Coach Battery not charging

J C · 11-21-2007, 04:54 PM

Coach Battery not Being charged from the engine alternator on the road.

J C · 11-21-2007, 04:54 PM

Coach Battery not Being charged from the engine alternator on the road.

Ron and Patti · 11-21-2007, 05:03 PM

Sorry to see your Hoilday is starting out with a alternator problem.Ron

Petro · 11-21-2007, 05:51 PM

JC;
It may be your Charging solenoid. They have been known to fail. The contacts get pitted. This solenoid also doubles as the emergency start switch. On mine it is located under the steps behind the top step. You can check it by using a volt meter while engine is running. If the chassis side shows 14 plus volts and the coach side only shows 12 or so volts it is not working. You can jump it temporarily with a jumper cable. Make sure it is attached securely and won't short out.

Good luck and let us know how things work out for you.

Don

depchief · 11-21-2007, 06:09 PM

JC you do not list the type of coach you have, but I recently had the same situation. As Petro says the solenoid is behind the step and check for the voltage on each side. You can also have someone push the emergency start switch on the dash and the solenoid should show the 14 or so volts if not it is bad.
Replace with a continuous duty, solenoid.

In emergency make up a jumper wire from the Positive lug (reds bolted together) to the positive lug of the coach batteries and you will charge, use a good size wire, or even a jumper cable if you have a set with you.

This is for a gas coach, if you have a diesel, I do not know where the solenoids are located

Jeeperrmartin · 11-21-2007, 07:19 PM

My mechanic told me that on the Cummins engines he replaced a lot of alternators on them. This included mine. Mine was about 2-3 years old. The AC Delco is still going strong.

MiikeeD · 11-22-2007, 03:58 PM

I thought I was onto something, I'm out camping this weekend and my coach batteries are not charging while plugged into shore power. I saw some comments about the converter and that is probably the cause but, I was trying to see if there was any suggestions as to what I should do for the rest of the weekend. Right now I have my refrig indicating "lo dc" which means that the batteries are low and all of the interier lights are very dim. all of the 110vac appliances seem to work fine. should I try to hook up a battery charger to get thru the weekend?

depchief · 11-22-2007, 05:49 PM

I would try the battery charger and keep an eye on it.
Also make sure you have water in all cells

If you have shore power hook charger to the 120 volt outlet

If they are really low will take a while to come up.

With shore power the converter should be suppling the power so I would have it checked as soon as you get home

Not sure but confirm the 12 volt switch is in the on position (beep switch)

Tom N · 11-23-2007, 06:27 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MiikeeD:
I thought I was onto something, I'm out camping this weekend and my coach batteries are not charging while plugged into shore power. I saw some comments about the converter and that is probably the cause but, I was trying to see if there was any suggestions as to what I should do for the rest of the weekend. Right now I have my refrig indicating "lo dc" which means that the batteries are low and all of the interier lights are very dim. all of the 110vac appliances seem to work fine. should I try to hook up a battery charger to get thru the weekend? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Make certain your coach battery switch is turned ON. The switch should be by the door and may have inadvertently been turned OFF. If this switch is OFF you'll pull all your coach DC from the converter which isn't enough to all the loads.

-Tom

Bill Gotthelf · 11-23-2007, 11:58 AM

No it cannot be the battery switch by the door. That is an all on or all off switch. You won't het a lo battery indication because anything 12v would not work if the switch was turned off. As far as the battery charger you can use one to provide you wiyh 12v on a temp basis when hooked to shore power but it is not a solution long term.

Tom N · 11-23-2007, 03:01 PM

My coach has a converter that charges the house batteries. When the coach batteries are turned off the converter continues to supply 12v DC power to the coach but not to the batteries. I have lights and when I try to crank the generator the light go dim. The 55 amp converter is not enough to power 12v items plus start the generator. Don't ask me how I found this out.

-Tom

MiikeeD · 11-25-2007, 07:13 PM

Thanks for the help, I put a battery charger on it for the weekend and that worked great. I'll be calling the dealer tomorrow. The converter is a parallax 4755t, power going in, nothing going out both fuses good. it was located behind the bottom drawer next to the frig...