A new coach owner

Several years ago my wife and I started a new adventure by buying a cruising motorboat. Upon retirement 2 years ago we cruised our boat up the intercoastal waterway from our home in Tampa to the Chesapeake and back, taking 8 months. We loved it, but after returning to the Tampa Bay area and after visiting so many cool places we became bored going to the same places around here and with great hesitation decided to sell the boat. Upon returning from the Chesapeake a year ago I started looking at RV's knowing this would be our next great adventure, but decided we must sell the boat before buying an RV.  It took awhile but we sold the boat early this year. So I had a year to join this forum, learn about RV's and ask many many questions. I felt with the great info on this forum and others that when we sold the boat I had the knowledge to buy a coach and avoid the pitfalls many encounter. I hope I'm right because after a year of searching and learning we bought a '07 American Coach Tradition 40Z advertised on Craigs List. I had it inspected at a Freightliner facility and a RV repair facility. We found a few chassis related items that the seller had fixed. I nervously drove it 130 miles home on Monday. Biggest thing I'd ever drove was my utility trailer behind my pickup. The new drivers confidence course at Lazy Days I took a month ago was a help, but only a little. 

It's now sitting in our driveway safe and sound while I become familiar with it. I have a couple of days left before I get the dreaded "letter" from our homeowners assoc to move it and it will go into covered storage. I installed a 50 amp plug with 240 volts so it's all powered up while I learn the systems. We spent the night in it last evening. Now if I can just figure out why the chassis batteries are not charging!

Did you turn off the DC power switch (sometimes called the "salesman switch" where the lights, radio, etc. are disabled) in the coach? I never turn that off unless the coach will be unattended and unplugged for more than an hour or three. Many (most?) coaches won't charge batteries with that off (I think that's house batteries, though). If that's not it, some troubleshooting might be in order. But the chassis batteries shouldn't be used much (or at all?) when you're parked.

You might mention what indication you have that they're not being charged, though. And at least some folks here have American Coaches, so they might know whether that's normal for the chassis batteries to not be charged when sitting and plugged in.

Thanks Larry. Both the chassis battery switch and the house battery switch are on. I checked the chassis batteries (2) voltage and they showed 12.0 volts. The house batteries are showing 12.7 volts. Coach is plugged into 50 amp power.
About 10 minutes ago I turned off the chassis battery switch and hooked up my auto battery charger to the 2 chassis batteries to charge them up.

I would think the coach battery charger which is also an inverter would charge both the house and chassis batteries. Perhaps not. A call to Fleetwood is in order.

I'm amazed at the lack of information provided with this coach. I think all the manuals that originally came with the coach I probably have, they just are lacking with good info, especially if one want's to truly understand the mechanics of the coach.

My chassis batteries did not charge while plugged in as well. So I added a small device that changed that. It is called a Trik l Start. Since then no more charging problems, plus it was not very expensive. Look it up on the internet.


Bill

I installed a 50 amp plug with 240 volts so it's all powered up while I learn the systems.

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Please don't use that term again.  Newbies might think that a 50 amp unit is wired for 240volts and IT IS NOT WIRED FOR 240VOLTS.

There are 120volts on 2 legs of a plug.  NOTHING in a RV is 240volts not even a clothes dryer or a dishwasher.

EVERYTHING in a RV is either 120volts or 12volts.

Sorry I just wanted to set the record straight for new people coming across this thread.





Now, I think it's pretty normal for chassis batteries NOT to be charged when on shore power.  Mine don't.
They do get charged when the engine is running.  And of course you can add a charger to them if you want to while parked.
Or get the adapter mentioned by billwild.

I too am a new used project on wheels 1995 HR Imperial Diesel pusher....
I have 15 amp,  30 amp,  & 50 amp  hook up cords, but all are 120 V AC & at all the RV parks that we have been to only have 120 V AC shore power.  If 240 V AC were used/supplied we all could use lighter/small gage shore power cords to get the same wattage, providing your RV is wired for it......

To through out an related question;  HAVING THE RV PLUGGED IN TO SHORE POWER & NOT USED, IS THAT HARD ON THE BATTERIES??

2nd  QUESTION;  IF THE SWITCHES FOR BOTH SETS OF BATTERIES ARE TURNED OFF, IS THERE DC POWER TO RUN LIGHTS, FURNACE, & OTHERS,  JUST OFF THE INVERTER/CHARGER???

N O T E :::  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "TO CLEAN" WHEN IT COMES TO ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS !!!

John & Maggie  19 mi W of Seattle

bluewaveRVdp said:

If 240 V AC were used/supplied we all could use lighter/small gage shore power cords to get the same wattage, providing your RV is wired for it......

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Not true, wire is sized strictly by amperage.

RedandSilver said:

Please don't use that term again.  Newbies might think that a 50 amp unit is wired for 240volts and IT IS NOT WIRED FOR 240VOLTS.

There are 120volts on 2 legs of a plug.  NOTHING in a RV is 240volts not even a clothes dryer or a dishwasher.

EVERYTHING in a RV is either 120volts or 12volts.

Sorry I just wanted to set the record straight for new people coming across this thread.

Click to expand...

You're wrong. 50 amp RV service is still 240 volts. It's the same thing as the 4 wire, 120/240 volt outlet that powers your kitchen range. Yes MOST RV's use it as two separate legs of 120 volts. Yes, there are some high end coaches that do use 240 volts for some appliances.

OP here. I didn't want to get into the 120/240 volt thing as it confuses people. 50 amp service provides 2 legs with 120v each. If you put a v meter on the two hot legs you will read 240 volts. This is just like your house.

Anyway I got the charging issue figured out. I called Fleetwood and the tech had me re-program the inverter/charger to change the max charge from 80% to 90%. Apparently 80% charge will not charge the batts above the 13.3 volt threshold required to activate the relay solenoid (Big Boy) and allow the chassis batts to charge.

Sounds good. I'm glad you got the problem fixed and reported what it was.

bluewaveRVdp said:

To through out an related question;  HAVING THE RV PLUGGED IN TO SHORE POWER & NOT USED, IS THAT HARD ON THE BATTERIES??

2nd  QUESTION;  IF THE SWITCHES FOR BOTH SETS OF BATTERIES ARE TURNED OFF, IS THERE DC POWER TO RUN LIGHTS, FURNACE, & OTHERS,  JUST OFF THE INVERTER/CHARGER???

John & Maggie  19 mi W of Seattle

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1st Question: Most folks that have power available where they store their coach will allow the battery charger to keep the batteries charged. Most modern battery chargers will not over charge the batteries. Batteries will be damaged if they are allowed to discharge completely, so with a good 3 or 4 stage battery charger you will prevent this from happening. If no power is available at your storage site a small solar trickle charger is an option.

2nd Question: Probably not, but it's easy enough to check out.

timjet said:

OP here. I didn't want to get into the 120/240 volt thing as it confuses people. 50 amp service provides 2 legs with 120v each. If you put a v meter on the two hot legs you will read 240 volts. This is just like your house.

Anyway I got the charging issue figured out. I called Fleetwood and the tech had me re-program the inverter/charger to change the max charge from 80% to 90%. Apparently 80% charge will not charge the batts above the 13.3 volt threshold required to activate the relay solenoid (Big Boy) and allow the chassis batts to charge.

Click to expand...

Glad you got it figured out.  I was going to say that something was not right with your inverter/charger if you reading at the house batteries (with the charger on) was only 12.7 VDC.  Most multistage chargers will go into a float charge mode and stay at about 13.4 volts.  You should see your chassis batteries get some charge once the house batteries go to float. 

If you have not already done so, contact customer support at American Coach.  They should be able to provide manuals and other technical info about your coach. 

Thank you  Timjet,
I'll be checking into that....
I had worked @ GTE for nearly 27 years & can remember the CO (connecting Office) in S. Everett WA. (Primary Center) had these huge single cell wet lead acid batteries to keep the office working + customer's lines alive.  This bank of batteries to supply 48 V-DC with 2 extra cells that would kick in as the 48V fell below ?47V? as power was drawn from them.  Years passes, then had a major storm that took out commercial power for 2 1/2 days.  This battery bank was to hold the office for 72 hours per design, they held for less than 2 hours, but the hydrometer shower the electrolyte was at full charge.  The battery bank took on "Memory Charge"....  Many of the smaller COs also had this trouble.  The jet engine generator on the roof of this 5 story building failed to start & supply power because the under ground fuel tank had water get into it.  GTE's fixes were to cycle these battery banks down to 80 to 90% discharge then recharge them using a 5% amp hour charge rate, but only on weeks that had good long range weather forecast.  As for the jet engine generator  & all the diesel generators a the smaller COs a fuel circulating & filter system was installed that ran 24/7 & would have an alarm send out if water or a high differential pressure between the in/out of filter was sensed.
I had this happen in my 19' boat out fishing, big battery that would only turn over the 120 Merc-cruser for 15 seconds...  It had always started right away (ballast resistor had opened = corrosion).  Took 5 days with a break lite to discharge the battery to a state where no balls were floating in the hydrometer.  Then placed a new charge on the plated with a 1/2 amp charger until the 4 balls floated where that took nearly a week.  But removed the memory charge.

What I am driving at is; I do not want to have a Memory Charge build in either set of batteries caused by constant charging & only slight discharging.  The batteries were new last summer per seller.

kbdgoat....  I believe that we are on the same page. 
With a 10 gage  30amp 120 VAC shore power cord you can get 3600 watts of power before you exceed its power carrying ability (if your connections are clean).  If the source & RV were wired for 240 VAC the same shore power cord could carry 7200 watts.  Yes it is the Circular mills (Avg diameter) of the carrying wire that limits the current/amps  & it is the insulation that limits the voltage. 
As a kid there was a shack in the woods about 500' away from home.  I wanted some lighting power in this shack.  So, I happened to have enough twin-lead TV antenna wire to string the 500'.  It was 20 gage.  I was able to pump 4oo watts through the twin lead using two neon high voltage transformers (one had primary taps for source).  That would have been 3.3 amps @ 120 VAC &  ??over 500'??  there would not be much at the far end, most of the wattage would be in heat loss from the current loss in the wire resistance.  But jumping the twin-lead wire feed up to 11,000 VAC & step down (transformer) at the far end to get my 120 VAC @ 400 watts, the twin-lead only carried 0.036 amps., will with in the current carrying ability over 500' of a 20 gage wire...  As far as the insulation & the separation of the twin leads/wires,  will it never arced, but I would not touch that twin lead when energized.    We were kids on a shoe string & this worked with caution, even in the rain...

timjet said:

Several years ago my wife and I started a new adventure by buying a cruising motorboat. Upon retirement 2 years ago we cruised our boat up the intercoastal waterway from our home in Tampa to the Chesapeake and back, taking 8 months. We loved it, but after returning to the Tampa Bay area and after visiting so many cool places we became bored going to the same places around here and with great hesitation decided to sell the boat. Upon returning from the Chesapeake a year ago I started looking at RV's knowing this would be our next great adventure, but decided we must sell the boat before buying an RV.  It took awhile but we sold the boat early this year. So I had a year to join this forum, learn about RV's and ask many many questions. I felt with the great info on this forum and others that when we sold the boat I had the knowledge to buy a coach and avoid the pitfalls many encounter. I hope I'm right because after a year of searching and learning we bought a '07 American Coach Tradition 40Z advertised on Craigs List. I had it inspected at a Freightliner facility and a RV repair facility. We found a few chassis related items that the seller had fixed. I nervously drove it 130 miles home on Monday. Biggest thing I'd ever drove was my utility trailer behind my pickup. The new drivers confidence course at Lazy Days I took a month ago was a help, but only a little. 

It's now sitting in our driveway safe and sound while I become familiar with it. I have a couple of days left before I get the dreaded "letter" from our homeowners assoc to move it and it will go into covered storage. I installed a 50 amp plug with 240 volts so it's all powered up while I learn the systems. We spent the night in it last evening. Now if I can just figure out why the chassis batteries are not charging!

Click to expand...

How old are your batteries?  Are your coach, household batteries 12 v or 6v in series, is there a parallel connection as well?  I have 4 6v coach batteries, 2 each in series for 12v output, then the two series parallel for more juice.  I purchased a 4 watt solar charger to keep them topped off because even with the battery switches in off position your MH still have parasitic drain.

Correct me if Im wrong but 50 amp at 240 volts is not 7200 watts. Its 50 amps x 120volts =6000 watts x two legs = 12000 watts.