Draining RV battery
Hello everyone, I hope your all doing well. New to RVing and recently purchased a class A 1994 Ford Fleetwood Southwind. I'm full-time in the RV. The RV was disconnected from shore power about a we...
Forum Discussion
I agree with 2oldman--it sounds as though you probably have an old/weak chassis battery, or an unexpected draw on that battery. It ought to go a week parked without much trouble at all; after all, an ordinary car or truck or van can sit parked for a week and star aftewrards, and this isn't really any different.
The LP detector, fridge control board, interior RV lights, and indeed basically everything other than the actual vehicle stuff are powered by the house battery, and the converter typically charges only the house battery (of course only when the generator is running or you're plugged into shore power). The emergency start switch connects the house battery to the chassis system so you can start if the chassis batteyr is run down. There's also some system to connect them somehow to charge the house battery when the vehicle engine is running, often but certainly not always using the same contactor as for the emergency start system.
If you continue to have trouble after replacing the chassis battery, or verifying that it is in perfectly good condition, it's time to figure out what's consuming power from it. Maybe you have a (chassis) light left on somewhere, such as the cockpit dome light, or possibly if you have automatic power steps you're operating them frequently--they often are powered by the chassis rather than the house system. It's also possible to hook up some sort of a charger to keep the chassis battery up to snuff when you have AC power, either a small battery maintainer connected to it or something like the Trik-L-Start which "steals" a little power from the converter when it runs. But neither one ought to be needed when parking for a single week.
Disconnecting the LP detector is not a wise idea, for rather obvious safety reasons, doubly so when you're actually making use of propane appliances. You don't want to make Marvin the Martian very happy with an earth-shattering kaboom in your RV.
The LP detector, fridge control board, interior RV lights, and indeed basically everything other than the actual vehicle stuff are powered by the house battery, and the converter typically charges only the house battery (of course only when the generator is running or you're plugged into shore power). The emergency start switch connects the house battery to the chassis system so you can start if the chassis batteyr is run down. There's also some system to connect them somehow to charge the house battery when the vehicle engine is running, often but certainly not always using the same contactor as for the emergency start system.
If you continue to have trouble after replacing the chassis battery, or verifying that it is in perfectly good condition, it's time to figure out what's consuming power from it. Maybe you have a (chassis) light left on somewhere, such as the cockpit dome light, or possibly if you have automatic power steps you're operating them frequently--they often are powered by the chassis rather than the house system. It's also possible to hook up some sort of a charger to keep the chassis battery up to snuff when you have AC power, either a small battery maintainer connected to it or something like the Trik-L-Start which "steals" a little power from the converter when it runs. But neither one ought to be needed when parking for a single week.
Disconnecting the LP detector is not a wise idea, for rather obvious safety reasons, doubly so when you're actually making use of propane appliances. You don't want to make Marvin the Martian very happy with an earth-shattering kaboom in your RV.
