Two years ago, in early February, at Organ Pipe National Monument, after owning our Crown 220 ah, 6V batteries four months, the batteries failed. I could charge them to 12.8 volts during the day, go to bed with 12.7+ volts after the sun was down for at least four hours, run our furnace, and the next morning the voltage slowly declined from 11.8 on the first morning to 10.2 on the sixth morning.
After going through everything with only a multi-meter I could find no problems with ETI's electrical system. I had problems with Crown's Arizona rep (he was fired), and after two long weeks the batteries were finally replaced under warranty (we purchased an AGM battery from Costco to use in the meantime).
Both failed batteries were shipped to Crown in Illinois (?) for inspection. I received a phone call a couple weeks later informing me that one of the plates was/had separated. They wanted to know if I had ever dropped the batteries; I hadn't.
After this fiasco, I installed a
Victron BMV-712 Smart Battery Monitor to get a better perspective on what is going on with our batteries. While it's not perfectly accurate, it tells me more of what I want/need to know, and will always have one in the future.
Our 5.0 was purchased with a 170 W GoPower panel on the roof with the GoPower controller and we have added a 100 W Renogy portable charging the battery with a Victron 100/20 smart solar controller for when our rooftop panel is in the shade.
Fast forward two years:
We just finished seven nights at Chiricahua National Monument where our 170 W roof panel was in the shade. On day two I found the location sweet spot, so our 100 W Renogy portable charged the battery to 100% with the Victron controller (90% according to the GoPower controller, but that's another story).
After the second night at Chiricahua I noticed the voltage was lower than expected the next morning. On the fourth morning Terry heard an alarm from the Victron 712 (I can't hear that alarm even if my ear is one inch away). While the furnace was running the voltage was 10.8 - 11.2 volts. A few minutes after the furnace stopped the voltage would climb back to 12.0 - 12.4 volts. The second the furnace turned on the voltage would start dropping.
The neat thing about the Victron 100/20 is, it keeps history of the high's and lows of the battery on a day by day basis. I wish the 712 would do the same thing. It took both Victron's to have enough information to easily determine one of our 6v batteries was failing. Just our 712 is not enough!
When looking at the amp hours consumed (712) before the panels would start charging, no morning was over 21 ah's. In other words we don't have a drain somewhere else in the camper to justify that low a voltage.
I called Crown and they agreed one of the 6v batteries was failing. The two year warranty is unfortunately over.
We paid $440 for the Crown's delivered and have had the batteries for 28 months. Our batteries have cost us $189/year, and have endured two failures. I'm willing to accept a $100-150 yearly cost, but not replacement every two years.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me!
Fool me three times, shame on both of us!!!
Time for new batteries, and they won't be Crowns.
Thanks for listening,
Perry
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