Note when you measure the Battery Off Voltage any solar panels (if installed) must also be Off
which may require your pulling the solar panel in-line fuse(s).
Tundra57 said:...The job requires the lower hole that the jack slides thro to be opened up. The top hole is fine. ..
Thanks to all for the very informative replies.
Rising to the challenge from pthomas745 to "show your work on how you came up with your amp hour use numbers", my spreadsheet is excerpted below. As mentioned in my original post, I'm new to the RV world, so don't really know if my estimates of usage are realistic. I'll also point out that both the low and high of the range are hopefully conservative and that I rounded up to get to 40 - 55 Ahr.
I'd also like to specifically thank jkjenn - many of the current draw values in the table were taken from her informative postings. It looks like she spent an enormous amount of time collecting data and I'm grateful that she so freely shared it. Her response in this thread regarding her recent battery/charging experience is also a bit concerning. It begs the question about as to what the culprit(s) may be.
I would think that two likely suspects are the refrigerator and the always-on devices that I grouped together in my table as parasitic draws. Perhaps the refrigerator draws more current than the 3.6 Ahr value I ballparked in the table, or perhaps it runs more often than 8 or so hrs per day? I've also read that the some BT enabled devices tend to use more power than their published values would indicate. So maybe something like the Victron draws more than a trivial amount of current as it measures and transmits power usage information?
Low Estimate | High Estimate | |||||
Draw (Ahr) | Usage (hrs) | Usage (Ahr) | Usage (hrs) | Usage (Ahr) | ||
Alde | Comb Heat/HW | 0.6 | 2 | 1.2 | 8 | 4.8 |
Water pump | 2.2 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 1.1 | |
Refrigerator | 3.6 | 8 | 28.8 | 10 | 36 | |
Radio/stereo | 0.41 | 2 | 0.82 | 3 | 1.23 | |
TV | 1.57 | 0.5 | 0.785 | 0.5 | 0.785 | |
Fan | Low speed | 1.25 | 1 | 1.25 | 4 | 5 |
High speed | 2.3 | 1 | 2.3 | 1 | 2.3 | |
Lights | Outside | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.15 | 1 | 0.3 |
Kitchen - Low | 0.2 | 1 | 0.2 | 1 | 0.2 | |
Kitchen - High | 0.45 | 0.5 | 0.225 | 3 | 1.35 | |
Reading (2 lamps) | 0.1 | 2 | 0.2 | 3 | 0.3 | |
Shower | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.15 | 1 | 0.3 | |
Overhead | 0.1 | 3 | 0.3 | 1 | 0.1 | |
Parasitic draws | 0.05 | 24 | 1.2 | 24 | 1.2 | |
TOTAL | 38.68 | 54.965 |
@RMo no I did not try that. But as you can see by reading all the threads on fluid changes that there are several ways to do it and each has their preferred method. You can do the whole process without a shop vac or pump, by just pouring fluid in and using the Alde to circulate the fluid. However I really like the way I did it by using the Alde pump, the shop vac and the 12v pump. As long as you have two people it's quite easy. My wife operated the switches for the 12v pump and for the shop vac while I told her when to turn things on and off as I held the tubes in place in the fluid tank. I figured I already had the shop vac and since the pump was only $12 why not use all three. It allows the Alde pump to circulate the fluid, the 12v pump to easily pumps in the new fluid and the shop vac to removes the old. And no need to disconnect any Alde lines.RMo said:I'm curious as to whether you tried to use just the shop vac to suck the new fluid in, without the 12v pump. I'm wondering if having the shop vac in a low position and having the bucket of new fluid elevated might provide a gravity/siphon assist and be enough to replace the fluid without a separate pump. Thoughts?bergger said:That is precisely why I used an inexpensive 12v pump and the shop vac method. .....