October 15, 2022 - Winterizing and a Small Improvement-Fix to Homer

The temperature is going to be down to 25 degrees on Monday and each morning for a few days thereafter. We had hoped to get another campout in before winter, but our calendar had not cooperated. Thus, Homer needs to be winterized. My process is to winterize the water system and then remove the batteries and put them on a trickle charger in the garage for the winter. 

We purchased Homer for a long trip to Alaska upon my retirement. We anticipated that many nights in the RV we would not have electrical hookups and thus would be consuming a lot of battery power. To address this issue, I removed the 12-volt battery and installed two 6-volt golf cart batteries for more battery storage. They have worked well. 

While Homer's battery box is wide enough for two 6-volt batteries, they are taller than 12-volt batteries. It has been a problem from day one getting them in and out and for checking them. There is literally only about a 1/4-inch clearance between the battery posts and the top of the metal battery box. To make matters worse, the bottom of the outside compartment door that hides everything inside, is higher than the battery box. To get the batteries out they have to come up on angle. In pulling the batteries out this way the terminals are prone to touching the top of the metal battery cabinet, causing an arc. 

To solve the arcing problem, I cut plastic insulators out of milk jugs and wire-tied them in place over the terminals. This worked fine up until this year.  Upon removing the batteries this year, I found that at some point over the season the batteries must have bounced up while going over a rough road. This movement was enough to cause the insulators to touch the top of the battery box a time or two.  The thin plastic was not robust enough and the batteries arced, melting the thin plastic insulators. Here is a picture of what I found on the insulators.

On the first picture you can see that the current burned through the top of the insulator. On the second picture you can see that it not only burned the top of the insulator but also on the bottom.  I clearly need a better insulator. I made some new insulators out of heavy plastic tubing. They are three times as thick but may be too thick to slide the batteries back in next spring. I won't know until I reinstall the batteries. Here is a picture of one of the new insulators. 

If the thickness of these insulators makes it impossible to install the batteries I will have to come up with plan "B". Plan "B", as of today, is to slide a piece of plexiglass over the top of the batteries once installed. I had thought of this before, but this fix will only help once the batteries are installed not with any arcing upon installation. Stay tuned for reinstallation next spring.

The second problem with the batteries being so tall is that I cannot put a meter on them to check their voltage. I have a digital meter inside the coach but checking the voltage at the batteries once in a while is more accurate. Last year I attached an 18-inch-long wire from the positive and negative terminals to an area in the battery compartment where I could access them for a voltage check. I could also use these wires to attach an external battery charger if needed. I needed to do this one time when the battery relay malfunctioned. When this happened the internal converter/charger was not charging the batteries as needed. Trying to hold the meter probes on each wire to get a reading was also a pain.

These wires just hung loose in the battery box with wire nuts on the end of each.  I didn't like this system because at times the wires would fall out while going down the road and hang in the breeze. I temporarily solved this problem by securing them to other wires in the battery box. While this worked, it still did not address the problem I had when connecting the wires to spring clips on an external battery charger.  For whatever reason the wires would want to seek each other out and arc if I wasn't careful. This weekend I solved this problem permanently by attaching insulated connecting blocks for the positive and negative terminals on the side wall of the metal box. The wires are now bolted in place. I can easily attach battery charger spring clips to the blocks without worrying about any arcing. Since the wires are locked in place it is also much easier to get a reading with a voltmeter. Here is a picture. The arrows point to the new insulated blocks.

A side note: I think it is a terrible design to have all the electrical components and connections you see in the picture in the battery box where they are open to the elements. Batteries have to be vented and on Homer the entire front of the battery box is open to the elements as you go down the road. The compartment door is several inches away so lots of dirt and moisture gets in there.

 

Homer will go into the storage shed the end of the month and Marge will come home to get ready for a winter in Florida. It is crazy how quickly that time is approaching.