Boondocking electricity/generator issue
 

Good afternoon,

We took our 2404T HiLo dry camping for the first time two weekends ago. Everything went swimmingly other than one electricity/generator issue I ran into on day two. Hoping someone will have some insight

Day 1 - as we prepare dinner with batteries fully charged, I plugged trailer power into our Yamaha 2000i generator, so my wife could use her Instapot. Everything worked fine, other then we had to make sure most things were off in the trailer in order for her to use her Instapot , which is understandable given the juice it pulls

Day 2 - after a full night and day of battery drain, we went to repeat the actions taken the night before. This time with everything off in the trailer, (including NO Instapot) the generator would continually jump straight to overload several seconds after plugging in the trailer. Ended up running an extension cord from the generator straight to the Instapot to Cook dinner.

We ended up having enough juice in the two batteries and the small trickle from the solar panel to make it through the next day and a half without a legitimate recharge.

When we got home, I tested the whatts on the generator and the generator is running perfectly. It is only about three years old but has always worked well for all applications including running things in the cabin when the power goes out.

Ideas? I read somewhere on the forum a possible bad inverter could cause this, and or possible bad battery(ies), but none of the other trailer heads I talk to say this is possibility.

Thanks!

I had the same problem once with my 1000W Honda generator. The batteries were down quite a bit and trying to recharge them through the converter with the shore power cord plugged into the generator caused it to immediately overload.

My solution then was to connect the generator directly to the batteries using the DC out function on the generator (and to run it off "eco" mode). That worked, and when I got home I replaced the batteries. I've not had that problem since, but I've also added a 300W solar charging system too.

I don't know what caused the overload behavior, other than a possible high draw from the converter when the batteries were low.

- Jack

Thanks for the info Jack. With some help from a friend I was able to trace the issue to the electronica commission for my water heater. When that is turned off the generator charges the low batteries just fine, even with things running in the trailer. As soon as I turn on the hot water heater electric ignition with the low batteries, it immediately sends the generator into overload. easy enough to work around, but I am still going to try to figure out what’s going on and fix it

Oh and I also noticed with batteries fully charged, anytime any electricity is drawn from the batteries (for example one light being turned on) the voltage meter goes from showing batteries are fully charged to showing batteries are low...Until the light is turned off, and then the voltage meter goes back to showing batteries fully charged. I don’t know if this is just an idiosyncrasy or if it means I need new batteries

Are you talking about a real volt/multi meter or the "idiot lights" which are part of the display along with the the tank gauges? If the latter, I would check with a multi meter before i came to much of a conclusion about anything in terms of battery capacity/load.

Rick

Dan, I agree totally with Rick on this. The idiot lights in the trailer are mostly for looks. A fully charged, resting battery with NO load on it will show about 12.7V if it is new and fully charged. If it's showing 12.0V in the same state, it is at a 25% charge level.

Anytime you put a load (current draw) on the battery, it will reduce the voltage to some extent. As I recall, the lights in our trailer draw about 15 Watts each, or 1.2 Amps at 12.5V. if they are the original incandescent type. That's actually a fairly significant draw.

You could use a Voltmeter to measure the voltage both at a resting state, and with a light on. This would give you some idea of the health of the battery.

- Jack