Eurovan Westfalia house batteries

[shikyo]

I purchase two 100AH Renogy Hybrid gel batteries at the end of January this year. We found out they are now a half dead. Beside occasional driving to keep batteries charged we went camping for five nights and after 500km driving we came back just before the BC heatwave. I heard 719people were killed because of it.
We staid just one night each places and only fridge was running by those batteries. I chose Renogy since I thought they were reputable brand.
I phoned their support and a guy at the other end assured me if I send an internal resistance test report and a proof of purchase to them, I would get a refund. I did those right away on Thursday afternoon He didn’t contact us following day. Yesterday and today are weekend, so I am hoping him to contact us tomorrow early morning. Those batteries are too heavy for senior couple (I am 75 today)so I wanted him to reply us while our van was in our mechanic’s hand, however, I now have to dealt with those batteries by myself. I think buying the batteries online was my big mistake and I should have left anything vehicle related things are our mechanic’s hand

[steve2sloth]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. You should have adequate battery power for the trip as described. Most electric fridges will draw at most ~4ah and that's just while running at max power. Once the thing is cool it may go down to 2ah draw or less. With your 100ah of usable capacity you should be able to camp for days before you start to damage the batteries. If in fact they were damaged while in your care it would have to be from some vampire draw while parked, maybe some device plugged into a cigarette lighter or a light left on. You didn't mention a battery monitor so I expect that you don't know exactly how much power was left in the batteries after a long drive or after being parked. Heat is bad for gel batteries but losing 40% of your capacity in one summer is pretty extreme. Seems like asking for a refund is the way to go. Good luck!

Btw, I also have a gel battery in my EVC but mine is hooked up to solar and a battery monitor so it stays charged while parked. An occasional drive should be good enough however.

[shikyo]

The reason I took van to shop was, the display was showing 13.1 volt while driving on highway. It is much lower than I used to see．　And also in the morning after one night stay the display was showing 12.4 or 12.3 volt. I thought it was alternator problem so I took the van to our mechanic.
We don’t run hardly anything other than the fridge. We run Propex for three hours in one evening. We used to be able to manage two or three days at one place without any driving of long distance. This time we drove for a couple of hours between each camping places. The six day camping was the first time camping since June 30th, 2019 since our camper quit running and was in several shops for one and a half years.

[steve2sloth]

Ok, that's some helpful information. I read on some other Eurovan forum (https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8166559) that other people are getting over 13.5v while on the highway. You were right to suspect the alternator. It's suspicious that BOTH of your batteries would be defective, and by the SAME amount. Seems more likely that they're not being charged enough for your needs. Still, I'd pursue a refund and then give that alternator a harder look.

Gel batteries have about the same charging resistance as flooded or AMG batteries, which affects how quickly they charge and how much waste heat is produced. Lithium has lower resistance so they'd get more charge off of the same highway miles. That said, 500km of driving should charge nearly anything to 100%.

I do wonder what voltage age your batteries were at when you got to camp, before running through the night. I worry that if you replaced your batteries the same thing would happen again.

[shikyo]

when arrived at camp site the voltage was 12.8 v and one hour after was 12.6v.

When I was coming back from the repair shop, the display showed 13.5 ~ 13.8 volts …the shop is 5km away from us. They are located very conveniently.
Our van was in repair shops for 1.5 years and they are the last shop. Three Vancouver’s the most recommended old VW repair shops couldn’t fix the problem our van had. I think those three are probably okay with Vanagon or earlier model without ECU. So we are accepting what the fourth shop think of our van, otherwise we don’t have any shop we can take our van for repair.

[steve2sloth]

Ok, so your batteries went from 12.8v (100%) to 12.4-12.3v (50%) overnight. That's ~100ah spent assuming the batteries were in good condition... though as you say they've now been tested and have lower capacity than the 200ah rating. Now they're at 60% health so instead of spending 100ah overnight you really spent like 60ah which is still a HUGE amount of power for just one portable fridge and I don't know how to account for that.

This is just speculation, but either your fridge is drawing a lot more power than expected or there's some other system drawing power. The only way to know for sure how much energy is being drawn from the batteries is with a 'battery shunt' (https://www.renogy.com/500a-battery-monitor/) which gives a more accurate readout than a simple voltage meter. The shunt is a small device attached to the negative terminal of the battery which all drawn power must pass through for measurement. I've got one on my van and love the accuracy and simplicity of the readout but it SHOULD be unnecessary for you since you're theoretically not using much power anyways.

What model of portable fridge have you got anyways? Have you got its thermostat cranked to sub-zero for ice making? You mentioned running the heat overnight, is that just a gas heater that needs 12v for the fan or have you got an electric blanket too?

I'm curious about your situation because I've got a single 200ah gel battery and I run my EVC propane heater and Engel fridge all the time, though I've never seen my battery go below 90% charge, even when I'm also running additional electronics.

[shikyo]

the fridge in our van is Westfalia built in chest type fridge and rated for 60W, so that is 5A.
The Propex heater’s heat source is from LPG gas and it has a fan rated 1.6A.
We used the heater for just 3 hours one evening in the six day camping. We use LED lanterns for the light and sleep very early…I hardly know about battery, however, I am now wondering that SOH 60% means the battery discharges 40% faster than a healthy battery. It probably does not charge as fast as a healthy battery…. Am I right?
The van has a display to show condition of charging and voltage of house batteries…..I am very hesitant to purchasing anything from Renogy… They have had more than two business days and hasn’t acted on their warranty

[shirk]

[shikyo]

At last, I got a reply from Renogy after I told them to hurry up.
She pointed out two things.
I thought those batteries were hybrid gel, however, they were regular gel.
Internal resistance figures on the slips are right figures.
I am now wondering, they don’t cate about SOH readings of 57% and 60%.