Dead Truck Batteries...... Bad Separator?

[Rafter C]

Hi All,

Hoping for a little help here. Came back from a week long trip where everything seemed to be working great. Parked the truck for about 5 days, went to start it yesterday, and it was totally dead. Its been plugged into the camper, with the electrical master switch in the camper off. Camper battery is fine at 12.5 volts. Does anyone know if these separators still draw an intrinsic load at all? Or could it just be bad in one direction? If it was completely open, all 3 batts should have the same voltage. Truck batts are way down, at less than 5 volts. The problem may not be camper related at all, but since Ive never had a truck issue before, this seems to be where its headed.

I have the AOPEC 12140 separator provided by ATC.

Thanks for any help...

 

[Bosque Bill]

If your battery separator works the same as the ones FWC uses, and I bet the function is the same, the amount of current it would draw from the truck is extremely small - no where near enough to drain a truck battery even over a very long time. More likely culprits are overhead cab lamps, or just a bad battery (have you been checking the electrolyte levels occasionally in the battery?) How old was the truck battery?

If the separator was engaged the contacts between the truck and camper batteries would be closed and, yes, under those situations all the batteries would be the same voltage. The device is in there just exactly for the situation you encountered - to protect the camper batteries should the truck battery die (and vice versa, of course.)

I've found my jumper cables will just reach from truck battery to camper batteries if I run them through the sliding windows of both.

 

[Rafter C]

If your battery separator works the same as the ones FWC uses, and I bet the function is the same, the amount of current it would draw from the truck is extremely small - no where near enough to drain a truck battery even over a very long time. More likely culprits are overhead cab lamps, or just a bad battery (have you been checking the electrolyte levels occasionally in the battery?) How old was the truck battery?

If the separator was engaged the contacts between the truck and camper batteries would be closed and, yes, under those situations all the batteries would be the same voltage. The device is in there just exactly for the situation you encountered - to protect the camper batteries should the truck battery die (and vice versa, of course.)

I've found my jumper cables will just reach from truck battery to camper batteries if I run them through the sliding windows of both.

It does, and it really didn't make sense to me that it would be the problem. Think i got it licked, but thanks much for the quick reply. Looks like my CB got turned on when I was blowing out the cab. Probably by the air line. I really don't use it anymore, and haven't turned it on myself in forever, but after 5 days, it would certainly be enough to suck down the vehicle batts.

Glad it was simple. And glad I wasn't way out in the sticks....

Again, Thanks....

 

[craig333]

My culprit is usually the backup camera but I've left the cb and or ham radio on also.