Can I Operate Slides With the Engine Off?

Beverley&Ken wrote:
If your Winnie is wired like ours, the slides run of the engine/chassis battery, not the two new coach batteries you installed. The chassis battery may or may not be charged with the generator or shore power.

Ken

X2 - you are using the engine battery not the house batteries. And on my coach the engine battery does not charge from generator or shore power. Some coaches have a trickle charger that keeps the engine battery charged when using the generator or shore power but the trickle charger does not provide enough amperage for your slides.

I don't think there is a problem extending and retracting slides from battery power alone when everything is working correctly. We used only battery power on our old coach until I became aware that the engine should be running.

If your battery is weak, only partially charged after setting, low water, dirty connections, a bad ground, or a host of other problem your slide motors can overheat. Every time the slide motor overheats its life is shortened a little. The damage is cumulative and at some point overheating can cause the slide motor to fail.

My operator's manual says to run the engine when using the slides. My guess is that an electrical engineer at Winnebago had good reasons for adding "Run your engine when operating slides" to the operator's manual. For me it is less pf a imposition to run my engine when deploying slides than sitting somewhere waiting for a repairman.

Safe travels. JD