[Rudy]

Well the microwave will run but the batteries go from full charge to nearly dead. Bateries are 2 – 3 year old Lead Acids. Prior owner forgot to keep them flooded so they don’t perform as well as they should.

If the Moon & Stars line up I’ll be upgrading the Bus in the fall so holding out on batteries.

[Rudy]

Thanks fellas, I believe that you are both spot on. We had also concluded that our steer axle is likely overweight. In March 2016, each of our axles were weighed by Jeff at ETLC. At that time, the steers came in at 7413 lbs and 7362 lbs. We have always maintained them at 110 psi (cold) and believed that we were safe, and within limits. Overtime we have inadvertently added “stuff” which has likely put us over our limit. I haven’t weighed the coach since the blowout. Regardless, its going on a diet and being stripped of anything not essential. We’ll start with several of the 8 house batteries and perhaps even the marble floors.

[Rudy]

IBP for sheet metal. been there first class business. Prevost parts have by far best deal on windshield.. I have a front extra bumper blade and ends…. Bob ps your location..

[Rudy]

JOE thanks again for information on the tie rod boots just finished installing, used a pickle fork and they look great and nice and tight, but I forgot to take pictures but it did happen.

[Rudy]

Just to be clear, when we made the switch to Li nothing changed in how we operate and manage power. The only change to the coach to accomodae Li was to seal them in a compartment to keep them above cool temps (40F is the point at which the heater comes on)

When we are done driving and not going to be plugged in, we start the generator. When we go to bed we turn it off unless we need heat or A/C. We start the generator when we get up unless we are driving right away.

I cannot speak about other coaches or inverters but my Li batteries do not get a full charge from the alternator, and if we have been on shore or generator power for an extended period our inverters (Outback) are set to go to silent mode. They will fully charge the batteries and the when they go into float the inverters go “silent” meaning they stop applying any charge current until the batteries drop to 12.6 (25.2) then they are charged to the float voltage and power is again withdrawn.

I am Fully charging the batteries by running generator at the end of the day, something I always did for the AGM so we have the maximum available power through the night.

[Rudy]

Don’t forget about the H2’s Jon.

I’ve backed ours up if it’s a pretty straight shot, but it sure would be great if you could turn it a little bit.

Thanks again to you and Tom for all of your efforts in making Prevost ownership an enjoyable experience!

Chris

[Rudy]

Thanks! That is where I am thinking of going.

Assume driving with it as is is not a big deal till I get there?

[Rudy]

Thank you sir

[Rudy]

A shunt based battery monitor will measure very accurately the number of amp hours of capacity going into and out of a battery bank so you will always know the current state of charge. Very much like an accurate liquid tank sensor can tell you how much fuel is left in a tank. Voltage is a lousy way to measure remaining battery capacity. The shunt mounts between the battery bank negative terminal and all grounds.

Another article will appear in the next issue of Bus Conversion magazine that shows how you can easily establish two or more house Li battery banks. In my case I added 300 more amp hours of Li capacity to the 400 amp hours of Li I originally installed. The 300 ah bank now powers only the inverter/charger for the passenger side (where the residential refer is located on my coach) and the original 400 ah Li bank is connected only to the inverter/charger that powers the 120vac loads on the drivers side where the kitchen and AV systems are on my coach. The remaining 200 accessible ah of AGM lead acid batteries power only the 12vdc loads.

it all works like a charm and all three battery banks recharge automatically from the engine alternator while driving, from shore power while plugged in, from gen gen power while parked not plugged in or from solar while parked not plugged in with the gen gen not running. I use portable solar panels that rarely get deployed since there is so much Li available that we seldom are in a situation where they are needed.

in our coach the hot water heaters are powered only when plugged in or the gen is running or while driving via the heat exchangers. Water stays hot over night so we only need to run the gen to get hot water if parked off grid for two or more days. It sure is nice to be able to dry camp while going from point A to point B without even thinking about electrical needs.

I have yet to find a downside to this split battery bank approach. The BtoB chargers keep the lead acid and Li banks completely isolated one from another and by having two inverter/chargers and two Li banks for the 120vac loads you have built in redundancy in case something goes wrong with one or the other.

For this second 300 ah Li bank I used an 8D form factor 300 ah Li battery from Rebel Batteries in Texas. That company is owned by a disabled Navy vet and they warehouse in Texas and do all the warranty and customer support from Texas. They offer these apparently high quality 300 ah Li batteries for $1299 including shipping. I had them send me an open case unit so I could verify the internal build quality. All nicely done.

Jerry

[Rudy]

There is such a thing as date codes you olé gear jammer.

[Rudy]

I had a five month old Interstate go bad; failed cell. The chassis batteries would NOT take a charge. Interstate replaced it under warranty. This is an example of one drop of gasoline spoils the whole bucket of lemonade.

Then when the original three were about 3 years and a few months old, I couldn’t get the chassis batteries to take a charge. (I was sensing a slow deterioration for about a week or ten days of moving every day or two.) So I pulled all four and replaced them with NAPA Legend with the most CCAs available.

IMHO (I’m not a mechanic and don’t have the knowledge that Buddy or Jon or Tom or BoaterAL, etc have) I think you’re getting mediocre advice to replace the batteries before testing the batteries and trouble shooting the alternator. I would recommend charging them, pulling them, and having them load tested at NAPA. NAPA typically likes to have them ALL charged overnight before the load test, but who has four chargers. Some of us might be smart enough to wire them together on the shop floor and charge them for a few days.

I suspect you have one or more of the four failing; emphasis on “suspect”. Load test them.

If you have a failed battery, I’ve seen strong recommendations from the smart guys on the Forum that ALL FOUR should be replaced once they are more than six months old. I was kinda in that position when I replaced all four of mine that weren’t very old. But I was already disillusioned with Interstate batteries, had planned on replacing them at some point with NAPA Legend, and didn’t want to screw around and get delayed anymore.

All that said … you might have an alternator problem. But you don’t know unless you test it. Or test the batteries.

[Rudy]

Level Low fixes that problem before you start fueling!

[Rudy]

I agree with Rudy 100%. Rudy BTW is “the guy” who brought TSD to the Prevost Community!

I’m a retired banker and have a very good understanding of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system. To get access to the ACH system, the companies have to go through rigorous review and due diligence; in my opinion more rigorous than if they were going to accept payment through a credit ro debit card. The bank they use actually issues them “an ACH guidance line” which is similar to a line of credit. Reviewed periodically, renewed periodically. Probably annually. Bank doeesn’t like the financial or business practices of the customer using ACH … the ACH rails are taken away.

If you receive any payments via “direct deposit” (Social Security, VA Pension, private pension, govt pension, union pension, regular distribution from your stock portfolio, etc.) or make any “direct payments” (mortgage, cell phone, installment loan, power company, cable TV, Internet service, condo fees, etc.) those are most likely done via the ACH system. So you’ve already given those folks your bank’s routing number and your checking or savings account number.

As Rudy suggested, some of the TSD Fuel Program participants have opened a special account with their bank or credit union just for the TSD Fuel Program, keep a minimal amount of money in it, and then transfer in enough money to cover their fuel purchases. Attorneys call this belts and suspenders.

You might ask, “Why can’t you use a credit or debit card for the TSD Fuel Program?” Great question. Extremely low transaction costs is a big contributing factor to the TSD pricing. The bank interchange fees for credit or debit cards typically run between 2.5% and 2.85% of the total transaction. ACH fees are around 19 cents PER transaction. The savings is huge.

Many of us are on the TSD Fuel Program and enjoy the savings.

[Rudy]

Around 2004 XLII went 365’s.

My XLII 2 slide 2006 chassis 07 Marathon build weighed 54,000 lbs.

18,000 ish

22,000 ish

14,000 ish

Later

bv

[Rudy]

We had an inverter fail in our 1999 Liberty in about 2017; 18 years old. We had too. I called Jeff Rowe and East Tennessee Luxury Coach who does all our maintenance and asked if we should try to get the failed on fixed, replace just the failed one, or replace the pair.

He asked some good questions. How long do you think an inverter/charger should last? How long will a fix on the dead on last? What happens if you fix the dead one, you’re on a long trip and you have another failure?

I replaced them both with new state of the art inverter/chargers. Not a cheap date. Now I’ve read that the “new” inverter/chargers might not be built quite as robust as the “old” ones. Not sure if that is accurate or not.

So many things about whether keep something going on a coach, fix a broken thing, or replace with new is a crap shoot.