Trickle charging my Motorhome

[Momboy007]

Hello All,
I just wanted to see if I am charging/maintaining my batteries correctly or not.
I have a 2006 Ford E-450 Fleetwood Jamboree 24D and the way I have been charging ALL THE BATTERIES, which seems to work) is to lift the motor hood and hook up my trickle charger.
Is this the correct way to do it, I seems to charge the house batteries also, which is 2 6volt batteries in series.
Please let me know if I should not be doing it this way

Thanks all in advance,
Rick

[pianotuna]

Hi Daczuki,

Sounds like a great reason to add enough solar to keep the battery bank charged.

". It has one potential drawback which one needs to consider. In the event of an AC power failure (think popped breaker, cord removed from outlet, cord kicked loose, etc)"

[Dakzuki]

pnichols wrote:
Hmm ... my solution to this is ultra simple:

I leave my Class C permanently plugged into 120V AC whenever it's in storage, so it's coach batteries are kept fully charged all the time by the Class C's built-in converter.

I have a 120V AC trickle charger with a 12V plug on it's output. I plug the trickle charger into one of the motorhome's regular 120V AC outlets. I then plug it's 12V plug into the cab's 12V receptacle in the dash. This dash receptacle was wired by Ford to always be connected to the engine's starting battery (through a fuse), even with the starting key removed. So ... whenever the trickle charger's output is plugged into a dash receptacle, it's keeping the engine starting battery fully charged.

Hence the coach batteries are being kept fully charged by the converter at the same time as the engine battery is being kept fully charged by the trickle charger.

This above arrangement works like a champ ... and the only extra expense I had was buying the trickle charger.

Phil's setup is very simple and very effective. It has one potential drawback which one needs to consider. In the event of an AC power failure (think popped breaker, cord removed from outlet, cord kicked loose, etc), The batteries are now all engaged with their associated parasitic loads drawing them down (stereo, detectors, alarms, relays, etc). At some point if power is not restored in time the batteries are going to be drawn down completely. Now IF the RV is being stored somewhere that the power to it is being checked periodically, life is good. If not I would go with battery maintainer(s) and the batteries disconnected from all loads. You don't have to ask me how I came to this conclusion....yeah, it happened to me.

[pnichols]

Hmm ... my solution to this is ultra simple:

I leave my Class C permanently plugged into 120V AC whenever it's in storage, so it's coach batteries are kept fully charged all the time by the Class C's built-in converter.

I have a 120V AC trickle charger with a 12V plug on it's output. I plug the trickle charger into one of the motorhome's regular 120V AC outlets. I then plug it's 12V plug into the cab's 12V receptacle in the dash. This dash receptacle was wired by Ford to always be connected to the engine's starting battery (through a fuse), even with the starting key removed. So ... whenever the trickle charger's output is plugged into a dash receptacle, it's keeping the engine starting battery fully charged.

Hence the coach batteries are being kept fully charged by the converter at the same time as the engine battery is being kept fully charged by the trickle charger.

This above arrangement works like a champ ... and the only extra expense I had was buying the trickle charger.

[DaHose]

I converted my rig from an isolator to a combiner and now a single trickle charger can charge both batteries.

Jose

[81shastaboy]

in my 81 I have two auto battery it is in a ford and have no deep cycle

[crawford]

I know my 99 Jamboree plug up only charge the house battery's and boiled them. know my battery tender made to keep both battery's up to snuff never boil any more battery's LOL

[noe-place]

From my early days with batteries; water under batteries means they're too full of water and are boiling over; trickle charger on engine battery works great. Plug in your land line to charge house batts. Happy camping.

[IAMICHABOD]

Rick
I have had mine hooked up all the time 24/7/ year round for the last 2 years or more with no problems, I know of no special boards but it has worked without fail with no problems.

I did change out my converter to a smart one a while back to get rid of the cheap WFCO.

Like These

Not only are they smart they also protect against low line voltage also high voltage protection.

I changed out mine with this one

PD 9245c

It is a direct swap out, just plug and play,4 screws and all done, one of the easiest mods that I did.

They are cheaper on EBay Like Here

Hope that this helps, got a lot of other neat mods for this RV too..
Gary

[pianotuna]

Hi Rick,

A lot depends on what make and model of converter you have. Some are great and some are not so wonderful.

[Momboy007]

IAMICHABOD, Sorry I got the name wrong in the prior post, that is a hard one to remember.
I just read on the BIRD, that is a cool little divice, I do have one, you have had no trouble with your batteries plugged into shore power for Weeks at a time? I thought I read here on the forums that you had to install some special board to the converter to have it charge correctly from shore power for extended amounts of time?
Thanks all for your help and a special thanks to Iamichabod

Rick

[Momboy007]

Hello All,
I should have mentioned that I do not use a trickle charger, but rather an Interstate battery maintainer. My batteries are now over 8 years old (ALL, chassis and coach)

IISCHABOD: Mine does have that Bird thing in there, in fact, your set up looks identical to mine. I do not think I have a smart converter, I think when plugged in to shore power, it will overcharge, not sure, but I have always felt that way, maybe I should just keep it plugged into shore power?

Thanks all for your help

Rick

[IAMICHABOD]

You may not have to do this at all if you have a Bird like I have on my 2006 Fleetwood Tioga, just by plugging it in it will maintain the charge on the chassis battery as well as the house batteries.


Many of Fleetwood products came with them.

To find it look under the step where the batteries are, like here
at red arrow.


Here is a close up of it.



If you have one it will keep everything charged and will not boil your batteries, mine is plugged in all the time when at home, and other than checking them about once a month I have never had to put water in them.

[RoyB]

You have raised a REDFLAG mentioning water present under your batteries.

The 13.6VDC is right at the level that causes battery fluids to boil out. You really should be using 13.2VDC for long term trickle charging. If you can only use 13.6VDC then what you should do is to watch your battery fluids levels real close. Once a week at first to see if you are losing fluids.

If the fluids get below the cores internal battery failure may happen.

Keeping your batteries re-charged using the smart mode chargers will take care of all of this for you. I would still check the water levels anyway haha.. I can't afford to replace my batteries...

Roy Ken

[pianotuna]

Hi Rick,

Well, that's great--except for the "battery water". Is the trickle charger intended for long term charging? Some of them are not--and the battery water scares me.

I've gone solar so my house bank charges the chassis battery using a trik-l-start.