Hope everyone had a great 4th.
I have a couple of question's hopefully someone here can help us out with.
I noticed today there was excessive corrosion on the battery leads and the tray. Also the street under the coach had a trail of battery juice. I took the batteries out and cleaned it up.
We have a 64 watt SunSai solar panel mounted on the roof wired directly to the batteries. There is a controller that was matched to the panel. There is no shutoff switch connected and I left the house power on today. I do routinely check the water levels in the batteries and top them off when needed We got home from a week long trip to Bodega Bay and had no problems as far as I could tell. It was pretty warm today here in the Bay Area but it's been a lot hotter.
My question's are, should I install a shutoff switch for the solar panel for storage use and is it possible the solar panel could have overcharged the batteries and caused the corrosion.
Thanks in advance.
* This post was
edited 07/07/08 11:47pm by HIDEOUT *
Kevin & Dawn
Doggies:
Persalina, We love you & miss you so very much!
Moonbeam
Chloie Pearl
'07 Itasca Suncruiser 35L
Workhorse 24-8.1 Vortec w/6 sp. Allison
93 Jeep Wrangler Toad
Roadmaster Even Brake
My guess would be it overcharged the batteries and boiled the water out.
Did you check the water levels again?
64 watts is a pretty hefty charger.
I wouldn't leave it connected all the time.
2004 Monaco
La Palma 36DBD
Two Slides
2 Potties
Workhorse 22 chassis
8.1 gas engine & Allison transmission
6.9 MPG based on a 6,000 mile trip around the U.S.
Hi ArchHoagland and thanks for your reply. I did check the water in the batteries. One is a little low and the other is full. I think I will install a switch to shut off the panel when stored.
Thanks again.
Measure the float voltage on the batteries. If it is 13.2 it is OK. Higher than 13.8 it will overcook the batteries. Fix (adjust) or replace the charge controller. A disconnect switch shouldn't be required except when removing the batteries and needing to power down the whole RV. You should have a fuse you could disconnect on the solar charge line. Also, the float voltage should change a little bit with battery temperature. A good charge controller will have a temperature sensor to be installed on a battery case.
(August Trailer Life has articles on Solar and Generators)
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2006 Chevy 3500 CC LB 4WD DRW Duramax auto-6
2003 Cardinal 29WB LX EU3000is Roto-Choks 300W from www.amsolar.com
HIDEOUT, I had the same issue with my batteries....constant headache trying to stop the spreading corrosion. In the end, I installed the Qwik-Fill battery watering system on all 4 of my house batteries, gave everything another good cleaning and re-painted the metal parts with a spray auto undercoating. Six months and no more corrosion.
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