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Batteries - one down, one to go...
Batteries are necessary, but they are still a pain. During our last outing (2 week duration with full hookups), I was seeing some power drainage while lowering and raising the landing gear without being connected to shore power or to the TV. You could hear the results of the batteries being weak and struggling when they had to work by themselves. Fortunately shore power was available.
After returning from the outing and preparing the rig for semi-storage on our driveway, I decided to debug the battery problem. The voltages were measuring about 12.3 volts, then connecting the Battery Minder the voltage lingered around 12.5. Typical was 12.8 and months before was near or over 13v. I isolated the batteries and one read 12.2v and the other now read 12.8v. Waited about 5 minutes then one measured 11.9v and the other 12.8v. AHA! one of these suckers is bad and was bringing the other down.
I removed the bad battery and measured its voltage every minute and it would drop .1 to .2 volts each time. I gave up after 10.8v. I opened the covers and saw that two cells had cloudy water and the others were still not as clear. This battery is toast!
The remaining battery looks great. Water is clear and full and on the Battery Minder reads 13.8v just like it usually does and I expect as high as 14v at times.
I will use the one 12v battery until it eventually fails, then convert to dual 6v maintenance-free AGM or Gel type batteries.
Note to all, even with meticulous maintenance, batteries will eventually fail. Maintenance just helps them last much longer.
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