Camper covered most of the winter, battery disconnect turned off, will we need to do anything?

Jay_and_Kat · April 11

Over the winter, due to a broken vent cover on the roof, we put a cover over our T@B 400 to help keep rain / snow off until the weather warmed up enough to do a real repair. Seeing this topic Winter Storage: MPPT still on? now has me wondering if we're going to have a problem with the batteries when we bring the camper home?

We have the standard batteries that a 2022 model would come with (not lithium batteries.) Once the weather gets to where we can make the repairs, we're going to bring the camper home, hook up the shore power while we work (we're also doing spring cleaning and de-winterizing and basic systems testing,) so I would hope, if there's been a parasitic draw that's drained the batteries, they'll happily suck up the amps and charge up.

If I'm wrong, well, better to find out now that I'm going to need to source new batteries...

Sharon_is_SAM · April 11

With any luck, you will have had enough solar through the cover to maintain the battery.

pthomas745 · April 11

Or, with the battery fully charged, and the battery switch off, the very low self discharge rate of the battery will still find it with a pretty decent charge left.

You can check this pretty instantly with the Victron app. What is your battery state of charge?

bergger · April 12

We have a 2021 400 with the dual 6v batteries. Our trailer is covered from mid October until Late April or early May due to the long winter. We do have it plugged into our house for most of that time but from my experience, even with the trailer unplugged and covered our solar panel still receives enough juice to keep the batteries topped off. We are in Colorado and even in the Winter we get a lot of sun. Not sure where you are located and what the winter sunlight is like but I bet your batteries will be just fine.

Jay_and_Kat · April 13

@pthomas745 presuming I'm reading the Victron app correctly here, my batteries have ~13v charge and nothing coming in from the solar (which, with the cloud cover and camper cover yesterday, is no surprise)

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021717/uploads/editor/m7/87cpbrrpbusv.png

bergger · April 13

That seems to be correct. What did the history tab show? That'll show you how much solar input has been coming in on various days and how much time the controller was in bulk, absorption and float mode. Not sure what the temperature was at the time but the controller will also turn off, "state off" if the temp is too low.

pthomas745 · April 13

Based on a generic lead acid state of charge chart, that would be a fully charged battery. Look back at your history page on the app for the last few days and you will be able to see how this battery is responding (or not) to sunlight making it through the panel to the cover.

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Camper covered most of the winter, battery disconnect turned off, will we need to do anything?

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