Wander the West: electrical problem - Wander the West

Both truck and camper battery were charged to 100% capacity with with battery charger last night. This morning, the camper battery is completely dead. No loose wires, nothing left on (including fridge), no frayed wires. We have probably only used 12 volt system 6 times. System is less that 10 months old. Hubby talked with Tom at 4WC. He suggested that battery could be bad or to bypass pull switch under the cupboards. Hubby says something is drawing battery down as a week ago he left fridge on and it drew down battery but fridge is now off as is anything else that could draw down battery. The panel readout showed no electrical power in the camper battery: zero voltage, drawn completely down. Hubby is going into town to NAPA to see if battery is any good. Sorry this is rambling butI am taking dictation and am lousy typist. We are desperate because we have a planned trip to eastern Washington and were going to leave tomorrow AM. We returned from a week long trip to Oregon coast just 2 weeks ago and everything worked fine. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

A dead battery usually will still read 10.5volts. When you say zero volts are you using a voltmeter (they are simple to use and cheap, get one if not) or relying on the camper LED battery indicator?

Have you main sure the fuse between the battery and camper isn't blown or the power switched off? True zero voltage in the camper doesn't make sense for just a dead battery.

I second the motion that Zero voltage doesn't seem right - I've never seen a 12v vehicle size battery show Zero even when really, really dead.

There have been a number of threads over the last while about electrical problems this being perhaps the most dramatic. For anyone following, advice to use a voltmeter is common. They are very useful tools. Spending a bit more will get you a voltmeter with a DC amp meter built in. These usually clamp around a wire and tell you exactly how many amps are going into or out of the batteries (or any other DC circuit). In a case like this, simply clamping the DC amp meter around the battery cable would tell you whether or not there was current leaving the battery. Then you would know instantly whether it is the battery or something drawing current. If you are looking for new voltmeter with DC amp capability, make sure it has enough capacity (40 amps?) to be useful. One with AC amps cannot be used on DC circuits.

DC amp meters are also great for doing electricity budgets for your camper.

Even a cheapo VM will usually have some ability to measure amperage. As what you should be looking for will be in the milliamp range with everything shut off (if its higher I'm surprised a short like that wouldn't show its presence with a small fire) it should suffice to find a small leak.

Electrical sure can be fun. I put a new radio in the jeep. The battery hot wasn't working to keep the memory. Fuse was good. Oh, some doofus had two fuses in the same line. Replace second fuse, all good. Sometimes I do things I just don't understand later on

Hubby found, when disconnecting battery for charging, a loose wire to a terminal that must been jarred loosed. He says it was never crimped properly in the first place as it was never secure. He says that the factory probably used the wrong crimping tool. He crimped it again using the right tool (a lug crimper). We are hoping that this is the issue. There is some discoloration on the wire from being loose in the terminal from trying to make contact. Thanks for all your input. He has a volt meter; it is a nice one that reads DC and AC. I will let you know what happens. Regardless, we let you know what happens.

Safe travels.

Hope the bad crimp is the problem, because I am looking forward to an Eastern WA trip report

highz, on 12 June 2012 - 10:52 AM, said:

x2!

I'm glad the bad crimp didn't put a crimp in your trip