reagan]

45′ coach is parked on east side of 28′ deep race shop, drive axle and back to bumper exposed to the west. Waste tank empty, fresh water tank full, coach is plugged into 50amp shore power, 120volt water heater “on”, two 1350watt heaters going inside, cabinets under sink open, and door to toilet room open.

20 degrees yesterday. 7 degrees this morning. Light wind from the west.

The digital thermometer in the water bay sitting atop the water pump indicates 48 degrees.

Expecting colder weather over the weekend. Expect all should be good until we leave Christmas Day for ETLC and RV Resort and then on to Florida.