[Archived]

Interesting, since I dry camped a few nights coming out to Kansas and when I woke up, the tech link monitor showed my batteries were in the yellow, but not fully discharged. But I was running the 110v heat and sometimes the 12v webasto. That’s when I manually turned on my generator since for some reason my “auto gen” settings were not set correctly and my gen didn’t turn on automatically.

When my batteries are fully charged, they seem to be a little over 28v. So you’re saying to go from 28v to 24v, should take around 12-hours when dry camping with no A/C or Heat pump running, right? And if I get down to 21v my house batteries would be totally discharged.

Sorry, but this information wasn’t in my walk-thru … Or, I didn’t have the knowledge to ask those questions.

[Tim]

Tim I can go a little over 12 hours and the batteries will be at 24.4 V with light loads , I never let it go below 24.4 when dry camping , I had a brand new set of dekas that liberty put in before I bought the coach they lasted one and a half years , then I put lifelines in , all the other buses I have had , had lifelines in or I put them in they are the best if you want five years and no hassle

[Jerry]

Tim, I looked in my information that I got with my coach and I have a laminated sheet from Marathon about how they set up the Trace inverters, the only thing is that it says it is for Software Version 41. I will be glad to scan both sides and email it to you, if you want . Just let me know.

[Archived]

Tim,

First, learn what you power through your inverters. Except for Vantare and maybe some other conversions you only have limited devices inverter powered.

When we talk about 12 hours dry camping it is only with light loads. For example heaters and A/C units are large power consumers so there is no way you are going to see 12 hours between a fully charged battery and one needing a charge.

Some loads are not going through the inverter such as your lights, Webasto and any other DC electrical loads and even some of them can be heavy loads on a battery. A Webasto with its multiple circulating fans and pump is a heavy load and will draw down batteries. Tivoli lights look pretty, but they are a heavy load. Ceiling lights, unless they are LED are heavy loads. My point is reasonable use of power when dry camping is going to extend the time between recharging, and you will learn you can go longer periods with conservative use of energy, shorter periods if you prefer to use greater amounts.

Also keep in mind I fully disagree with what seems to be a general aversion to generator use. A lot of conversations relate to auto-start and how long owners can run without the generator kicking on. My attitude is I have a well equipped coach and I’ll be damned if I am going to live like I am in a tent. I want the lights blazing, I want to be warm or cool and I don’t want to try to squeeze hours of use out of my batteries so if I am not connected to shore power I have my generator running and will leave it run all night and all day because at the rate I use it it will not wear out for another 30 or 40 years. Maybe when my generator gets to 30,000 hours I will reconsider.

[Archived]

Jon, I agree 100% with what you said. While Marathon was working on my coach this week to replace the fuel line from the tank to the Webasto, they moved the bus inside over their pit to get access top and bottom to run the line. While inside they forgot to plug it in, and with the refrigerator running and then testing the webasto, the auto gen feature started the generator on them. They then plug the bus in and shut down the generator and finished the job. But as you’ve stated, any time we stop and pull over, I start the generator to have use of whatever we want.

[Peter]

Ditto
what Jon said Tim, if you were using the 110v heater, you weren’t dry
camping, those heaters are not on the inverter circuit. Your inverter
circuit will have the fridge, 120v plugs, aux compressor, microwave,
tv’s,etc. A/C’s, heat pumps, kick heaters, 120v water heater and
other big amp items only work with shore and gen power.

FWIW,
I don’t use the auto-start, I manually start the gen when needed.
However, when I left the bus for 5 days at Christmas, I did set the
auto-start in case of a power loss at the park. I did not use the
salon and bedroom A/C and selected the galley and aux A/C because
those two are not on the inverter circuits.

Leaving
the bus for an extended period with the auto-start engaged is very
concerning. Here’s why:

Scenario
1 – Auto-Start is active and the salon and bedroom A/C’s are on a
high setting just for humidity. There is a failure at the power
pedestal and the shore breaker is tripped. The 2 A/C’s will continue
to run until the auto-start kicks on likely at about 2 hours with 2
A/C’s on the inverter circuit. The gen then shuts down after 3 hours
and the process starts all over again. You better have lots of fuel
and the batteries are being cycled big time.

Scenario
2 – Auto-Start is active and the aux and galley A/C’s are on high
settings for humidity. Shore breaker gets tripped and the A/C’s shut
down. 12 – 14 hours later the auto-start kicks in, the A/C’s start
working again. Then 3 hours later the gen shuts off and the 12 –
14 hour cycle starts all over.

So
scenario 1 has the auto-start cycling on/off every 5 hours and
scenario 2 has the cycle about every 14 hours.

This
example is for the Marathon crowd…

[Peter]

“FWIW, I don’t use the auto-start”

So Tom, you “do not” use the auto-start” under “Set Generator”? I guess the downside would be that if I park overnight somewhere, I would drain down the batteries.

However, using Jon’s suggestion, the heck with draining the batteries, just turn on the generator. I only have 3200 hours so I figure I can go another 10-years, averaging 3,000 hours of generator time, which equates to 375 eight hour nights. We will rarely not be plugged in at a campround, so I should run the generator without concern of overusing it.

[Rudy]

I think before anyone sets a coach up for a period of time while they are away they should actually test the set up to see if it will do what is expected.

My least concern is draining the batteries. That is bad, no doubt. But if you have pets, are planning to leave for the day and it is going to be hot outside so you are depending on A/C for the comfort and safety of the pets, verify a power outage and restoration such as auto-start will restore the A/C units back to operation.

I might be wrong, but if shore power is interrupted, even if my generator is set to run if power is shut off to the bus I believe my A/C units will turn off, and not resume operation when power is restored. They will have to be restarted using the SMX panel or Crestron.

What I am saying is run through all the “what if” scenarios if you think you have planned for contingencies and verify your plan will in fact work. Especially if pets are involved.

[tom]

Tom,

Thanks for the perfect example. Scenario #2 is ideal! I tend to forget that #1 and #3 AC’s are on the inverter. So running #2 & #4 only, when we are leaving for a few days, makes perfect sense in case of a power failure!

Thanks!

[Bill]

I’m not sure if this is just for Liberty Coaches but we two ‘auto-start’ choices.

I can set the generator for ‘shore loss’. The minute power is interrupted, the generator comes on and will stay on until the shore power is restored. As I recall, the air units will come back on in both cases (genny or shore).

The other choice is to ‘Arm’ the generator. So, when the batteries reach a certain point, the generator will pop on to recharge. I don’t know if it runs by a set time or if it goes by the rate of charge. (still learning).

Since we have four inverters, each air has it’s own inverter.

Safe travels,

Mark

---

2005 XL Thompson Coach

Rarely tow anything behind us.

Sold: 1993 Liberty that we loved for 12 years.

[David]

Mark (mmarlin), I just found that laminated sheet also tucked away in another manual. The suggested settings are different than what Tom recommended, so I’ll have to evaluate which may work better for my circumstances.