Looking for some advice on what to look for to troubleshoot a problem before I start spending money. Smelled rotten eggs this morning while going to get the paper. Had smelled it before, but it was very strong today and for some reason, I thought to sniff the camper. Very strong odor in the area of the propane tanks so I pulled the cover and made sure the valves were shut.

Put my ear close to the selector valve to see if I could hear any leakage and I heard a sizzling noise from the battery compartment. It was very hot to the touch, so I didn't open it. Disconnected the camper from shore power, and broke the 3-prong doing it as it sparked and arced while I was working the plug free.

The battery compartment was cool this evening, so I'm going to crack it open for my Christmas present on Wednesday. I'll voltage-test the battery, but I think this one is only 6 months old, so I'm wondering: what else should I look for?

 

the only thing i could see would be a bad charger, the 12 volt converter in the camper... 120vac to 12vdc.. maybe shorting..

how old is the camper?
are you using deep cycle batteries?

 

Sounds like over charging.

Richard

 

good thing that did not blow up on you.. charging system failure for sure

 

Yep, defective battery charger in the power supply/converter overcharged the battery and cooked it. The fix is to replace not only the battery(ies) but also the converter. The good converters will have a computer-controlled battery charger that will not overcharge the battery. It will charge at full rate until the battery is about 80% full, then at a lower "trickle charge" rate until the battery is about 98% full, then it will "float" charge the battery to maintain it between 98% and 100% full, but never more than 100%.

IOW, your converter [that converts 120 volt alternating current (AC) into 12 volt direct current (DC)]is not doing the job right. Read up on the "Battery Tender" battery chargers to see how the battery charger in your converter is supposed to work.
http://batterytender.com/products/rv...-at-1-25a.html

Click on the "technical info" button in that link to get more technical.

 

Is there a simple way to test the charging system? My nearest shop is nearly an hour each way so if I can troubleshoot, that will save me a ton of time.

I took it all apart today and the battery and box are a mess. Black goo everywhere, contacts corroded. You can tell that one cell boiled out under the permanent cap and the acid washed part of the battery clean.

On my last camping trip, I was dry-camping for 4 days, so I brought along a spare battery. The spare was older and the voltage was low, but it lasted long enough to do the job once the primary got tired. However, I had old folks disease when I got home and left the old battery in the camper, charging on shore power, while my good battery sat in the garage on the float charger. I'm wondering what the chances are that this really wasn't the charger, just a crappy battery.

Do you know of a way to test the camper charging system before I go out and replace it? It wasn't cheap, and it's built in, meaning I'll probably have to pay someone to do it.

 

Quick answers to a couple of the questions:

Camper is about 5 years old and yes, they are both deep cycle.

Maybe one more question: According to the manual, my charger is supposed to work like SMOKEYWREN says. If the battery is unable to maintain 80%, might the system continue to feed it charging voltage? That would certainly fry it and might mean my charger is OK.

 

If the battery is cooked, replace it and then measure the charge until 100% and see what the charger does imho.

Richard

 

I like simple ideas. Thanks, Richard.

 

Hooked up the fresh, fully charged battery, cleaned all the contacts, checked all the fuses. Voltage was 13.55 before hookup. After hookup, but before shore power applied, it was about 13.49. Applied shore power, but the voltage didn't change.

Disconnected the 120, then went inside to make sure lights worked, etc. Then reconnected the 120 and tested the AC and microwave. All good. Battery voltage is now at 13.40.

Read up on my IOTA converter/charger and the voltage may actually need to drop further before a charge/float cycle kicks on. Not much info in the manual. About the only test I didn't try was disconnecting the battery and then turning on a 12V light. I'm going to test it again in a day or two and see if anything has changed.