i am having another issue with out new 2016 36FB, i won't go into all the other details now but i am having battery-charging issues. Today when i went and picked up my coach after a month in the shop for warranty issues the batteries were dead. i went inside the coach and now it stinks like sewer. At first i thought it was the plumbing but when walking past the battery vent i got a real nose full. It is only 9 months old and we have only used it once. has anyone else had problems with over charging or bad batteries. i am going to have them tested today but not by the repair shop since i wont step foot inside their business again. is it worth the extra money for gel batteries?

I haven't experienced the oder you mentioned and surprised the battery box venting is allowing the oder to enter the main structure. The bottom in each of our battery boxes has an opening to the outside allowing air to flow through each box and out the front via the vent lines. A good battery technician and with the proper battery analyzer should quickly determine what's going on. The Redwood supplied battery charger in our RW has worked flawlessly. A quick check would be to check the charging voltage with a good digital meter. I look for about 13.4 - 13.8 volts. Lower voltages will not overcome the batteries' internal resistance while higher voltages could lead to excess gassing and rupture of the battery case.

Trailer Life Magazine has some helpful articles on batteries. The short story is how and where you use your RV helps to determine a recommended battery type. For me I use sealed one year "farm" batteries. For the past 35-years one year batteries have lasted about 4-5 years and cost much less than longer term batteries. Being a retired EE I baby the batteries assuring that the charging voltage is on the number, tight corrosion free terminals throughout the battery box and totally disconnecting the batteries in storage. As the covered storage does not have power I make the 1-1/2 drive each month in storage (with a large thermos of coffee) and charge them until the until the charger indicates "full". If there was power I would leave them on a trickle charger. If the batteries weren't so heavy I would take them home and store connected to a trickle charger. Each weighs about 70# and are larger than the original batteries.

One of mine went out when ours was 2 months old.replaced both positive with interstate AGMs.have been good since. The ones that come with the trailer are garbage

Having had problems with short battery life on previous RV's with similar convertor/chargers I'm careful with our RW. First thing I did with our RW was to rewire the unit at the circuit breaker block so that the battery cutoff switch disconnected all power from the RW, this prevents the discharging caused by "phantom loads" that are factory wired to bypass the disconnect switch.

The other thing that I do is disconnect the batteries if I'm parked and plugged in for more than a day or so at a campsite (or the RW is parked). My previous RV boiled the batts dry and killed them, caused by the boost charge that is programmed into the convertor/charger every day or so. Three years and I haven't had to add any water to the batts on the RW.

My experience at work with electric fork lift batteries taught me some lessons about battery maintenance, and at $5,000 or so a crack I didn't want to replace them before their time.

One item you may be overlooking is that you need to check your battery water level at least monthly. When the water "boils" on a rapid charge, it can quickly dry out the batteries. That may be the sulfur/sewer smell you are experiencing.

A way to slow down watering so much is to purchase an external water storage tank and a battery watering system (Gravity fed. Mount above batteries). That way, you don't have to pull the caps. You can just look at the reservoir and fill it as needed. It automatically fills the batteries as required 😉

Great ideas. Also had similar experience with fork lift batteries and their chargers making design changes to improve the charging cycle to reduce boiling out issues. I have resurrected very old fork lift batteries (20+ years old) by gassing however electrolyte temperature, amperage and voltages had to be monitored extremely close to avoid an exploding battery event. Never had that happen and was happy to get an old battery an extension on life. Those large batteries are very expensive.

Im not sure what they are without finding the manual, but I believe there are differrent settings on your converter, it may be set to constant charge rather than maintenance, worth checking.

Im not sure what they are without finding the manual, but I believe there are differrent settings on your converter, it may be set to constant charge rather than maintenance, worth checking.

Yes, there buttons in the convertor that can change the settings but I'm not sure if they "reset" to factory defaults after the power is shut down and restored.

That's why I disconnect the batts. On our older RV with fluorescent lights it was clear when the boost charge came on, the lights got significantly brighter. Can't see this with LED lights and I'm too lazy to put a meter on the system to check!

Sounded like a solution until I saw that the bottom of the tank needs to be at least 2 meters above the top of the battery. Tough to do in my Redwood as the tubing would have to be sealed in place and the tank located in the closet.

Just move some of the wife's shoes and you will have room

Sounded like a solution until I saw that the bottom of the tank needs to be at least 2 meters above the top of the battery. Tough to do in my Redwood as the tubing would have to be sealed in place and the tank located in the closet.

Elliott,

Could be worse, as with a Front Living the tank would be above the LR couch. Might be able to use it as a headrest. 😆

Had problem with my batters, I found that there are two ways to charge them. Their is a converter in breaker box and a charger on the 12 volt to 120 volt converter. On our first time out I cooked the battery. Our dealer replaced the battery's and said, to keep an eye on the water. I have turned off the charger and it seems to be working with just having the converter on. Its been in a camp ground for 3 months and no problems.

thanks for all the comments and suggestions. It ended up being the charger/inverter unit that was faulty and failed after cooking the batteries. It is under warranty but very irritating as we have only been out in the unit once before and now this latest problem happens two days before out long planned two week trip to Colorado. It is to late to have it fixed before leaving so no refrigeration until hooking up at our destination.