Hey Guys and Gals,

So my wife and I just bought our first RV. We picked up a very nice Komfort 25TBS that was immaculately cared for. We bought it from a local trailer lot and it went through a rigorous PDI. Part of that inspection was the installation of brand new dual 12 volt batteries.

Ever since getting it home I have noticed the read out panel always shows GHRG when lit up. Is this common when the batteries are new? I was told during my walk through if I was not connected to power the batteries would read OKAY. Once I provided power they would go into CHRG.

Is something connected incorrectly? Did they possibly connect the new batteries wrong? I looked everywhere and could not find a Solar panel so that rules that out.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and thanks in advance

Nemi

 

Hi Nemi - I can't explain why your batteries would indicate "Charging" if there is no connected "Shore Power" or a solar cell, but I can suggest that you test their charge state.

Just probe the battery terminals with an inexpensive multimeter (you should really have one of these if you have a trailer) set to the DC Volts setting. A fully charged 12V battery that is not connected to a load (everything in the trailer off) should read 12.7V when it is new and after any surface charge (caused by recent charging) has dissipated. (I assume you have the two batteries connected in parallel to power a 12V system, so you can just touch the multimeter probes to the positive and negative terminals of either battery.)

Now, if you read something higher, say between 13-14V, you indeed are in a charging state. And, it is normal to see a reading slightly above 13V when the batteries are being maintained in a "float" charging state.

If you were to find the resting voltage below 12.5V, you have batteries that are somewhat or badly discharged, and the "Charging" indicator you are seeing is lying to you - probably because it is wired incorrectly. I'd take the trailer back to the dealer and have them correct it.

Hope this helps!

- Jack

 

appreciate the feedback.

I didn't have time to poke around today, but tomorrow I'm leaving work early and will check things out before I haul the trailer out for the first time.

I'm sure i'm getting a false reading and the batteries are fine, I just want to be sure I get some kind of read out letting me know I need to charge. For the most part I'll be RVing at full hook up sites the first few trips.... but it would be nice to have a working batter system for dry camping.

Cheers

Nemi

 

the reason why you are gettign the chrg reading is because your truck is charging the batteries. while underway, your truck will trickle charge the rv due to the fact that everything is being run off of the batteries. so if you were to legitimatly "dry" camp with no shore power than you would survive off of the batteries. the truck recharges during your travels. late response i know, just wanted to inform anyone else that comes across this thread in the future.

 

Absolutely correct. Your batteries should always be pulling some charge when connected to a power source. If they're not then they.re no good! You need to put an amp meter in series with your batteries and find out exactly how much current they're drawing before you can decide if there's a problem or not. FYI I work on battery powered equipment all the time and I always take the batteries out and charge them externally, and I ALWAYS use a power supply that has both a volt meter AND a current meter. You have to have a current meter to tell what's actually happening in a charging system. I generally use a Hewlett Packard 6114A Precision Power Supply or something very similar. You can sometimes buy power supplies like this locally off of E-bay cheaply because few or frequently no, people bid on them because of the shipping cost due to their heavy weight. I frequently bid on local items like this and I win them for the opening bid price ($10 because no one else bids on them. Then I drive over and pick them up in person so shipping costs nothing.

 

Guys, either you two or I misunderstood something. As far as I can tell, in his original post, he was showing a "Charge" state when the trailer was NOT hooked to any external power source. Now, if this is the case, it makes no sense, either to him or to me. Yes, if hooked to the tow vehicle with the ignition on, or hooked to shore power, there should be a "Charging" indication, but not if the trailer is just sitting by itself (a battery cannot charge itself).

So, I gave him advice to determine if the batteries were being charged or not and if the charge indicator was installed correctly.

- Jack

 

Ah jack you are correct, when I read this I had been up almost 20hrs at work. It's possible it could be part of the metering of the batteries. Ghrg could mean good charge, ok meaning half charge. Would need to reference OWNERS MANUAL lol.

 

Guys thanks for the update and information.

The questions was in fact for when not hooked. I have had the trailer a few months now and have learned that when the batteries are fully charged (they are brand new) the meter will show as "charging" I guess instead of having a separate indicator for charging and full they choose to use one.

I do believe the system is working as intended.

Since I am new at RV'ing I have only stayed at full hook up sites. At some point I will attempt a dry camp and put some use on the bats.

Heck perhaps I should dry camp out front where its parked..... couldn't hurt right?

Anyhow thanks for the feedback.

Cheers

Nemi

 

Nemi,

I'm glad to hear that everything is ok. Jack was right, I thought the batteries were connected and not unconnected. Oh well, all of the advice will be in the archives for the next one that needs it.