Battery & electrical questions
I have a 2014 Coachmen 21QB on a Chevy 4500 chassis, with an Onan 4KW generator. *Does the generator have its own starting battery? If so, how is this battery charged? Or does the generator crank...
Forum Discussion
time2roll wrote:
I think I would prefer the generator starts from the chassis battery. Only trick is you need to make sure when the generator is running that the chassis battery is getting recharged.
I don't think it makes a huge difference in practice (assuming, as you mention, that whatever battery the generator runs from is charged when it is running). If the generator starts/runs from the house battery, and the house battery is sufficiently discharged that it can't start the generator, then starting the main engine of the motorhome will connect the batteries so the alternator can charge the house battery and the generator should then be able to start without much difficulty off of the combination of the dead house battery, the not dead chassis battery, and the engine alternator.
Ideally, of course, you shouldn't let any battery discharge so far that it is incapable of starting the generator.
