Disconnect battery

[McKisses]

Should I disconnect the battery on my 280sr while it is parked in my driveway, I have it hooked up with 110 from the house via extension cord. Any advise?

[Gene]

I leave mine connected all the time while I have the shore power connected and the converter running. It would be a good idea to measure the voltage at the battery to make sure the conveter is not overcharging the battery.

[JohnB]

What year camper do you have? and do you know what power converter brand and model?

Some of the power converters are battery friendly and have a float mode that regulate the charge voltage and amperage done low once the battery is fully charged. And some of the older ones do not have the float mode and they keep charging away and boil out the battery after a few week or less pending how much fluid is in the battery.

The converters with the float mode are OK to keep on. The ones that do not, well charge up the battery and then unhook it for about 1 month and then put it back on the charge once a month assuming the trailer never was towed in between.

[McKisses]

The converter is a Centurian 3000, the voltage on the battery is 13 volts with it connected to shore power.

[McKisses]

we have a solaris 2001 280 sr

[McKisses]

Its a model 4500, it does state that it will run a maintenance charge once the battery is fully charged, so hopefully all is well.

[JohnB]

To leave the converter on all the time during non camping use we need a float mode in the converter or charger.

13.25 VDC area is float with limited amperage to go with it

13.65 VDC area is normal charge voltage with high amperage pending the battery needs.

As you can see there is not a lot of difference when doing battery testing but a 2 decimal place digital volt meter can pick up the differences.

Try your meter when you know you are charging the battery, it should read in the 13.6 to 13.7 area on normal charge. Then you know the meter is working well enough to trust that when it drops down to 13.2 or 13.3 you are in float mode. If wanted you can do an amp check, need milliamp range and at least a 10 amp fused meter for opp's.

Some of the Centurion units did have float. Yours may have it and if so then leaving the unit plugged should not boil out the battery so fast. However, still check the electrolyte level every month or so when plugged in full time non stop. Once you can trust it, it is not boiling down the battery too fast, you can better predict.

I have one of the newer 3 stage plus desulfate mode converters I added and I use a battery Minder with desulfate mode. I top off the battery with distilled water in the spring and all year it will not drop very much. I am plugged in all the time (even in winter) except when towing and boondocking. It took the higher end converter and time monitoring it to trust it, but it now has repeated this for the 7 years and I'm still on the same batteries. I know I'm pushing the time when new batteries will come. I thought for sure this year when boondocking for 14 days they would flair up, but they didn't.

Good luck and hope this helps

John