AC Power While Sitting at Home?

[xrated]

This is the same responde that I got from Battle Born when I asked them a couple of years ago about holding their batteries at full charge all the time. My lingering question is does the battery actually get discharged when living in the trailer or does the converter dominate and provide all the necessary charge and the batteries just sit there fully charged? I guess if the converter was programmed to wait until the batteries drop to a certain voltage before coming on then that would allow some discharge of the batteries. For me it does not matter since I turn off the convert and let the solar do its thing. Draw down at night and charge up in the day. The only time I use the converter is when dry camping and clouds or tree shade prevents a full battery charge from solar.

Once the LFP battery or batteries reach full charge, they will be at approx. 14.5 to 14.6 volts. The converter/charger will have dropped down to float voltage, which will vary a bit between brands, but normally around 13.4V Since the batteries are at a high voltage, they will be supplying the 12V systems with power and when the voltage gets down to about that level (the float voltage level0, charging will start all over again.

But remember, the topic of the thread was about "when the trailer is stored" and not using any 12V power. I firmly believe that if BB is saying that they should be stored (I'm not talking about for a week or two), they are wrong. Keeping LFP batteries at full SOC for long periods of time serve no good purpose, and in fact, can cause premature failure of the battery.....it's all LiFePO chemistry, just different brands of the same technology.

[ajg617]

I firmly believe that if BB is saying that they should be stored (I'm not talking about for a week or two), they are wrong. Keeping LFP batteries at full SOC for long periods of time serve no good purpose, and in fact, can cause premature failure of the battery.....it's all LiFePO chemistry, just different brands of the same technology.

BB does say charge them fully up to 14.4ish before disconnecting. They will lose 2-3% monthly on their own and disconnected (10%/day or more if heat kicks off and left in the trailer) so they will not be at full SOC for long. It's not only LFP chemistry but BMS design as well.

[SilentService]

Hi,
We have a 2022 GD 337RLS. We are at home now and won 't go out on the road again until the end of March. Do we leave the rig plugged into house power during that period? We would typically not plug the rig in while it sat between trips until a few days before when we fired up the refrigerator. Just looking for the correct procedure.

I still leave my trailer plugged into shore power for the winter. On occasion I get antsy for camping so I will open up the trailer to do some minor maintenance so it's nice to still have power in it for lights and heat. My lithium batteries are not heated so when I winterize the trailer late fall, I run them down to around 40% SOC then turn off my main battery disconnect (not the trailer one) on the negative side. 3 1/2 months later they are still at 40% SOC or 13.12v.

[Always Learning]

Once the LFP battery or batteries reach full charge, they will be at approx. 14.5 to 14.6 volts. The converter/charger will have dropped down to float voltage, which will vary a bit between brands, but normally around 13.4V Since the batteries are at a high voltage, they will be supplying the 12V systems with power and when the voltage gets down to about that level (the float voltage level0, charging will start all over again.

But remember, the topic of the thread was about "when the trailer is stored" and not using any 12V power. I firmly believe that if BB is saying that they should be stored (I'm not talking about for a week or two), they are wrong. Keeping LFP batteries at full SOC for long periods of time serve no good purpose, and in fact, can cause premature failure of the battery.....it's all LiFePO chemistry, just different brands of the same technology.

Sorry about the confusion. I was replying to your post about living in the trailer and being plugged in all the time. BB told me the same as you did that living in the trailer there is always a draw on the batteries so different from storing the trailer. Sorry about getting off topic.

I have edited my other post to reflect that I was referring to living in the trailer.

[xrated]

BB does say charge them fully up to 14.4ish before disconnecting. They will lose 2-3% daily on their own and disconnected (10% or more if heat kicks off and left in the trailer) so they will not be at full SOC for long. It's not only LFP chemistry but BMS design as well.

Hopefully, you meant 2-3% MONTHLY. Any LFP that is discharging 2-3% on a daily basis without any load on it, has issues. My 302AH DIY battery build started off the winter hibernation in early Nov. at about 50% SOC. The 300A battery disconnect was opened and so the only current draw was the very small milliamp draw that the BMS used. It went from early Nov. to yesterday and was at about 35% SOC....so 15% over 3 1/2 months, so about 4.25% per month. I attribute a bit of that to the BMS, the rest was the self discharge that pretty much all batteries will do.

[xrated]

Sorry about the confusion. I was replying to your post about living in the trailer and being plugged in all the time. BB told me the same as you did that living in the trailer there is always a draw on the batteries so different from storing the trailer. Sorry about getting off topic.

I have edited my other post to reflect that I was referring to living in the trailer.

No problem....I just wanted to make sure that everyone understood about storage vs. being used.

[ajg617]

Hopefully, you meant 2-3% MONTHLY.

YES, I edited it to change - don't know what I was thinking when I typed daily!

[xrated]

YES, I edited it to change - don't know what I was thinking when I typed daily!

LOL...it happens to everyone once in a while. I usually blame it on the lack of coffee!

[Spike32]

Hi,
We have a 2022 GD 337RLS. We are at home now and won 't go out on the road again until the end of March. Do we leave the rig plugged into house power during that period? We would typically not plug the rig in while it sat between trips until a few days before when we fired up the refrigerator. Just looking for the correct procedure.

I would leave the rig on shore power all the time. This allows you to run the fridge and a dehumidifier full time, plus keeps the battery fully charged.

[IBEW Sparky]

Hi,
We have a 2022 GD 337RLS. We are at home now and won 't go out on the road again until the end of March. Do we leave the rig plugged into house power during that period? We would typically not plug the rig in while it sat between trips until a few days before when we fired up the refrigerator. Just looking for the correct procedure.

We keep our 337RLS plugged in 95% of the time. The refrigerator got turned on in late January before we left for Florida and will be left on when we get back home in March.... RV plugged in and refrigerator will be on until mid November, only getting shut off to defrost the freezer. We keep condiments in the fridge and other foods in the freezer because we go out every few weeks. OEM lead acid battery is on year #5 and still working fine.