To start, I have a Rockwood 8289WS fifth wheel. I took out the single 12 volt battery and instlled 2 6 volt Trojans in series (240 AH).
Everything has been fine until this extended trip my CO/Propane alarm started sounding the alarm when my furnace was running. Very scary! I looked at the details however and the alarm signal of Red-Green-Red-Green... Indicates a low voltage default (not CO or Propane detection). I got to thinking and I have a new DC power supply for my CPAP. I realized the alarm is going off only when I am using the CPAP and the furnace at the same time. Sure enough I slept without my CPAP last night while boondocking, used the furnace and no problems.
I am an amateur electrician but I was surprised my voltage is dropping that low. Batteries are fully charged. I would love to post the voltage coming off but I am having problems with my multi-meter and on the road. Everything is working perfectly fine with the exception of this situation.
I am looking for your thoughts on how I can improve my voltage situation. The first thing that occurred to me was the cables. I noticed when I put in the dual 6 volts the cables installed by OEM were tiny. Not sure what guage but I used a 2 guage to connect the two batteries together and it is many times thicker than the OEM cables (which I did continue to use on the new batteries for ground and positive feed). Would lower guage cables reduce voltage loss likely correcting my problem?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Everything has been fine until this extended trip my CO/Propane alarm started sounding the alarm when my furnace was running. Very scary! I looked at the details however and the alarm signal of Red-Green-Red-Green... Indicates a low voltage default (not CO or Propane detection). I got to thinking and I have a new DC power supply for my CPAP. I realized the alarm is going off only when I am using the CPAP and the furnace at the same time. Sure enough I slept without my CPAP last night while boondocking, used the furnace and no problems.
I am an amateur electrician but I was surprised my voltage is dropping that low. Batteries are fully charged. I would love to post the voltage coming off but I am having problems with my multi-meter and on the road. Everything is working perfectly fine with the exception of this situation.
I am looking for your thoughts on how I can improve my voltage situation. The first thing that occurred to me was the cables. I noticed when I put in the dual 6 volts the cables installed by OEM were tiny. Not sure what guage but I used a 2 guage to connect the two batteries together and it is many times thicker than the OEM cables (which I did continue to use on the new batteries for ground and positive feed). Would lower guage cables reduce voltage loss likely correcting my problem?
Thanks for your thoughts.