1994 Bounder Questions

[wmacdonald]

Howdy folks,

I'm hoping someone may have experience with a near same year/model to my rig.

It is relatively new to me as such I haven't had a ton of time to go over systems other than the basics.

First question, Should the converter charge my chassis battery? I'm guessing probably not because generally the alternator would keep it charged and in an emergency you could use the aux start to boost from house batteries but please correct me if I am wrong.

I am currently living in her, but the engine is blown so obviouslly never runs, however the chassis batteries are used for leveling jacks, as well as steps and stereo and I notice it is run down after a while and hasn't charged up on its own, so Im curious about the possibility of using an echo charger? I've seen them in boats lots, used to charge house batteries from engine battery when it is full, but prevents back drain.

Second question my converter doesn't seem to be giving my aux batteries a good charge, seems like lots of power for lights furnace etc, but today I lost AC power and hardly had enough juice to crank over the generator a couple of times.

I'm not using a ton of power and often not home during the day so one would think that it would have plenty of opportunity to get the charge up.

Last question for now, My rig has a furnace as well as a bus heater under the bed that would heat from the hot radiator water.
The furnace has a vent in the bedroom, one in the bathroom and one in the main salon area. however there is another vent beside the one in the bedroom and the one in the salon and 2 at the stairs which never seem to put out anything, can anyone tell me what they are for? are these possibly another set that would run from the radiator?

If that is the case I'm considering building a wood fired boiler outside to heat the water in that circuit, and save me a ton of money on propane without the hazards of wood heat indoors.

Thanks for any information you can offer.

[Ava]

My 94 Bounder is a diesel pusher but the basic systems are probably the same. The chassis battery only charges from running the engine. My coach batteries charge from the engine, generator or the 120v converter.
The 2 two vents by my door that are just there for air movement around the converter.

[westend]

If you're stationary for the Winter and have dedicated 120V, I'd start using electric heaters.

Also, I replaced my propane RV furnace with a Sportsman heater. They are no longer made but similar fish house heaters are available. They heat well without any electricity, basically, a gas ring in a big can. I do use some small fans to move the heat around but once my rig is warm, I turn down the heater to idle. This is the third RV I've had this Sportsman heater in and it is far superior to the typical RV furnace. I've tested it to -15f for a few days. I'd suggest you try to find something similar so you don't fight battery charging all Winter.

[Golden_HVAC]

The generator might be running off of the engine battery, no idea what Fleetwood did back in 94, or if any owner since that time moved the feed wire from the coach battery to the engine one.

You can install a #10 wire between the + 12 of the coach battery to engine battery, with a fuse in between, and it will charge the engine battery just fine. However it might draw more than 30 amps until the engine battery is more than 80% full. Take this wire off before any dry camping, to avoid discharging the engine battery while dry camping, but otherwise you could leave it on all the time. I would suggest no fuse until the engine battery is full, then a 30 amp fuse will work great.

I have a 97 Bounder, it is not all that much different than yours, just slightly more refined. The exterior compartments on mine are the modern style, while my buddy with a 96 looks much different, more like yours.

I toured the Fleetwood factory twice before buying and once afterwards. It was very interesting. When I wanted to install a satellite, I took down the carpet covered pieces along the sidewall to roof to access the wiring channel located there. It makes installing extra things like the back up camera very easy.

Good luck!

Fred.

[DrewE]

Typically the chassis batteries would not be charged by the converter from the factory. You can put in some sort of an echo charger (one popular, good, and inexpensively priced unit is the LSL Trik-L-Start, or its larger brother the Amp-L-Start), or a small standalone (smart) battery charger dedicated to it. If you aren't planning on driving, which sounds like it may be the case, you could also remove the chassis battery (taking care that the positive lead doesn't ground out against anything) and jumper across the emergency start/isolation solenoid and run everything off the house battery.

It's hard to know if the converter is properly charging the house battery without making some measurements, particularly the voltage it's putting out. Before suspecting it of not working properly, though, I'd recommend verifying that the battery is good and the connections to it are solid. The generator starter is probably the largest load that it sees; cranking the generator takes somewhere around 100A on my motorhome. It doesn't take much of a poor connection at the battery or the generator to cause a significant voltage drop, significant enough to make it hard or impossible to start the generator.

(If the generator has trouble cranking even with a good battery, it's possible too that its starter motor or solenoid or the internal connections between them need help, too.)

The extra vents, at least some of them, could possibly be air return vents for the furnace.