Battery issues....one battery is getting too much of a charge, 2nd battery no...

[ilyafish]

charge.

First off, thank you to everyone that helped out last week during my incident.  An update which i have been meaning to give you guys....turns out it was the footvalve or whatever its called....the clueless truckstop mechanics just put it on wrong and screwed up the supply and deliverly lines, so after a few hours on the phone with MCI they walked me through it....though i was left with a $641 bill for something that they didnt even fix....but we wont go there.

Anyways...next problem haha.  When i purchased the bus, the previous owner didnt completely switch off the batteries when he parked it the night before i came, and the back battery (by back battery i mean the out of the 2 batteries, the one closer to the rear) was completely drained.  So we picked up a new battery, and everything was fine.  Drove it home, parked it.  The next day i went to turn the bus on and it wouldnt kick over at all.  It was completely dead.  I hooked the jumper cables up to the other battery since i figured the chances of the new battery being dead were very slim....after 15 min, nothing.  So i hooked them up to the new battery and literally 3 seconds later, the bus kicked over.  Now as you guys know, i have a veggie system hooked up to the bus, and it is hooked up to the back battery.  So i figured okay, the veggie system is probably still creating a draw on the battery even when i shut it off, so a few days ago (weve just been getting jump starts at shows haha) i finally stopped off and purchased a new battery.  I have been disconnecting the terminals when we park it so that whatever this draw is that is on the batteries obviously wont happen.  Now when i installed the new battery, the guy pointed out a little bit of acid leaking from the caps of the good battery, obviously meaning its getting too much of a charge.  So i figured okay, bad battery, wasnt holding a charge, so the charge of 2 batteries was going to just the one....makes sense. 

Now today i went to install an inverter, and the inverter is giving a 'low battery' warning no matter which battery i hook it up to, or both.  Now also i discovered a blown fuse as i was doing this.  From the front battery, there is a wire that runs somewhere, and about a foot-length or so out from the terminal, there is a cap....i took the cap off to see what was behind it, and discovered a 15amp fuse blown....i am not sure what this is.  If this is factory, or if this is something installed by the veggie conversion.

I have also been noticing that it seems like the new battery may not be getting completely recharged.  For example, when i go to kick the A/C on, the lights significantly dim for a second.....the first 2-3 days i had the battery this was not the case.  They would blink as obviously it creates a huge draw initially, but it has gone from a quick 'flash' to about a 2 second dim.  It also seems that it takes just a tad longer to kick over than it did when i initially got the new battery.

So....i'm not sure what any of this means, if that fuse has anything to do with it, or if any of u guys have any insight on diagnosing the problem.

[ilyafish]

update:  the relay on the veggie system was stuck open, which is why it was drawing power when it was off.

so where we are at right now, is the battery draining problem is now fixed, and were at the inverter still saying low battery.

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi Peach,

It sounds like you may have Gremlins abord your bus!  Our rule to remove Gremlins is to get your bus up over 80mph and they will fall out..

Just playing....

Do you have a Vanner/Equalizer above the 2 start batts? It is a black box with wires to your batterys. If not, you may need one. They help

keep your batterys equally charged.

Hope your having fun on the tour.
Nick-

[ilyafish]

im not sure...i have 2 small black boxes, about an inch and a half each side with wires running, mainly to the left battery....not sure what it is, i thought it was the veggie system.

anyways, both batteries are reading 15 volts, and with the bus running, the charge is not going up....

[DrivingMissLazy]

The bus voltage is a nominal 24 volts, correct?

Sounds like the batteries are hooked up in parallel instead of series.

What is the DC bus voltage for the Inverter? 12 volts or 24 volts?

Richard

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Peach,

Is your inverter 12v or 24v? What brand/model is it?  What are the parimeters set at?  

Nick-

[ilyafish]

ok dumb error on my part....24 volt inverter....so i just hooked the positive up to one battery and the negative to the other...works perfect now :-)

and the 15 volts thing also i was not thinking....thats 15 volts each battery, so being 2 12 volt batteries (or probably more like 14) that makes sense.

ok, so everything seems to be okay now....i just kinda wasnt thinking.  so i just shut the bus down i let it run for a little bit to charge up the battery that was low, so in an hour or so ill see if it holds the charge and kicks over.

good thing one of the guys in the other band is mechanically inclined :-)

[Hartley]

You need an equalizer to balance the battery charge between them.

If you are pulling 12 volts off either one the other one will FRY because it
is not getting a balanced charging from the alternator. Which is probably a
24 volt system.

Hooking a 12 volt Inverter or other load to a 24 volt battery system is a basic NO-NO especially if the load is higher on one of the two batteries hooked in series to provide the 24 volts for the chassis and engine systems.

That's why we use a separate HOUSE battery system designed to handle the high loads of inverters especially the 12 volt ones.

Sorry, I get overly excited when people do silly things and then wonder why stuff burns or blows up.....

Dave....

[Bob Gil]

If you don't have a switch to completely disconect the batteries when not in use you might want to consider one it will stop little problems and keep the batteries up when not in use.

If you are where you can plug it up you might consider a charger that will take care of you batteries when you are not using the bus.

Just my $00.0002 worth.

bob

[buswarrior]

OK, sounds like the inverter is a 24 volt unit, so that problem is partially solved.

Your next issue might be draining the batteries. When were you planning on using this inverter, and for what loads? If you do much more than boil a cup of water in a microwave with the bus turned off, you'll not be starting the bus again... to get 1 amp of power out of your inverter, you have to draw approximately 4 amps out of the battery, more if the inverter is an inefficient one.

It also sounds like there is some significant 12 volt load being drawn out of half of your battery set. Any radio equipment that looks like it belongs in a car will be 12 volt, amplifiers too, how about lighting in the bus?

This is the bad part, and you have to make some changes.

If you continue to draw 12 volts out of the 24 volt system, without an equalizer to level the draw and the charging between the two batteries, you will ruin both batteries, one by being undercharged, the other by being overcharged.

Vanner is the name of the equalizer manufacturer, and the amperage of the equalizer needs to match whatever it is that you are drawing out of the one side, including whatever the coach already was drawing before the veggie system.  All of the modern transit buses have these, so whatever transit buses that have recently been scrapped near you will be equipped with one. It has three connections to make, the positive end of 24 volts, the negative end of 24 volts and to the middle between the batteries, pick a post.

While you are at it, install a big enough battery cut out switch in the 12 volt feed, in order that you may shut down ALL the electrics in the coach.

Take note that the other poster talked about BURNING YOUR BUS TO THE GROUND....

You guys need to get smart about your bus and you need to do that VERY soon. Many online sources for maintenance manuals, specific to your make and model, and in the other thread, the source of the Bus Garage Index, a $40 book that lists pretty much every decent bus shop on the continent that is willing to service buses that are not their own.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi Peach,

Don't feel bad... It's a major learning process owning a bus.

Now, don't forget how to get rid of the Gremlins....

Here is a pic of the Vanner
Nick-

[ilyafish]

yea, a vanner is definately something i will be investing in.  we have about 3 weeks left in this tour....you think things should be okay to hold off the vanner for 3 weeks or is this an asap issue?

Also, the inverter is being strictly used when the bus is running, and for things like cellphones and mini fridge.  Once we park at the venue, inverter goes off and we just run an extension cord to the building.  This is temporary as we only had a week from when we purchased the bus to gut it and get it ready for a tour.  When we get home early october we will be purchasing seperate house batteries and an inverter/charger for them.

Right now, it seems we will be home for 2 weeks and then going back out for another 2-3 weeks.  After that, we are home till the spring just writing and recording....so i plan on doing a major overhaul on the bus then.  So yea....right now, things such as the inverter and so forth are just temporary to hold us over until we get home.