I have a dilemma that perhaps some of you smart people can help me with. Before I can get to the problem, I'm going to need to list some inventory so that you understand some parts of my system.
- Motorhome: 1995 Thor class A (the age is important)
- Rooftop Solar: 1,700W - in 4 separate circuits
- Wind turbine: 400W (occasional use only)
- Battery bank: 7x 100Ah AGM, plus 1x 55Ah AGM
- Battery bank wiring: mixture of 4AWG and 2AWG
- Inverter: 5,000W, wired directly to the battery bank
- Power center: Upgraded from original 30A to new WSCo 55A
- Shore power cord: still native 30A (with adapters for 15A and 50A)
- 2x rooftop air conditioners: both removed
- 4x rooftop vent fans: ~17W each
- Coach lighting: all but 1-2 light replaced with LED
- Refrigerator/freezer: 300W absorption (original equipment)
- TVs: none
- Computer: MacBook with 60W power supply
My generator hasn't even been started in at least two years. As far as I know, there's nothing actually
wrong with it. (It is on my near-term project list to give it a good tune-up and see if I can make it run.)
Even if I could get the generator running, the solar battery bank is not connected to the coach's in-built electrical system in any way. It is 100% isolated.
So neither the generator nor the engine alternator will charge the solar battery bank. (I still have a FLA engine battery and FLA house battery.)
When traveling or boondocking, I simply plug the shore power cord into the inverter attached to the solar bank and it powers the entire coach. (I know this isn't the "right" way to do things. That's where the age comes into play. My coach is 27 years old. This was simply the most cost effective way to make things work without investing heavily in a coach that only has so much life left in it.)
Now for my dilemma:
Despite the fact that I have massively more solar than most RVs, and use a lot less power than most, the longest I have been able to go without plugging into shore power before the invert's low voltage alarm goes off is about 48 hours.
For the life of me, I've been struggling to figure out why.
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