No DC power, so we have no heat or air conditioning

If you have a good 3-stage converter... Leave it bypassed. (you said you have an inverter that charges the batteries. most all of those are indeed good 3-stage converters so odds are.. Leave it bypassed.

OP here

Thanks for all our your help.

We got some excellent info on a Monaco owners forum as well and it seemed that our problem was the battery cut-off solenoid, or salesmans switch.

We were told how to bypass it, but were uncomfortable doing it ourselves.

Fortunately our mobile rv mechanic was able to come out. It took him 15 seconds to by pass it and all is well. We have DC power again. :)

From my recent experience with a similar situation on my Monaco Windsor I would carefully check the battery charging side of your inverter. Mine failed and the batteries were totally run down over night.

Thank you as well, your reply to my post was what I was looking for.

To simplify things, when you have two six volt in series, Treat them as a 12 volt battery.. When you measure voltage measure across BOTH of them. When you replace one of the two in the pair, replace the other as well, and so on,

wa8yxm wrote:
One of the things you said can be interperted two ways

We checked the house batteries and all four were 6.92

Now, House batteries are always 12 volt (Resting full charge is 12.6) never 6 volt.. HOWEVER a 12 volt battery can be made by wiring two six volt batteries in series.
So do you have 4 12 volt (Six cells each) batteries or do you have 2 12 volt batteries each made from two Six Volt (3 cells each) batteries?

The answer to that makes a BIG difference.

I'm guessing you have 4 very dead 12 volt Marine/Deep cycle and likely will need to replace them because they tend not to recover from that level of discharge.

on the other hand, if my guess is wrong, they are full up.

----------------------------------------------------

We have 2 12 volt batteries each made from two Six Volt (3 cells each) batteries

He says they are fully charged, at 6.92 v each. I know nothing about this but am relaying what hubby tells me.


thanks for your help

sch911 wrote:
If the batt disconnect was open the batts would not have run down. To me it sounds like you have a bad converter (or inverter charging circuit) depending on your configuration.

All four batteries 6.92 EACH.... four six volt house batteries
Batteries are fully charged

If it isn't fixed by tomorrow, call the Monaco tech support, which is easy to find on their web site. They have been excellent help on the few problems we have had in our new-to-us 1998 Windsor.

In earlier models like ours, the solenoid is back in the engine bay - I don't know what year it was moved. Also, there are separate ground connections for AC and DC - check the ground. We had one issues where there was a huge voltage drop across the solenoid and the DC was barely working - the problem was the ground.

We recently had all the AC go completely out because the main circuit in the had died. If the batteries are down and it's because the charging in the inverter is out, prepare to open your wallet - ours cost $2500 installed. Also if those are 12-volt batteries and they're flat, disconnect the batteries and get a charger on them. Sitting dead will kill batteries.

If none of this helps, call Monaco.

One of the things you said can be interperted two ways

We checked the house batteries and all four were 6.92

Now, House batteries are always 12 volt (Resting full charge is 12.6) never 6 volt.. HOWEVER a 12 volt battery can be made by wiring two six volt batteries in series.
So do you have 4 12 volt (Six cells each) batteries or do you have 2 12 volt batteries each made from two Six Volt (3 cells each) batteries?

The answer to that makes a BIG difference.

I'm guessing you have 4 very dead 12 volt Marine/Deep cycle and likely will need to replace them because they tend not to recover from that level of discharge.

on the other hand, if my guess is wrong, they are full up.

Don't be afraid to bypass that solenoid....no harm and all Monaco/HR people do it....that solenoid serves no useful purpose other than a dealer's lot.

Very likely the 6.92V is for 6V batteries so they are fully charged.

Buy a $5 digital and check the voltage on the disconnect solenoid. Power on one side (the battery side) and not the other side indicates it's not connecting.

From your posts you should not attempt to bypass the solenoid. There are definite safety considerations when moving very high amperage battery cables.