Inverter shut off, interior lights still on, then shut off overnight

[as142]

Hello,

Last night while watching tv with my inverter on (which powers tv and labtop I was charger), rhe inverter shut off and started to beep. I was puzzled as I thought the lithium battery lost all charge - however, the interior lights were still on.

I turned on the inverter again, and then tv came back on for a few minutes, then all power was lost again. This hasn’t happened before. I went to bed with regular power still on (meaning I could turn on interior lights) and woke up to total darkness and no electricity in the trailer.

What’s going on here, and should I be concerned.

Conditions I am currently living in:
- over night low is 21° F
- yesterday was cloudy and snowy with minimal sun (but charge did appear 100% when I got home after work)
- I am dry camping so not plugged into anything
- I run the propane to heat up the trailer at 60° while the refrigerator is completely off and unused.

Please help.

 

[wackyburggeezer]

Hello,

Last night while watching tv with my inverter on (which powers tv and labtop I was charger), rhe inverter shut off and started to beep. I was puzzled as I thought the lithium battery lost all charge - however, the interior lights were still on.

I turned on the inverter again, and then tv came back on for a few minutes, then all power was lost again. This hasn’t happened before. I went to bed with regular power still on (meaning I could turn on interior lights) and woke up to total darkness and no electricity in the trailer.

What’s going on here, and should I be concerned.

Conditions I am currently living in:
- over night low is 21° F
- yesterday was cloudy and snowy with minimal sun (but charge did appear 100% when I got home after work)
- I am dry camping so not plugged into anything
- I run the propane to heat up the trailer at 60° while the refrigerator is completely off and unused.

Please help.

Let's start with more information. Year and model of Escape? One battery or two? Is this your first dry camping experience? BTW, the heater fan is a 'high current' device. Shut off the heater and inverter until you can diagnose the specific reason for your power status.

 

[vermilye]

The inverter has a low voltage shut off, ie if the voltage falls below a preset level it shuts off. The batteries will recover a bit of voltage after the inverter load is gone so it might be able to restart for a short time.
There may still be enough battery capacity to keep the lights and other stuff but not run the inverter. If the battery gets low enough, the built in BMS will shut it off to prevent battery damage.

I'd keep an eye on the state of charge of the battery to make sure you have enough capacity for your typical usage.

 

[as142]

.

 

[as142]

Let's start with more information. Year and model of Escape? One battery or two? Is this your first dry camping experience? BTW, the heater fan is a 'high current' device. Shut off the heater and inverter until you can diagnose the specific reason for your power status.

Let's start with more information. Year and model of Escape? One battery or two? Is this your first dry camping experience? BTW, the heater fan is a 'high current' device. Shut off the heater and inverter until you can diagnose the specific reason for your power status.

Escape 2023 21c
Single Lithium battery. I have been dry camping since March of 2023. Use about 3 nights a week, living inside from 6pm to 4am. So only use power during those times.

 

[wackyburggeezer]

Do you have a digital meter to test the battery voltage at the battery? My initial guess is that you've pulled a large number of watthours out of the battery, and it's time to get the battery charged. Got solar? If not, then your quickest fix is to find a source of 120 volts and plug in. Using your tow vehicle to charge the trailer battery is a time consuming and energy inefficient method. If you have a solar panel on the roof. Look to see what amps/voltage the solar converter is sending to the battery.

 

[John in Santa Cruz]

If you regularly camp without shore power, I highly recommend getting a bluetooth shunt battery monitor, such as the Victron SmartShunt, and hooking it up. Install the victron app on your phone (iphone or android), connect to the smartshunt over bluetooth, use the victron app to configure the battery capacity and type, then fully charge the battery with shore power, and do a 'reset' on the SmartShunt (via its app) so it knows you're at 100%

wiring the SmartShunt (or similar) is quite simple, you disconnect the ground/negative cable(s) from your battery, and connect them to the SmartShunt, then connect a short heavy gauge jumper cable from the other side of the shunt to the battery negative terminal (you can find these heavy gauge short ground cables at most any decent car parts store). there's a skinny red wire you connect to the battery + terminal so it can monitor voltage.

once its setup, you can fire up the Victron app, and see your battery state, graph usage over time, etc etc. this is FAR more reliable than trying to monitor by voltage as it tracks voltage and current... volts*amps=watts, and by integrating watts in and watts out, it knows how many watt*hours you have left at any time.

 

[John in Santa Cruz]

oh, if using a phone app is too annoying for you, you can instead get a Victron BMV-712, which has the same sort of shunt, plus a battery status display you can mount where convenient, the display connects to the shunt with a telephone style RJ11 cable thats pretty easy to snake up to a cabinet or whatever.

 

[John in Santa Cruz]

p.s. if you have a 2-way or 3-way absorption fridge, run it on propane when dry camping.

21F is harsh on batteries, but hopefully yours are inside the shell of the camper and kept at least 40-50 degrees.

 

[as142]

Hi all, found out the issue is that during extreme cold temps the battery shuts down. I read the specs in the battery and below a certain temp, things don’t seem to width stand the cold. My solution was alternate heating to ensure batteries stay warm and not freeze

 

[vermilye]

It might not be a temperature problem. You mentioned 21°F in your original post and while most lithium battery BMSs will shut down charging at 32°F, you can continue to draw current from them down to -4°F. I still suspect that the batteries were drawn down below what would run the inverter, but still have enough left to power LED lights. As John suggested, adding a battery monitor will make it easier to determine the state of charge of the batteries.

 

[as142]

I found each time since, when temps would fall below 25° inside the trailer and outside around 12°, the lithium battery ceases to continue to work. Then when temps rise in the day time, all goes back to normal. This is just strict use with the solar and lithium battery while dry camping. A battery monitor seems like it could explain a lot and tell me exactly what I am seeing when temps drop

 

[alanmalk]

Lithium batteries should not be charged when the temperature of the battery is below 32F (0C). Many, but not all, will shut down the charging internally when the temperature drops down to freezing. You can still discharge down to 0F but can't replace the used power. This might also fool whatever you are using to read "100%" full since the battery will not be taking any power (as if it were full).

As you are finding out, lithium batteries are not as simple to use as one might hope.