chassis battery

Google parasitic battery drain - then disconnect the house battery and follow the Google instructions. In my rig the electric steps and alarms were connected to the chassis battery - after being stranded in the boonies with dead chassis battery I moved those over to the house battery.

My older rig has two switches by the door. One turns the chassis battery on or off and the other turns the coach batteries on or off. I don’t know why newer units do not have the same simple switches. I have no parasitic draw from either when turned off.

time2roll wrote:
Put your clamp-on DC ammeter on the battery cable and see what moves.

Nothing will "move" but if there is a draw, it should register. This is a case were "bigger is NOT better" ! You don't need a 600 amp-clamp meter. 100A is plenty. Around $50 on Amazon.

The next step is narrowing it down. Take you DMM and set it to the lowest voltage available. Open the fuse box under the hood, and place the test leads on each small metal contact on top of each fuse. If there is no draw, it should read zero.

If you find a suspect, remove the fuse and double check the total draw at the battery. Now you need a wiring diagram !


Remember, all the fancy electronics take up to 5 or 10 minutes to go to sleep, so wait for them !

Put your clamp-on DC ammeter on the battery cable and see what moves.
(any excuse to have a new tool ;) )

If this on your Winnebago, go to their website and doewnload the wiring diagrams. You will need rig's information. VIN and serial number.

Unhook the battery and see what quits working.

Unhook the house batteries and see what still works. Worth a try.