[Greg]

Jim,

Generally speaking, under load most autostarts are set up to kick on at 11.8 (23.6). However, on user set autostarts a lot of owners are setting the voltage to a higher value such as 12.1 or 12.2 since less discharge equates to many more charge cycles of life for batteries.

However some systems such as Liberty’s Watchdog are not user adjustable. Some are sophisticated enough to anticipate when to autostart based on the load, and rate of drawdown and not exclusively the voltage. So bottom line is you have to make the choice (or not) based on your systems. You did not include a signature line which listed your coach information so the answer is somewhat vague and generic.

[Jim]

Jim,

Depends on the converter and/or your inverter set-up. My Liberty can’t be changed and I think the auto-start is about 11.4. If your able to make changes in whatever setup you have, ideally 12.2 is 50% discharged for AGM’s and that’s a good auto-start settings, but you may want to even go down to 12. I don’t rely on the auto-start and choose to manually maintain my batteries and start the charge around 12 – 12.2.

[Archived]

Thanks Jon and Tom

I have lead acid batteries now but when they go bad i want to switch to lifeline so 12. would be a good setting for both.

[Archived]

Yes and when you’re ready for batteries, contact me, I’ll save you some money.

[Archived]

This may start a discussion but try to consider all aspects of the use of autostart.

Obviously it is used to put a charge in batteries that have been discharged. If you are dry camping and being energy conservative with light battery loading that makes sense to use autostart for a couple of reasons. Generators do not benefit from being run under light loads so setting the inverters to the highest charging rate is better that having them run all the time just to keep the batteries topped off. Also it limits the run time of the generator if you are dry camping in close proximity to other RVs.

The flip side however is if you don’t want to conserve energy and you want to dry camp but with all the creature comforts such as air conditioning and hot water for showers and the TV and using lots of lights, then consider cranking up the generator and making it do what it is supposed to do which is run under heavy loads for tens of thousands of hours.

Yes we can run a lot of devices off of our batteries via the inverters and yes autostart will recharge the batteries, but there is nothing quite like roughing it in a Prevost with the generator humming and the ACs cooling and the big screen TV playing Lawrence Welk re-runs.

[Roger]

I think there are two ways of using the Autostart feature.

One is for storage, to maintain the batteries so if the non-use voltage gets low the generator comes on and recharges the system, the setting is 12.2 so you stay above the 50% charge.

The second usage is to back up the inverter/batteries while using the system, ie enjoying the creature comforts. During normal usage the battery voltage may dip below 12.2 Voltage but for only a very short time, ie microwave and coffee pot on at the same time. Once the microwave stops running the voltage will jump back up above 12.2v, say 12.6, do you really need the generator coming on for such a short period? But if the draw is really high on the inverter and batteries and the voltage drops to the low 11 volts for a long period, ie heaters, morning coffee and toaster and the Misses drying her hair you want something to kick in to back up the batteries maybe not to recharge but just for more power. Therefore the setting of 11.?.

So I think you need to consider two settings and each for difference reasons.

One for non-use of the Coach to make sure your batteries stay charged if unplugged or lost of charging power and the other setting to assist the batteries for very deep draws.

The Converters I think are assuming you bought the Coach for the reason they made them to be used. Therefore they set them at the factory for a deep draw back up.

I am not lucky enough to use mine like it was made for so I have my autostart set at the 12.2 setting but if I was to take it on the road and dry camp between power poles I would have it set for 11.8 or lower.

Just a thought