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Old 03-15-2014, 06:28 PM   #1
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Help with house power

My husband and I are new owners of a 2008 Monaco Knight motor coach and we have a couple questions about it. First one, when we disconnected from shore power why do we still have lights, TV's etc? Shouldn't everything be off? Is there something else we need to do and if the electric stays on where is the power coming from? Next question is about the inverter panel. Is the inverter to be shut off once we are ready to travel or do we keep it on? I know these are probably "dumb" questions but can't find the answer in the owner's manual and if we can we don't understand what they are saying. Thanks in advance for any help you can give us on this matter.
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Old 03-15-2014, 06:43 PM   #2
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When you disconnect from shore power with the inverter on it supplies AC power from
your coach batteries.
As to running the inverter it is up to you while traveling.
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Old 03-15-2014, 07:10 PM   #3
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Most of your interior lights are probably 12 v running off the coach batteries. The TV is being powered by an inverter that converts the 12 v DC battery power to 120 v AC. You'll need to monitor the batteries when the inverter is on, they can be discharged rather quickly. Your TV will probably go off, inverters usually shut down when the batteries get low. A charged battery is 12.6 v, it's at 50% when it's 12 v. Discharging below 50% will seriously shorten battery life.


Here's a good tutorial on the electrical systems in an RV, something every owner should read and learn from:
Electrical Tutorial
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Old 03-15-2014, 07:15 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by patty223 View Post
My husband and I are new owners of a 2008 Monaco Knight motor coach and we have a couple questions about it. First one, when we disconnected from shore power why do we still have lights, TV's etc? Shouldn't everything be off? Is there something else we need to do and if the electric stays on where is the power coming from? Next question is about the inverter panel. Is the inverter to be shut off once we are ready to travel or do we keep it on? I know these are probably "dumb" questions but can't find the answer in the owner's manual and if we can we don't understand what they are saying. Thanks in advance for any help you can give us on this matter.
Not all coaches are the same but usually if you unhook from shore power and your inverter is on you will still have 120 volt in the coach, if you turn the inverter off you'll just have 12 volt. If you have a residential refrig like we do you have to keep the inverter on when traveling. The coach engine alternator charges the battery's that supply the 12 volts to the inverter to convert to 120 volt. If you want to run your AC units run your generator, they are made to run going down the road, a lot of times we will run the front two AC's in hot weather, so the genie in on a lot.
I'm surprised that your manual doesn't have all this in it. Ours is pretty good at explaining the working of the Beaver, at first its a big learning curve, just keep posting question in here and somebody is sure to come up with the answer.
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Old 03-16-2014, 06:31 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by rebootsemi View Post
Not all coaches are the same but usually if you unhook from shore power and your inverter is on you will still have 120 volt in the coach, if you turn the inverter off you'll just have 12 volt. If you have a residential refrig like we do you have to keep the inverter on when traveling. The coach engine alternator charges the battery's that supply the 12 volts to the inverter to convert to 120 volt. If you want to run your AC units run your generator, they are made to run going down the road, a lot of times we will run the front two AC's in hot weather, so the genie in on a lot.
I'm surprised that your manual doesn't have all this in it. Ours is pretty good at explaining the working of the Beaver, at first its a big learning curve, just keep posting question in here and somebody is sure to come up with the answer.
This post is a good answer. We can tell from your post that you are unfamiliar with all the features of a motorhome. Keep coming back to this site and post your questions. In a few months you will be sailing along having fun.

Bob
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Old 03-17-2014, 09:27 PM   #6
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This post is a good answer. We can tell from your post that you are unfamiliar with all the features of a motorhome. Keep coming back to this site and post your questions. In a few months you will be sailing along having fun.

Bob

Thanks everyone for the help and yes, Bob, we are new to rving and all the features of our Monaco Knight 2008 motor coach. Now for a new question. We started home from a trip and about half day into our travels a message came up on the dash "alternator fail" and got a beeping sound. Made it to the first exit we came to and ended up having a mechanic come and check it out and replace the alternator. Left next morning and within half an hour into our trip we got the same message and beeping. Contacted mechanic and he basically told us it was possibly a loose wire and to just go ahead and drive it on home. We did that and the coach worked fine except every time we stopped for fuel the message and beeping started up. Beeping would quit after about 3 minutes but message stayed. My question is, is there maybe a reset button that has to be reset after replacing the alternator so we no longer get the message or is there some other explanation for this problem. My husband did see the old one and it was rusted and had a crack in it so it did need replacing and it was replaced with a brand new one so we can't think that the new alternator is bad. We traveled almost a thousand miles with this problem and hopefully we didn't do any other damage. Any and all help would be greatly appriciated.
Thanks in advance,
Patnron
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Old 03-17-2014, 09:49 PM   #7
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It sounds like you don't have a volt meter on your dash instruments. You might want to get one like this: Car Vehicle Voltmeter Voltage Gauge Volt Meter Cigarette Plug Monitor 12V 24V | eBay
If it reads 12.6 or so stopped and +13.4 or so running, you know the battery is charged and the alternator charging. Then you know to search for a bad connection in the charging circuit or dirty battery terminals or ground connection.
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Old 03-18-2014, 04:33 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by patty223 View Post
.............and within half an hour into our trip we got the same message and beeping.........Patnron

Patty,

The first thing I would suggest is to start a new post with the title "Help with Intermittent Alternator Warning on 2008 Knight". Someone may have had your exact problem and knows the answer. Many of us don't read every post and the title can make a difference.

Since you were able to travel for half an hour before the alarm started my guess would be that a reset is not going to help. To try a reset you could turn both battery disconnect switches off for 15 minutes and then back on.

Even through the original alternator appeared rusted and had a crack it may have still been working. Could be you have an intermittent problem in the electrical system that monitors the alternator. Is there a volt meter on the instrument panel? Ours is in the lower portion of the tachometer. If there is crank the engine an observe the reading. It should be above 13 volts if the alternator is working. I would suspect your alternator is working if you have driven a 1000 miles without any weak starter problems.

If you or your husband is skilled in using a volt meter as suggested in the previous post then attach the red lead to the positive post of the chassis battery and the negative lead to the negative post of the chassis battery. Make sure you are on the chassis batteries because you have two sets of batteries. Have the shore power unplugged just in case you have a system that charges your chassis batteries from the house system. Observe the voltage reading and it should be less than 13 volts. Now crank the engine and if after about 30 seconds the voltage is above 13 volts then the alternator is charging.

Bob
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Old 03-18-2014, 06:30 PM   #9
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If there an Alladin system in your coach as is in mine you can go to the engine monitoring screen and see the battery voltage with the engine running
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