How to read the battery Meter in Coach

Disconnect the ground from one of the two battery banks, chassis or house, and see which display goes to zero. A guess I would say the indicator with the tank levels would be the house and the other with the disconnect is the chassis.

I installed analog meters for batteries along with and AC volts and amps for AC and DC usage.



Amazon has a pretty cool looking meter system. Volts, amps watts and such all in one digital display.

DC Meter AC Meter

Like Scott pointed out, the use/store led me to believe this was for house batteries and in fact, when I push it to store, the light and everything go out and the panel will no longer read any voltage. But the mystery to me is that the "read volts" button toggles both up and down leading me to believe that one might be house and the other chassis. I like what DrewE suggested and will try that next time I'm out at the RV. I think I'll also disconnect from shore, hit the "store" button to disconnect the battery and see if the coach will still start...this will tell me if this is a battery disconnect for all batteries or just the house batteries.

Moffittclan wrote:
I have two different places where I can read the battery status. This first one, I can toggle the button up or down...which batteries does each position read? I've looked in the manual but it is lacking in details.



and in this second picture, it just shows the reading for all the tanks and the status of the "battery". Is this the house battery or the chassis battery?



Thanks for your help!

Well Sir,
In my opinion, you've got an easy answer as to which is which. In the top picture, it shows and reads "Battery Disconnect". And, a "Use and Store". So, by STORE, I'm assuming that means to disconnect a set of batteries. And, I'm assuming that, it would typically mean the house batteries. But, to be sure, simply push the "STORE" side of the toggle and, then see if any of your appliances work like, lights, water pump, things like that. If none of your 12V appliances work, I'd say you've pretty much shut down the house batteries and, that would mean, that panel reads the house batteries.

At least that's the way I might check things out.
Scott

OP isn't asking for a dissertation on state of charge, he just wants to know which battery(s) the different positions of the switch selects. Sorry I can't answer as the pictures are totally different from what my Bounder has. Perhaps someone who recognizes the pictures can help.

The second monitor panel would be for the house battery. It's a very coarse indication, and not really super helpful.

The first one presumably gives a readout of the voltage of either battery. As to which position is which, that's a bit harder to determine. If you connect to shore power and one position shows 13.x or 14.x volts while the other shows 12.x volts, the higher voltage is for the house battery and the lower for the chassis battery. If they're equal and both above 13V, then there's some sort of a setup to charge the chassis battery from the converter (which is good, but less helpful here). I suppose you could disconnect the chassis battery ground connection and then it would be clear which is which (i.e. the one that shows 0 V is the chassis battery.)

Using battery voltage to check state of charge is problematic and is only somewhat valid with no current going into or coming out of for some hours
Battery FAQ
See the table.
The only positive method of knowing what your state of charge is means using a battery monitor, Trimetric by Bogart engineering,or Victronic