| [GMCnet] House battery's draining [message #156007] |
Sun, 08 January 2012 19:56  |
glwgmc
Messages: 1014
Registered: June 2004
Karma:
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Hi Jim,
I am late in reading my email so someone else may have already answered your question. Here is my take on this. Converters/battery chargers generally do not have any standby draw when not in use. They are simply, off. When plugged in, they function to charge the batteries. If they are a modern type with a three stage charger they will always supply a low trickle charge and then every 15 to 30 hours (manuf. dependent) will do a brief high voltage jolt charge to keep the plates from building up sulfite/sulfate materials that could, over time, damage the batteries. As long as they are plugged in they cannot draw down the batteries. When not plugged into shore power I know of nothing in the design that could/would pull any current from the batteries unless something in the coach on the 12vdc side is drawing power (parasitic draw like clocks in electronic stuff, etc.). In that case the battery would supply the needed current and the unplugged converter would not have any i
mpact. If you are talking about inverters that take 12vdc and create 120vac then they do have a draw any time they are turned on whether there is any AC draw in the coach or not. If you leave an inverter turned on with the coach not plugged into shore power your batteries will run down. The larger the inverter, the greater the standby current draw. It can amount to anything from tenths of an amp per hour to several amps per hour. With a small battery bank and a big inverter turned on and in standby mode you can deplete a battery bank quite quickly. The ugly, cheap, grossly overrated no-name inverters from places like HF or eBay are the worst. Best advice is to stick with a brand name and in our GMC application there is no need to go over 1000 watts unless you want to run your microwave oven, a full size coffee pot or something like that. Then know that that creating 120VAC through even a really good quality 2000 watt inverter you can take out a high percentage of a s
ingle 12 battery's capacity in a very short period of time. You really need four 6VDC batteries wired series parallel if you want to do such things. Leave that 2000 watt inverter on even with all the AC appliances off and you will drain even a large battery bank in far less time than you might imagine. Hope this helps.
Jerry
Jerry Work
The Dovetail Joint
Fine furniture designed and hand crafted in the 1907 former Masonic Temple building in historic Kerby, OR
Visitors always welcome!
glwork@mac.com
http://jerrywork.com
541-592-5360
www.southernoregonguild.org
www.siskiyouguild.org
---------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:11:39 -0800
From: James Hupy <jamesh1296@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GMCnet] House battery's draining
To: gmclist@temp.gmcnet.org
Message-ID:
<CALxoeysLzcNMS0Zp5RQZ245BNDRNgYyHyLQ1jOZpVVdtEXAWeg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Emery, I have also noticed when hooking up house batteries to an unpowered
(not plugged into house current) IOTA and Progressive Dynamics Inverters
that there is a discharge current present when the cables are attatched. I
disconnected everything on the 12 VDC side as well as the charging cable
from the isolator and with only the inverter connected to the batteries, I
still noticed a considerable draw on the batteries. I wondered if this was
a normal thing with inverters that are solid state controlled. The old buzz
boxes did not display such antics. I do not know if this is a normal thing
for these devices, but it would seem to me that it would keep the house
batteries in constant need of being pluggged in. Strange!
Jim Hupy
Salem, OR
78 GMC Royale 403
-----------------------------
_______________________________________________
GMCnet mailing list
Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
http://temp.gmcnet.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gmclist
Jerry & Sharon Work
78 Royale
Kerby, OR
|
|
|
|
GMCforum
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
