Battery or Converter Issues? Or Neither?

[homeschoolin]

We have four, Crown brand 220aH batteries in our fifth-wheel. We bought the batteries in the summer of 2007 when we bought the fifth wheel. The fiver is now in front of our house and has been connected to our home's power outlet.

When I pulled the fiver out of storage on Saturday, the batteries were almost dead and would not drive the landing gear to allow me hook up until I ran some generator time to restore things. I have a solar panel maintainer hooked up while in storage, but the cable which was exposed to the elements had broken from age so the batteries were sitting for a month with no solar input.

I connected the power to the fiver on Saturday at lunch. The initial multi-meter reading from the converter was about 12.91 (WFCO 8955, original to the fiver). When I checked last night, the multi-meter was showing 13.45 and the batteries were warm and with lots of bubbling sound. I disconnected the power cord from the house and let a fantastic fan run all night.

The multi-meter reading this morning was 12.30. I reconnected the house power, and again got the reading for 12.91.

Do all of these reading sound like my converter is operating normally?

Are my batteries likely dead or on their last legs? A reading of 12.30 seems pretty low after charging for over two days and with only minimal draw from a fantastic fan.

We have a guy in town here (Phoenix area) who will deliver to me Trojan T-105s for $95 each. Are those still a good battery or is another brand producing better value?

I am thinking of just biting the bullet and getting a new set of batteries but I want to make sure the converter appears to be operating normally first. I had the existing batteries load tested at a battery store after our summer RV trip last year and the guy said the batteries looked good. As far as I can recall, this past month with the solar panel problem is the first time that the existing batteries have been allowed to go completely dead. I hate to pitch batteries that may still have life, but maybe seven years is good enough service and I should not push my luck.

[Mandalay_Parr]

Your batteries are 7 years old. Definitely time to replace.
Start with new batteries, then check converter.

[Old-Biscuit]

Time for new batteries......they are 7(+) yrs. old

Also time to replace that WFCO converter with a good upgraded 3 stage/4 stage converter.....Best Converter...ask Randy

[ktmrfs]

grab a hydrometer and measure SG. If they are good, all the cells should have similar SG in the 1.26-1.28 range. Don't know what the inital SG is on crowns,

If ALL the cells are low but similar, it ain't charged yet. hook up the charger and monitor SG and see if it keeps climbing.

The WFCO isn't known for going into bulk mode charging and 13.6 never really gets the batteries to full charge, they need a period of time in the 14.5V range.

And since it often doesn't get into bulk mode, it will take a LONG time to bring a set of 4 GC to near full charge at 13.6, maybe 4-5 days. your only charging at 15A or so and you have 500-600AH of fully discharged batteries.

If one or more cells is more than about 0.1 lower than the others you may have a bad cell. keep charging and see if it comes up

[mena661]

WFCO converters are such POS. That converter should be in boost with a quick amps taper (your batts might only be down about 5% from sitting uncharged). The bubbling and the batts being warm set off a red flag and indicate a problem IMO. They should not be much warmer than ambient temperature. I would separate all the batteries, let them sit over night NOT connected to anything and check the voltage on each one of them individually the next morning OR you can disconnect them all in the morning and check them that evening. The voltages on all of them should be equal. If one is lower than the others, there's your bad one.

[time2roll]

Hard to test the two connected together. Disconnect the battery and check converter voltage and battery voltage separately. Then check again in 48 hours for changes.

WFCO should hold 13.6 volts fairly steady with minimal battery bubbling or heat.

[enblethen]

I would say at least one of the batteries is failing.
Did you see bubbling in all cells of all batteries?
T105 are good batteries!