westend wrote:
Do you have a hand held meter?
The first part of this would be to check the batteries and see if they are charged and their viability. If no one knows how the cut off switch works, there is a good possibility that the batteries have been drawn down.
You need to break this down into stages of diagnosis rather than, "OK, the batteries are good, why does the generator only start when I push this ?"
I have a hand held DOM and can check the batteries for voltage, but not sure I can check for their viability (would that be like how an auto parts store draws down a car battery to see what cold cranking amps it'll make?).
When I first put it on shore power here at the house, the inverter panel (pretty sure that is what it is called) was showing "absorbing charge and 14.XX volts". I took this as to mean that the batteries had an almost full charge on them? Correct or no?
Also, if the boost switch is used for the house batteries to boost the chassis battery...wouldn't the fact that pressing the boost battery gets the Gen to start show the house batteries are good?
I agree that we have to break the diagnosys down into stages, I'm hoping you all here can help walk a noob through this. Is it better to start the chasing with it on shore power or not on shore power? I have a feeling the dual systems are clouding my view on things a bit.
No need to go into the details of the purchase, but the rig is here, and it is going to be up to me to figure out how to get it working properly again.
Back history on the RV is it is a one owner RV, the previous owner used it to live in it while at his second business in another state. While it has low miles on the chassis, the generator has over 600 hours on it. Everything appears to be in really good shape, can't see any easily visual signs of any hankering done to it anywhere and very little wear at all on it.
I think it has to be something pretty simple, I just need to know where to start figuring out what works...and what doesn't and why.
Thank you for your help diagnosing this.
