2018 Momentum M Class

[magbob20]

April put in 2 brand new 6v batteries and a solar backup, no issues on a 4 day trip. Last week fully charged batteries with solar backup, batteries died in less than an hour. Went and got new batteries, fully charged, turned nothing extra on and batteries drained in less than an hour. At first we thought it was the fan in fridge maybe not shutting off, eliminated that. Could it be a fuse that supports the batteries? We have had 2 techs look at it and they could not figure it out. We are scheduled to go to the dealer, but that's a black hole and we wont see our rig for 2 months! Its summer time - please send ideas of what it could be!

[TucsonJim]

April put in 2 brand new 6v batteries and a solar backup, no issues on a 4 day trip. Last week fully charged batteries with solar backup, batteries died in less than an hour. Went and got new batteries, fully charged, turned nothing extra on and batteries drained in less than an hour. At first we thought it was the fan in fridge maybe not shutting off, eliminated that. Could it be a fuse that supports the batteries? We have had 2 techs look at it and they could not figure it out. We are scheduled to go to the dealer, but that's a black hole and we wont see our rig for 2 months! Its summer time - please send ideas of what it could be!

Welcome to the forum Magbob20. To drain two six-volt batteries in an hour is indicative of a very serious current draw. Let's start off with a few basic questions.

1. Do you have an inverter in your Momentum? If so, is it powered on or off? Questions 2-5 are based on the assumption you have an inverter and it's powered on.
2. Do you have a residential refrigerator?
3. If you have a gas/electric refrigerator, are you running it on gas or electric?
4. Is your water heater turned on? If so, gas or electric.
5. Is an air conditioner turned on?
6. On your solar array, is it turned on?
7. Do you have a volt meter?

BTW, when you get a chance, check out our welcome letter and how to create a signature.
https://gdrvowners.com/forum/main-fo...to-new-members

Jim

[Cate&Rob]

magbob20

I suspect that you are not getting much from your batteries because you are not actually charging them. How are you determining that they are "fully charged"? If you put a volt meter directly across the battery terminals and then plug into shore power (activating the converter/battery charger) you should see a significant jump in voltage at the battery terminals. If not, the first thing to check is the battery disconnect switch in the pass through storage area.

Rob

[magbob20]

Jim - Feel a little dumb, but we do not know if we have an inverter...so if we have one we have never touched it!
1. Do you have an inverter in your Momentum? If so, is it powered on or off? Questions 2-5 are based on the assumption you have an inverter and it's powered on.
2. Do you have a residential refrigerator? Yes
3. If you have a gas/electric refrigerator, are you running it on gas or electric? We run it on gas when we are dry camping, which we were when this started.
4. Is your water heater turned on? If so, gas or electric. Was on gas
5. Is an air conditioner turned on? No
6. On your solar array, is it turned on? Yes
7. Do you have a volt meter? Yes

[magbob20]

Rob - The one thing we have learned with this rig is to have full batteries. These batteries were just purchased and fully charged, my husband has become best friends with the "Batteries, Batteries Batteries" store owner!!! We also do know the battery disconnect. We have had this rig for 3 full years and never have had this problem, it just started doing this on this last trip.

[Cate&Rob]

Rob - The one thing we have learned with this rig is to have full batteries. These batteries were just purchased and fully charged, my husband has become best friends with the "Batteries, Batteries Batteries" store owner!!! We also do know the battery disconnect. We have had this rig for 3 full years and never have had this problem, it just started doing this on this last trip.

If you are sure that the batteries are being fully charged, I would agree with TucsonJim that to drain two 6V batteries in less than an hour is a huge electric draw. Are the battery cables warm/hot to the touch when this is happening? A "clamp meter" capable of measuring DC current would be the best way to measure current going into or out of the batteries. You may be able to find a service technician or maybe another camper with one of these meters. This would be a first step to learn whether the batteries are actually accepting charge or being discharged at a high current.

Rob

[Jlawles2]

I just picked up one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 not as expensive as a fluke but for what I do it should be good enough and it measures DC amperage.

Using one of these, turn off the battery disconnect and pull the key with shore power disconnected. Check amp draw. To drain 2 6V batteries in 1hr that's got to be close to 100 amp draw. I you see 1-2 amps, it's probably normal, but I would still try to find it. If the amp draw is high, find the bus bar with breakers and test each wire. When you find the suspect wire, trace it to the offending component.

[magbob20]

Thank you I just ordered!