My house batteries have been handling this cold snap without blinking (knocks on wood), but my coach battery went from 100% charge to 60% overnight. 60%, I discovered, isn't enough to crank the engine. For the first time, I pulled out my trusty charger and used it to trickle charge (at 2A) the starting battery. This took less than 10 minutes. I'll do this once a day until the cold snap passes. I nice it was to have the tool to do this! My neighbours have been boosting their trucks to get them going each day and I know this is not good for a battery.
The car started fine this morning and I have the option of trickle charging it, too, should I have an issue with it at some point.
The charger has a 100A 'jump start' mode for boosting using the charger rather than another vehicle, but I can't use it for obvious reasons! In a pinch, I could use the 15A 'fast charge' mode, but trickle charging is definitely the better battery maintenance option.
There is so much to think about!
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4 comments:
How cold is it there? I'm in Arlington TX and can't wait to get into above-freezing weather. Good luck - I really enjoy reading your posts.
From another solo -
gypsy
This morning, it is -12C (10F), but it feels like -20C (-4F) with the windchill.
Don't forget that you can jump-start your engine from your house batteries, if you have a long enough set of cables. In a situation where no AC power is available (e.g., when dry-camping), this is a good alternative to calling road service.
If you don't have long enough jumper cables to reach from the house batteries to the engine compartment, you can jumper across the two outer terminals of your battery isolator (usually located in the engine compartment). If you do this, you'll need to wait half an hour or so for the starting battery to charge up, and--IMPORTANT--be sure to remove the jumper across the isolator before you try to start the engine. If you don't, you could fry some wires.
I prefer to use my toad (*g*) if I need a boost, but, really, it's healthier for the starting battery to be trickle charged rather than boosted.
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