All ActivityMost RecentMost LikesSolutionsRe: Batteries not chargingAh, simple fix! I found the AC breakers and the converter breaker was popped. All working now :)Batteries not chargingIt's been awhile since I've had an RV, but I am visiting my parents in their Class A this weekend. They have a 2008 Four Winds on a Ford V10 chassis. They are in a park plugged into the 50 amp service. Their fridge won't run and their DC lights aren't working. Mom said the last time the lights were working, they were very dim as in a low battery situation. They have recently changed their 2 12v coach batteries but after they didn't keep a charge. They have a Chassis Battery Disconnect switch (green light currently) and a Coach Battery Disconnect switch with an amber looking light that is NOT lit. Being plugged into shore power should be charging their batteries, but since it's not, I assume they have a bad converter? They also have a few of the DC 110v outlets in their motorhome that are not working...but other ones are. I also didn't bring a volt meter and cannot see if the batteries have any power on them. Any ideas?Internet optionsIt's been awhile since I've looked at mobile internet options, but my parents are living full time on the road, mostly staying in a rural rv park in Colorado. The park has free wifi, but they've started restricting usage because they say that my parents are using the wifi for internet movie streaming and internet radio (which they do use). The park management has limited their internet connection and services so my parents no longer have the ability to stream movies/tv shows and radio. Is there anything new to the market for internet service besides costly satellite service? Who is the best provider to look at mobile satellite internet and does anyone have a rough monthly cost associated with it? My parents are on a strict budget, so I am not sure a mobile satellite internet service will be feasible for them. The 4G cellular service is spotty at this RV park, and even then, most 4G plans limit the download usage and wouldn't be good for large downloads of movies and such.Re: How to get rid of mice "smells"Quick update: I ended up buying the Nature Miracle product from my local pet store (I bought the "expensive" bottle...the Advanced or heavy duty...or something like that). I sprayed the whole basement area about 4 days ago. The mouse smell is as strong as ever so no luck with that. The mice must have a nest somewhere or there must be a dead mouse somewhere in that basement area. It's a big 42' diesel motorhome and there are probably a ton of areas where a mouse can go and die and never be seen again.Re: How to get rid of mice "smells"Thanks for the advice...going to the pet store today and will let you know how it turns out.How to get rid of mice "smells"I live in the Arizona desert and all our houses here are pretty much built on concrete slabs and I've never had any issues with mice here (I've lived here all my life for the past 40 years). I mention this because my parents retired to live in the mountains of North Carolina, and they have mice on their property. Under their house, they have a musty crawl space where my dad leaves mouse traps. The smell under his house is the same smell I now have in my Class A diesel pusher and I really don't like it. So, back to the question... About two years ago, my Class A was sitting unused in the storage facility for about a year without any use. I did go out every couple of months and run the generator and start the engine, but we didn't do any camping for at least a year. When we finally got it out of storage to take a camping trip, we found that mice had been in the basement storage area and in a few of the kitchen drawers. There were mouse droppings in the basement and in the drawers and they had chewed through a box of rice and some other items that had been left in the kitchen drawers. We took everything out of the motorhome and cleaned up all the mouse droppings and cleaned the drawers in the kitchen. Since then, I can't get rid of the "mouse" smell (just like the crawl space in my dad's house in NC). I at first thought maybe there was a dead mouse in some crevice I hadn't found yet, but then I thought that it's probably the smell of their urine in the suedo carpet lining that is in the basement area. I've sprayed Febreeze in the basement storage area, but it didn't make a difference. Is there any sort of device I can put in the basement area that would absorb these odors? I could put some sort of air freshener thing, but that would probably smell worse (sweet air freshener along with mouse smell). Anyone have a suggestion or have this same problem?Hydro Hot system Question - works sometimes?I have access to a 2006 Newmar Moutain Aire, and took it out this past weekend for only the second time in the past 2 1/2 years. This was my father in laws motorhome, but he passed away about a year and a half ago. My mother in law still has the motorhome in storage, so we decided to take it camping this weekend to exercise it. My understanding of the Hydro Hot system is that it has a diesel burner "engine" in it that will heat up some sort of alcohol liquid and it will instantly heat water. Kind of like a tankless water heater. There is also a blower motor that when turned on with the Hydro Hot system, will provide heated air to heat the motorhome. There is also a 110v heating option for when using the generator or plugged into shore power. While camping this weekend I had mixed results with they Hydro Hot system. All three evenings, we had hot water in the shower, but both mornings, the shower was cold the whole time. I don't think we ever got any hot water out of the kitchen or bathroom sinks, but we didn't try too often...it was mostly in the shower we wanted hot water. When I flipped the diesel burner switch to "on", the light on the switch illuminates for a minute or so and then the light goes off. I could hear the diesel burner running even when the light was off, but during those two mornings, there was no hot water. I tried the 110v switch while running the generator and there still wasn't hot water during the morning hours. Before my father in law passed away, I remember him telling me that the Hydro Hot system should be "serviced" once a year. I don't know exactly know what "serviced" entails, but it hasn't been serviced in three years. But, keep in mind, during those three years we've only used the motorhome 6-7 times (for short weekend trips). Any ideas on why hot water was intermittent? Edit: My wife reminded me that one evening before dinner my son tried to shower and there wasn't any hot water then (before dinner), but after dinner my wife tried the shower and it was hot.Re: 3000W Chinese Gensets Info.I wanted to relay my first experience this past weekend with our new Champion 3000-3500 generator and see if anyone has any advice for the problem I ran into: I recently bought the 3000-3500 Remote start Champion unit from Costco, and used it with my motorhome this past weekend for the first time. It ran great the first night, as it ran for about 9 hours through the night, powering my Air Conditioner. I then gave it a break for about two hours in the early morning hours when it was fairly cool outside. As the morning got warmer around 9am, I filled it back up with gas, and started it back up again to run the A/C during the day. It ran for about an hour or so just fine, but then it seemed to do this thing where it bogged down and sounded like it was barely running and about ready to putter out at any second. I immediately shut it down, and let it sit for about an hour, then tried to restart it. It started up just fine, and ran again for about 30-40 minutes just fine, then did the same thing where it bogged down and was barely operating. Instead of shutting it down immediately like I did the first time, I just pulled out the electrical plug to put it in a no load state...hoping it would resume it's normal engine rpm and sound once it had no load on it. I let it run for about a minute or so like this, but even with no load, it still wouldn't get back into it's normal engine hum or sound...it was still bogged down. I shut it off for the rest of the day, and just ran my onboard Onan. That night, I fired up the champion again. It started up fine and sounded normal. I monitored it for a few minutes with no load, and it seemed to run fine, so I then put a load on it. It ran perfectly the whole night through for about 10 hours. The next day, I again gave it a break during the cooler morning hours, but this time, when I went to start it back up again for the day, I put it under a large shade tree. My suspicion was that the problems it had the first day were potentially heat related. The first day, I had it out in the full sun when it started giving me problems. I also had a piece of plywood on one side of the generator trying to deflect some of the noise away from the motorhome. Although, the plywood did have about a 2 foot space between it and the generator. Because it ran so well at night, and never gave me problems during the second day when I had it in the shade the whole time, I can only assume this thing is fairly susceptible to over heating. We were in Arizona, but we were camping in Sierra Vista, which is a somewhat higher elevation for Arizona (still high desert though). We did have a fairly mild weekend with temperatures, but I am just wondering if anyone could maybe confirm my suspicion of the problems being related to heat? Also, there really wasn't any additional load on the generator the day it gave me problems, other than the AC of course. Thanks for any advice.Re: 3000W Chinese Gensets Info.Sorry to jump into the discussion here, but I've been reading this thread for a few hours this morning, and haven't found the answer to my question quite yet. With regards to this Champion 3000/3500 remote start generator, I also bought one from Costco a couple weeks ago. I'll be using it for the first time this weekend, but I was wondering about the remote start feature. Since it has a remote start, I would assume that it is designed to be started with an RV already plugged into, otherwise, you might as well just start it at the generator when you plug in your power cable. So the question is, is there any sort of design feature that will disconnect the load of the RV before start up and before shut down...while you are plugged in? I have always been told that you need to let the generator run a few minutes before adding a load, and also kill the load and let it run a few minutes before it shuts down. If I have to go plug in and unplug the shore cord from my RV every day before I start it up and shut it down, the remote start really isn't much of a benefit. This question has probably been discussed already, so I apologize for bringing it up again. Thanks, Jeff