generator starting

[promine]

2009 Camalot.
Does the generator start off of the house batteries? After a night of boondocking I have to start the coach engine to charge up the battery to start the generator. Does that Sound like my house batteries are shot??
Thanks
PR

[bluepill]

[QUOTE=promine;1048534]2009 Camalot.
Does the generator start off of the house batteries?

That is the most common design. That way if the engine starting batteries are too low, you can recharge them via genny/converter.


After a night of boondocking I have to start the coach engine to charge up the battery to start the generator. Does that Sound like my house batteries are shot??


That all depends on the capacity of your house battery assembly vs. the amount that you are drawing from them. Running the forced air heat all night in cold weather can deplete capacity fast.

[EvenSteven]

On my Endeavor, the generator starts from the house batteries.

Recently, we had some charging mis-communication one night, and drained the house batteries by morning.

After some critical thinkin', we discovered the "Battery Boost" switch on the dash works as well in jumping the coach batteries from the chassis batteries as the other way around! We held in the Boost switch, and started the genny from the chassis batteries.

As much as we weren't looking forward to annoying our neighbors in the campground with an early morning genny startup; I'm sure it was less of an irritant than a cold Cummins rumbling to life...

Hope that helps!

[promine]

Thanks. Good idea.
But if the house batteries are up..shouldn't they have enought juice to start the gen if you don't have anything on over night?
PR

[Our Time]

The generator starts off the coach batteries. On our coach the battery boost switch will NOT put a charge to the coach batteries. It connects the coach to chassis for engine start but not chassis to coach to start the generator. You must use jumper cables. I would think a 2009 Camelot would be the same.

[OLYLEN]

The emergency start switch is dumb, it doesn't know the difference of coach to chassis or chassis to coach. It just hooks them together. The batteries could be bad, testing is the only way to know. If you left the inverter/converter on with a load on the 120v side it would drain the batteries. With 4 good batteries and not too cold of weather(running furnace all night) the batteries should be in good shape in the morning for starting the gen.

LEN

[LewF]

promine,

Here is a wiring diagram of the 12v high current circuits on your 2009 Camelot - we have same coach. This diagram shows the generator starter being powered from the "house" side of 12v system. Don't know which relay is the "battery boost" connection, someone else might know but I think, emphasis on think, the battery boost switch mearly connects the two banks of 12v batteries and there is no "direction" associated with the connection.

Camelot (Schematic, High Current, Low Voltage).pdf

Lew

[promine]

LewF
Got it.
Thanks
PR