Help with Electrical
Brand new here, brand new to RV's --- HELP Recently acquired a 1989 Southwind, P-30. Was well taken care of its whole live. Owned it for 3 weeks and took it to a local shop to have it gone through,...
Forum Discussion
westend wrote:
Anytime the "house" switch/Battery Disconnect switch/"salesman" switch is in the on position so power is distributed to the fuse panel, alarms, circuit boards, and device memories will be powered. This is also true in some RV's if the disconnect switch is "off". These are called "parasitic draws", do a search on them. When on, power will also be available for the fridge, lights, pumps, and fans.
You should read at "the 12V side of life" (link posted earlier) what is powered and when.
Using an onboard gauge set can be inaccurate. Put a meter on some of this to determine what is and what is not working.
Read through the link you posted again... I have most of it, at least the portions that pertain to this situation. Thank you again for that.
Still not sure where the battery disconnect switch is, or what it looks like on my rig. I did a Google search on images of what they look like and there must be 100 variations. Read through all the manuals I have on my Fleetwood and can't find anything on it.
What I have read is that when I am plugged into shore power I should just leave the disconnect switch in the on position because it will also charge the batteries. Does it charge "all" the batteries, or just the coach batteries? Again, from what I have read, the only time I should turn the switch to off is if I am going to be unplugged from shore power for any significant length of time, say a couple of weeks or so.
Do I have this right?
BTW - you have all been great in holding my hand through this. It's been pretty frustrating because I haven't even gotten to take it out yet. The last thing I want to do is get up in the hills and find myself and my family stuck.
