12 volt battery

Thank You very much for your reply sorry so late in my reply, but work comes first.. Thank you to all those who had open and understanding replies and those who had not so kind and almost condescending replies, please remember this is supposed to be a learning and teach forum at least I thought is was. A lot of us are maybe not so fortunate to have the wealth of knowledge that some others do, so please don't wrong us for asking a question however simple it might be to you, there are others that just don't know. Remember the only dumb question is the one you didn't ask..
Thank you again I now know what I have to do..:)

Considering that the OP has never replied to his own post, I guess that we can assume that he never got the generator started, and ran down his battery(s).

Maybe the same for his lap-top.

kimbo1 wrote:
I don't understand what he's asking???

Re-read my original reply, He ask the question very poorly.

For the person who does not know about the ONAN (but does the HONDA protables)

Forget the 12 volt jack on the hondas, I have used those for light bulbs and such but for battery charging,, Forget it.

ONAN generators come in several 'Flavors' some of them do have a battery recharge winding, the ones made for RV service do not, they rely on the house converter to recharge the batteries.

So had he said "Will the battery re-charge when using the generator" (the proper question) Then the answer is YES

The battery should charge when running the genny same as if you were plugged into shore power.. No difference, same charger.

DrewE, That is a simple but as you showed, not a very good system. Always better to have a dedicated genny battery. Better still to have a battery switching settup where any battery bank can be used for any purpose, even combining banks.

Of course that would also need an owner who understands what is going on & how to use it.

Veebyes wrote:

Do RVs with gennys typically not have their own starting battery?

Most commonly, not for the generator. There's the house battery, for everything 12V, and on a motorhome the chassis battery, for the main engine and general vehicle stuff. The house battery is charged when the generator is running via the usual 120V converter/charger. I think most common is having the generator started from the house battery, but the chassis battery is occasionally used.

If the house battery is too low to start the generator, it's a bit of a dance: you have to start the main vehicle engine (whose alternator is then connected to the house battery and house 12V system) and then start the generator.

This is a perfect exanple of why a bi-directional automatic charging solenoid exists.

Stuff a dedicated battery in for generator starting, hook up an automatic charging solenoid and go have a beer.

I must be missing something but doesn't the genny have an alternator to charge its starting battery?

I don't have an onboard genny in my trailer but I do have a genny onboard my boat. That genny has its own, independent, starting battery. That way even if the 'house' batterys are dead & the engine/s batterys are dead the genny can be started to charge them up.

Do RVs with gennys typically not have their own starting battery?

Many of the diesel powered ONAN generators do have an alternator to provide 12v to re-charge it's dedicated starting battery,(or to provide 12V to keep the gen running), but the OP's 5K generator does not.

There are valid reasons for some RVs to employ a dedicated battery for the generator.

Just test it already. Start the Onan and let it run for the test. Measure the battery voltage right on the terminals after 10 minutes. 13.2+ volts on the battery terminals is charging. Post the results for best answers. Depending on the level of charge and the charging system it could take 2 to 12 hours to get 90%+ charge on the battery.

kimbo1 wrote:
I don't understand what he's asking???

x2