POWER ON LANCE CAMPER

My Lance, a 2002 1030, works just fine with the battery offline and plugged into shore power. The converter continues to convert.

Someone questioned why one would ever be plugged into shore power and not have your battery engaged. In my case, I HAD an older Magnatek converter charger that would always supply 13.7 volts to the battery. I didnt want to boil by battery so I would disengage it to prevent this.

My converter was on the 120v breaker with all the other wall outlets.

thanks for all the input. we have a 1995 lance 11' camper. original owners put into storage about 10 years ago. great condition. we have had it a year and 1st major problem. we had our 1st week of camping in it and had this problem. have called lance co. in ca, but no reply yet.
thanks, the smocks

Is there a reason to have batteries off while on shore or generator?

But as to whether you can or not depends on the converter. From my little knowledge some can, some cant and some that can supply 12v without battery connected are limited. You can run lights etc but not power high loads like jacks.
Without brand & model of your converter or if factory the year model of your camper, not a lot of information. Just throwing some guesses out. I would verify first if your converter is designed to use with battery out of loop. 'Sounds' like yours did previously? Short of failure, check breakers and fuses. Ours has a separate inverter breaker, IF yours does, other than ensuring its on, verify (with AC power disconnected!) its working. Long shot but breakers fail.

I honestly don't know if our converter would supply 12v or not directly if I turn off batteries while on shore. Ive just never tried. Only our jacks are connected directly to battery (though they wont lift long without a charge source).

And Welcome to the forum!

linsho wrote:
HELP having problems with camper's power. if I hook up ac power from my home or generator, I must also turn on the battery. this problem just started on our last week out camping. any suggestions as to the problem. we are new to having a truck camper.

It sounds like the 12V output from your converter is not making it to the rest of the systems. It could also mean that your converter is not functioning at all. The first thing I would do is turn all of your circuit breakers on and off and check any fuses.

For additional troubleshooting you should see if your 120V outlets are working and if the battery is charging. It would also help to know the year, make, and model of your TC.

Almost everything in a rv is battery powered. It is normal to require a battery switch to be switched on.