Chassis Battery Charging

[mercerc44]

I asked this on another forum but still wanted to get some input from our Newmar friends.
Friend has an 05 DSDP and the Chassis Batteries will only charge from the alternator. The generator/shore power will NOT charge the chassis battery. We changed the 'BIRD' and we still are not getting and power to the battery from the generator or shore power. The house batteries are getting a charge though. Any ideas???

[siggyd]

On my 05 KSDP the chassis batteries charge only when I put the up-front switch to "IN USE" ! Then it takes a minute or 2 and I hear a click by the BIRD relay area and the chassis batteries start to charge also.
Siggy D

[wa8yxm]

Many coaches only charge the starting battery off the alternator

Trick-L-Start (Google it) or Xantrex Echo Charger (more expensive) are two devices which hook up with just 3 wires

One hooks to the House side of your isolator
One hooks to the Engine side of your isolator
And a ground wire

This provides the missing funciton..


Page 2:

I do not suggest you use these if you have an older single stage converter such as a Magnetek 6300.. IF you have one of those please upgrade to a good 3-stage job like a PD 9200 series or a Xantrex True-Charge XADC or.. Well it's a long list.

[Luv2go]

I have had the relay the BIRD uses to connect the chassis batteries to the coach batteries go bad twice. The first time the engine would not charge the coach batteries, the second time the coach would not charge the chassis battery. Both the BIRD and the relay were replaced once under warranty. I ended up replacing the relay with a much heavier-duty one (the original one was good for 100A continuous, the new one is rated for 200A continuous). I have not had a problem with charging in either direction since I replaced it.

Here's a link to the one I used. I did have to rework the buss bar that connected it with the battery disconnect relay, but I have a Gas Puller so YMMV.

http://www.stancor.com/wrdstc/pdfs/C.../Pg_056_57.pdf

I chose the 15V coil as the max rated voltage on the 12V coil was 110% of 12V = 13.2V and my batteries spend most of their time at 13.5V float voltage, they are plugged into a good 3 stage charger all the time. This could cook the 12V coil due to overvoltage (note the warning at the bottom of the first page).

The actual part number I used was 586-108111, catalog number 586-903 bought from onlinecomponents.com for $44 plus shipping.

Good luck!
Stewart

[mercerc44]

Thanks for the reply. We hope to get to the bottom of problem soon. Chassis batteries as of today, will only charge from the alternator.

[Lug_Nut]

How did you test the lack of charging as it is very subtle. The best way to confirm charge/or no charge is as follows.

unplug coach from shore power. Turn on the vehicle headlights. Have a cigarette (Substitute a glass of apple juice if you don't smoke) This just kills 10 minutes. Connect a multi-meter to your chassis batteries and select volts. Turn off headlights and observe voltage. Have someone plug the shore power in while you watch the chassis voltage. Providing your house batteries are at full charge you should see your chassis batteries starting to climb in voltage. I hope this helps.

Peter

[mercerc44]

Lug Nut, we found the problem with help of a Newmar tech. It was a bad solenoid. It was responding to a current and moving as required but the internal contacts were not connecting. New solenoid solved the problem.