Chassis Battery Charging

[cubeman]

Remember that the Chassis battery wiring was done by Prevost, not Vantare. Only a few connections were added by Vantare:
Gen battery boost, Guest Marine charger (which have fuses at the end of the leads that connect to the chassis batteries), and the alternator charge line to the starter is altered to add the dual battery isolator.

Gil is correct, the battery temperature sensors were not originally installed on the same battery, and that is a definite change that should be made. If they are on the same battery, their adjustment to charge voltage for each corresponding inverter will be the same, and will prevent a "conflict" in having both inverters charge the same battery bank. They should not be removed or disconnected, as some technicians baffled by the operation tend to do with or without asking. If they are both installed and operating to adjust inverter charging per unit of temperature, the inverters will not overcharge the batteries. The charging amps settings then do not need to be adjusted from the factory defaults, and all will be well. If one charger is essentially disabled, bare in mind that the recharge time will be SIGNIFICANTLY longer for such a large battery bank like Vantare coaches all have.

As for the circuit protection issues Gil brought up, remember that Vantare's have the engine battery boost feature, and in cold weather a Series 60 can draw in excess of 500 amps to start, not counting a higher "in-rush" to the series-wound starter motor, plus the current going to the dead starting batteries themselves. Any added fuses should account for this or the risk exists that during a "jump start" exercise the fuse protection would blow, essentially "killing" the house power into the coach altogether.

Also, realize that there were alterations made as time went on and the NEC requirements changed. During that period, there was allowance for the amount of "distance" from the batteries to the circuit protection where required. All the cabling and busbars were in the same area on most coaches (over the passenger-side wheel well on H3-45 slideout coaches), and were made up as an "assembly" in PVC piping off-coach, then installed and connected to the batteries and busbars in the coach. This was done to ensure that chaffing or damage did not occur to the wiring.



Words of wisdom from Benn . man do I miss this man .

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Gil, the reason there is a connection to both the "12v" and "24v" potentials of the chassis batteries is that the Guest charger Vantare utilized has two independent, isolated 12v outputs. By connecting them in series to the Ground-and-12v with one output, and then the 12v-and-24v with the other output, they achieved overall 24v chassis battery charging. The outlet for this charger is ignition-switched, and disabled when the key is on, so "fighting" the Vanner equalizer is prevented. This configuration also insures that all the batteries are evenly and completely charged even if the equalizer were to fail. The Guest charger controls the charging outputs separately, but in effect, it is like taking each 12v battery out and fully charging each separately but fully.


Ben Cummings
U.S.A. Luxury Coaches, LLC
4501-B Ulmerton Rd
Clearwater, FL 33762
USALuxurycoach.com
813-830-8619 (cell)


the follow up on our chargers .

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Thanks Ben. That's why I was looking for the manual. I would throw that charger away given it's a 12V charger with 2 outputs. Failure of one side, however remote, would only charge half the bank. In my opinion, there's no reason not to use a 24V intelligent charger.


Benn also agreed that these charges have a high rate of failure. So David how do we test these chargers ? What I did was test one side then the other . One showed the 13 plus the other 24 plus minus . So would you say it works ? Then the next question is , what if they are not balanced , then what ? Do we kill batteries ?