dead battery

[jobrien]

Last used the motorhome the weekend of 9/16-17. Drove home from Hershey, PA about 2 1/2 hours highway driving.

PArked in my driveway, and we moved it on Monday 10/2 out of the driveway to power wash the driveway. parked it in thed riveway that night. All was fine.

During this past week I plugged a 3 outlet adapter into the power outlet. It has a coiled 3' cord on it and I mounted the oulet on teh face of the dash to the left of the steering wheel. It has a small LED indicator on it and an on/off switch. I turned the switch off. Into the cigarette lighter, I plugged another 3 outlet adapter. This one does not have a cord, just a plug that goes directly into the outlet and has a swivel head with the 3 outlets on it. There is a small LED on this one also, and no on/off switch. I think I did all this on Tuesday. I need the extra outlets for our cell phone chargers, the GPS, my Brake Buddy alert system, and cell phone amplifier. The only thing plugged in at this time was the cell phone amplifier. But it was plugged into the adapter with the on/off switch (which was off), and the amplifier itself was turned off. The one in the cigarette lighter was plugged in and the LED was on.

I now have a battery charger on it. In reading the Ford manual it states to NEVER use the cigarette lighter for electronic equipment. A previous discussion on this forum shows people do use it, and I don't see why not.

But, could it be the cigarette lighter is designed differently? Not being a smoker, I can only recall from the old days when the lighter was pushed in, the heating coil would get hot and the lighter would pop out and be ready to use. By leaving my adapter plugged in, could that have been causing the lighter to try and heat up the element, and it just kept trying because the plug was in? And this eventually wore the battery down?

If used only when driving, it probably would not be a problem since the battery would keep getting a charge.

Also I did not realize the BF does not come with an auxiliary start switch that would allow the engine to start from the couch batteries. Had one on my other motorhomes and never used it. needed it now, and it wasn't there

Any ideas?

John

[jobrien]

Just got off the phone with Ford customer service.

Leaving anything plugged into the cigartte lighter will drain the battery. Said it was the same draw as leaving the headlights on, about 5 amps.

Turning the ignition off does not kill power to the lighter or the power outlet. I knew that because I tested that part, but never thought about a draw on it, since only the adapter was plugged in.

Suggested I take it in and have the battery checked.

So let that be a lesson learned.

John

[Mike Astley]

I sorry as I am not understanding. What is consuming the 5A if nothing that is plugged in is drawing power?

[rv4fun]

I'm not sure what could be drawing 5 amps either. The only clues are in what John said:

During this past week I plugged a 3 outlet adapter into the power outlet. It has a coiled 3' cord on it and I mounted the oulet on teh face of the dash to the left of the steering wheel. It has a small LED indicator on it and an on/off switch. I turned the switch off. Into the cigarette lighter, I plugged another 3 outlet adapter. This one does not have a cord, just a plug that goes directly into the outlet and has a swivel head with the 3 outlets on it. There is a small LED on this one also, and no on/off switch.

Led's only draw milliamps so I doubt they are the culprit. I assume the adapters each have 3 empty plug sockets. An empty plug socket shouldn't draw any power even if it is pushed into the cigarette lighter. It seems like there are only a few possibilities:
1) One of the 3 outlet adapters has some sort of short circuit

2) One of the adapters is some sort of converter that is "running" while it is plugged in and drawing current.

3) The cigarette lighter has some sort of circuitry that draws current when anything touches the center contact in the rear of the lighter socket. This is basically what Ford told John, but this doesn't make sense to me.

4) The problem has nothing to do with the cigarette lighter, but is somewhere else in the vehicle.

When I get a chance I'm going to call Ford also. In the meantime, if anyone solves this mystery, please let us know.. Larry[/quote]

[whemme]

On my 2002 BF 26' RSB Motorcoach, I have two dash mounted cigarette lighter jacks. I run three devices from those two jacks using a Y-adapter in one jack - 1) Garmin GPS, 2) Doran Pressure-Pro Tire Monitoring System, and 3) Roady II XM Radio Receiver.

I am sure that the total current draw from these 3 devices is less than 1 amp but since these jacks are always powered and do not shut off when the Ford E-450 ignition switch is off, I make sure to shut each device off to prevent running down the chassis battery.

Assuming that the chassis battery is rated at approximately 120 amp-hours, it would take a 5-amp current draw for 24 hours to completely discharge your battery. That power draw is 60 watts and 60 watts would generate a very noticeable amount of heat - the same as touching a 60 watt light bulb.

So for you to discharge your chassis battery overnight like you say happened, whatever devices you had plugged into those jacks would have had to generate this noticeable heat and should have been obvious to you.

Another possibility is that another source of current draw drained your battery such as leaving your overhead lights on above your driver and passenger seats?

[jobrien]

Sorry for the delay in answering, but we were actually out camping in the BF this weekend.

What the Ford tech told me was that when anything is plugged into the cigarette lighter, there is a 5 amp draw put on it. I'm guessing that the lighter outlet must have a different base than the power outlet.

When you plug a real cigarette lighter (has the heat coil element on the bottom) into the outlet, what happens to make that element get hot? I don't know and never really thought about it. Will the element get hot if plugged into a power outlet instead of a cigarette lighter? I don't know that either.

I think what the Ford tech was saying was that plugging my adapter in was making the cigarette oulet think there was a lighter plugged in and it was providing the power to heat that element, and that is what was drawing the 5 amps. And it will do that even though there was nothing plugged into my adapter. Now if I was driving and had something plugged in, it would probably work fine since the battery would be recharging.

It kind of makes sense, if that is really the case. I don't know how to verify it is drawing 5 amps.

There was nothing left on, no interior light, radio, etc., and plugging in the 2 adapters was all I did. After charging the battery, it started fine, drove down to Cape May, parked for the weekend and it started up this morning to come home with no problem.

So I know not to do that anymore, unless someone finds out otherwise.

John

[Dallas Baillio]

I plug my 12 volt cell phone charger into the lower of the two "power ports" (cigarette lighter) whenever we travel. I leave it plugged in 24 hours a day. Last week we spent 5 days camping in one FL state park and I only started the BF once, to make a trip to the dump station. I did not notice any loss of batery power. I have a small plug-in voltage monitor that I sometimes plug into the upper power port, and it shows no decrease in battery power when I leave the cell phone plugged in overnight. Don't know if this means anything, but I thought I would mention it for information.

[rv4fun]

Sometimes being an electrical engineer is a handicap. So, I still have trouble understanding how having no load (no lighter, nothing plugged into your 3 socket adapter) could possibly draw any current. This should be an open circuit and open circuits don't draw current or power.

That being said, it's still a mystery to me. When we get back from our trip next week, I'm going to contact Ford and see if I can find out why it will draw 5 amps with no actual load. If I find out, I'll post what I learned.. Larry

[jobrien]

Larry;

I would be very interested in what Ford tells you also.

In looking at the adapter I plugged in....

One of the 3 ouput outlets is marked with the cigarette lighter symbol, and the other 2 say not to use them with the lighter. Could the design of the adapter (having the lighter capability) have something to do with the power draw? Since we don't smoke, I never looked at it closely, just assumed there were 3 power outlets. There must be something different with that one outlet.

Now I have to go back out and look at the plug-in ends of both adapters. Maybe one is different than the other.

Confused John

[bechlumber]

To jump start the engine you only need to hook up one battery cable from your engine battery to your coach battery- positive to positive. The system is grounded to each other.

[Brent]

To charge from the coach you don't need to ground?

That's good to know, I've always run a cable to the ground terminals too.

I don't know why BF doesnt have a switch for this situation.

[John S.]

Larry;


One of the 3 ouput outlets is marked with the cigarette lighter symbol, and the other 2 say not to use them with the lighter. Could the design of the adapter (having the lighter capability) have something to do with the power draw? Since we don't smoke, I never looked at it closely, just assumed there were 3 power outlets. There must be something different with that one outlet.

Now I have to go back out and look at the plug-in ends of both adapters. Maybe one is different than the other.

Confused John

Well, I am glad I can help out here. The power points are a different outlet than the cig lighter. If you put the cigarette lighter into a power point you will blow a fues as it will draw more than the powerpoint is rated for. This is the same in Chevy or Ford and I learned this the hard way plugging it in the wrong one.

[KTnLen]

To jump start the engine you only need to hook up one battery cable from your engine battery to your coach battery- positive to positive. The system is grounded to each other.

I assume this is okay, as I did not see any contrary comments.

I plan to have a local truck equipment firm make a battery booster cable to accommodate a coach to chassis boost as described.

Do any of you smart electrical engineers have a suggestion on cable gauge? alligator clamp weight? or maximum cable length? The under coach run is about 12-feet, so I thought I'd have a 20-ft cable made up.

Proceduraly, should one connect to a positive terminal of one of the live coach batteries first (I have two in the 32-ft unit), then to the chassis boost battery post under the hood (and not to the chassis battery directly)?

Appreciate any advice to help me narrow in on the exact specs. Thanks, Len C sends.

[jobrien]

Len,

I went to Sears and bought a pair of heavy duty 18' cables which were on sale at the time.

The positive and negative are molded together, but I guess they could be carefully seperated if you only want to carry one.

I left them as is, and I can use them to jump start it from the Jeep if it's easier. Or you could loan them to someone else if they needed it, or they could be used to jump tour tow vehicle if that need came up.

Unless you were going to have them actually install a booster switch on the dash, I don't see too much advantage to having a custom cable made up, but I may be missing something.

John

[Steve]

If you are talking battery cable sizes, I think you should use at least a #2 gauge wire, on our coach a 2005 24RB we have a battery Isolator:
http://www.emarineinc.com/products/alte ... ators.html
You could jump start by using an 18 inch cable between the two terminals, of course it would be much easier to install a relay and switch on the dash.
We have had NO problems with anything in the coach drawing our batteries down when it is stored. Last year I installed a 1.5A trickle charger just for the engine battery, but then we have a 30A power connection where we store our rig.

Steve