Battery Question

year and model of the Monaco

somebody with the same one, or one of the RV tech shop service guys

will have that info

but if you have big black box with fuses and relays aka BCC/battery control center, in a side compartment or under a front hatch

open the lid and check for the resettable Breakers , there are several on the inside

Your Monaco likely has a "BIRD" (Bi-directional Isolator Relay Delay) device that only charges the chassis battery after the house batteries reach ~13 volts when on shorepower. When the house battery voltage drops, the BIRD cuts off the chassis charge. It looks like you're seeing the chassis battery voltage after the BIRD has cut off and the initial float charge has dissipated. I'm sure Doug can explain it better than I did though...

Some are setup to charge the chassis battery from shore power and some aren't. And some that are setup to charge the chassis battery have failed components. And that is NOT a guess.

I gave up on my inverter/charger maintaining my batteries at Home even though I have an Echo charger between the chassis and house batteries. When I park in the drive way now, I have it so I can remotely connect a Dual Battery Tender....in my close to 15 years of charging at home, this has worked out the best.

If you find out you don't have a BIRD or other system to keep the chassis battery charged you can easily add one.

Trik-L-Start

If you have different voltages in the the chassis and house battery banks then the systems are not connected for some reason. Many older coaches did not have the BIRD (bidirectional relay with delay) or similar system. The way coaches without such a system is a very simple ignition relay that connects the battery banks together when the engine is running. Unfortunately if the coach is parked for too long the coach battery can go dead or drop low enough that the coach won’t start. Typically they do have an emergency start button on the dash but that doesn’t solve the underlying problem. As another poster mentioned they do sell products that charge the coach battery bank from the house converter if power is available. You can also retrofit modern version of a bird. Bottom line if the voltage is different then you either have a defective BIRD or one was never installed from the factory.

i would think that a Monaco would charge both from shore power

my 97 Bounder charges house and chassis from shore power

It depends on year and model of the Monaco. Knights/Dips/Camelots usually did not have a BIRD type system. The upper models did. On the MAIN Circuit Fuse board in the LF storage there is a place for the BIRD system control to be installed if not installed from the factory. It is a small circuit module that plugs into the existing harness and allows the Coach charging system to charge the chassis batteries. Doug

Doug sent you a PM

dougrainer wrote:
It depends on year and model of the Monaco. Knights/Dips/Camelots usually did not have a BIRD type system. The upper models did. On the MAIN Circuit Fuse board in the LF storage there is a place for the BIRD system control to be installed if not installed from the factory. It is a small circuit module that plugs into the existing harness and allows the Coach charging system to charge the chassis batteries. Doug

Also worth noting your manual may be incorrect. Our 2007 Monaco Knight Manual READS that our coach will charge both the Chassis and house batteries when plugged in to shore power but it didn't charge the Chassis batteries as it came from the factory. When I called Monaco back in 2008 and questioned it, I was told that they were aware that the manual was incorrect and that that feature was only included on "high end" units.