Community Forums

erwiv · 03-20-2017, 05:50 PM

I am the proud owner of a slightly used 2011 Winnebago Access 26Q, and am fairly new to RV's in general. My question is this; The 2 house batteries were the original ones from Winnebago and finally called it quits. I replaced them with identical batteries, but now the 'coach power switch' will not stay on. The light will briefly illuminate when the switch is pushed, but will go out as soon as it is released. No 12 volt power is present in the coach. I have searched the entire manual for a solution with no luck. I have checked the battery voltages (12.6 volts each) and all fuses seem good. Not sure what direction to go from here. Before the original batteries went dead, the system worked fine. Any suggestions????

Kiawah · 03-20-2017, 07:19 PM

Not familiar with the details of your coach.

Many coaches use 6 volt batteries in their house battery bank, connecting the two of them together in series to make 12v. Each cell of a battery is 2 volts, so if it had 3 water caps it was a 6 volt battery. If it has 6 caps, then it's a 12v battery.

So first, determine whether your old batteries were 6 volts and wired in series, or 12v and wired in parrallel.

Put a voltmeter on the battery bank, to see whether it is putting out 12-13v on the red and black cables that connect to the coach. Hopefully the 12v batteries are not wired in series and making 24v.

http://www.rvforum.net/miscfiles/batterycon-1.pdf

SuperGewl · 03-20-2017, 08:27 PM

Another thing to recheck is to actually pull the fuses and put a meter on them to check them. I've been around long enough to tell you that just because the fuse looks good does not mean it is good. In the military we had some that had a light on them that should light when the fuse blew, we, called them Idiot Lights.
Just my .02 worth.

Stevegd007 · 03-20-2017, 08:48 PM

Might look for a "master" fuse for the entire 12v system. Mine is under the entry step, just above the house batteries. You pull out a large cover plate a various 12 house fuse can be seen.

jazzerjump · 03-20-2017, 09:02 PM

I have left a wire off sometimes when hooking up a battery but since the light does come on briefly it might be a slightly loose connection. Assume all connections were cleaned.

l1v3fr33ord1 · 03-21-2017, 07:06 AM

First off,

Here's a link to the battery diagram for your coach. You want to look at sheet 4 of the PDF document. It shows two batteries. On this drawing the negative terminals of the batteries are to the left, and the positive to the right. The negative post on the left battery has two cables attached to it (black and black). The positive post of the right battery has two cables attached to it (red and yellow).

Check:

1) the batteries are oriented in the tray correctly, and
2) the cables are attached to the correct posts, and
3) the post connections on the batteries are clean and tight

Report back on your results.