[Nebster]

I'm in a dry camping scenario where I'd like to leave my marker lights on during the night.  I'm concerned that they may draw down the chassis batteries too far.  I know I can use my "emergency start" switch to temporarily merge the house bank with the chassis in that case, but, meanwhile...  if I'm running my generator, will the coach charge the chassis batteries at some point?

I know on my Newmar there was a bidirectional relay with some logic that would cross-bus the batteries whenever there was a charge source on one side and the other side got low.

Alternatively, would there be any downside to leaving the "emergency start" merge on for a whole week?  If this is not a constant-duty solenoid I imagine that would be bad.  

Thanks guys!

Ben

[RussWhite]

Ben,

So much has most likely changed in how Newell did things between my '99 and your '08, but I'll put this out there for your consideration and others with a vintage similar to mine.

There is a device, called ( I think ) EchoCharger whose purpose is to charge the chassis batteries after the house batteries are up to a certain voltage level in their charge cycle. And, as you noted, there is always the option of the merge switch. The merge switch is constant duty and many a Newell owner just leave the batteries merged when camping. My personal experience with doing that is the merge solenoid does not have a long life. I keep trying to buy a better one, but nothing seems to change but the specs. Although rated differently they look exactly the same and I fear they are.

The thing you need to do is make your decision and then actually check the voltage on the classis batteries. I have a monitor in the coach with a voltmeter that can be selected to check that voltage. Or, just take your digital voltmeter ( you need one of those ) and measure the voltage. If it's over 13 volts you may assume some charing is going on and sleep easy. If not, you can start looking for why not. Hope this helps. Russ

[Nebster]

Thanks, Russ. It's true, the electrical design has certainly changed over the years, and a lot of the discussion on this forum is relevant only for a subset of the coaches out there.

In my case, I'm planning to replace the house battery bank with another system this winter, and after that there won't be any merging or solenoids, because the voltages won't be the same. (I will install a battery tender for the chassis batteries that will keep them topped off around the clock.) So, I decided just to use the emergency/merge solenoid for this week, and it is working fine today.

I think it is possible that my coach monitor may automatically cross-bus the two banks if the chassis gets low, but I don't know how to set that, and I don't feel like running my battery down that far just to test and see if my hunch is correct. I could call Newell and inquire, but I have been on the phone with them four times already in the last week with other more critical support issues, so I'm hoping to give them a break.