Battery solenoid loss of power question

[nodine]

Quit relying on the big boy to keep your chassis batteries up while the coach is parked and plugged into shore power. Just add one of these and your chassis batteries will always be fully charged and ready to start the coach.

https://tinyurl.com/ychsxdsp

Before building our garage the coach sat outside. One winter we were getting ready for a trip to Florida and it was 6 degrees. The old girl fired up like it was a warm summer day.

Bob

[PlanBee]

But adding a charger isn’t fixing anything is it?

Wasn’t the coach designed to keep its batteries charged as built?

If I’m understanding correctly the chassis batteries are going down a bit so the Bird tells the Big Boy to disconnect from the house batteries. Shouldn’t the charger be hooked directly to both sets of batteries already ( at least in my coach I think)? I have all new batteries too. When this happens the dash and everything that is powered by chassis batteries is off, not low voltage, just off. So I’m sure the Big Boy is disconnected.

I’m sorry but when I have stuff happen like this I can’t stop thinking about it even though I’m in my deer blind 100 miles from where the bus is in storage. I’ll keep dropping in by it and checking it with my Fluke in hand. Next thing I’ll check is the voltage across the Big Boy terminals large and small. I like to fix things as designed and rather not add another charger, to me something is wrong that can be fixed not a work around. Maybe I’m mistaken.

[twinboat]

Originally Posted by nodine

Quit relying on the big boy to keep your chassis batteries up while the coach is parked and plugged into shore power. Just add one of these and your chassis batteries will always be fully charged and ready to start the coach.

https://tinyurl.com/ychsxdsp

Before building our garage the coach sat outside. One winter we were getting ready for a trip to Florida and it was 6 degrees. The old girl fired up like it was a warm summer day.

Bob

A larger function of the Big Boy relay is to charge and maintain the house batteries, thru the chassis battery and charging system, while driving down the road.

Your device doesn't address that.

[YC1]

http://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/do-i...-153008-2.html

Your 09 should be identical to my 08. I doubt they made any changes with the company going bankrupt at that time.

Go to #28 for some information.

Look inside your front run panel and in the upper left quadrant you will find a small circuit board spaced off the maine board. It has a molex plug with three pins as I recall and then two flying leads that sense each bank of batteries.

That BIRD board is no longer available but it is responsible for making that solenoid work.

Is your solenoid located in your battery compartment along the back wall? If so it has a violet wire on one of the small terminals and the other small terminal color I don't remember but it is ground.

The purple wire becomes activated with the aux start button and/or the BIRD board when it sees any source of charging voltage on either bank of batteries.

Only in one condition it does NOT combine the batteries. That is when you are tooling down the road with the generator running as you should do and was mentioned so your generator is charging a low bank of batteries instead of hammering your alternator which is NOT designed to fill deeply discharged banks of batteries.

OF course many folks do but it is best to let the generator do its jobs.

The BIRD senses the generator is running and does NOT combine the batteries when it sees the alternator charging.

Just fyi. Crazy Knight has asked me to help with a presentation on the operation of this at the Lazy Daze gathering in Tampa. There is a lot of confusion on these and they are snow flakes of course.

Understanding how yours specifically works is important and apparent that you are eager to know yours intimately. If the pictures shown in the attachments are what you have then you will be able to understand yours completely.

I like back strap and liver.

[Captjake1]

Originally Posted by Barryc737

One word of caution may be appropriate in this situation. I've been communicating with CrazyKnight Craig, the Magnum/battery guru. He schooled me on using the battery boost switch and thinking everything is peachy since you get the engine started. The bad news is that The engine -driven alternator looks at the condition and says "Congrats on getting the engine started, but your chassis batteries are really low and I'm going into overdrive to get them charged." That's one way to burn up the alternator. Workaround would be to start the generator and let IT power the battery charger to recharge the chassis batteries as you drive.

In this case, this was not to start the coach. I noted a voltagege drop, telling me the big boy disengaged. Hitting the boost button momentarily re-engaged the big boy, allowing charging (hooked to shore power)

[RustyTools]

I can't wait, Myron!

[Jim McElwee]

I am confused. Does the Bird and Big Boy charge both set's of batteries while plugged into shore power? If no what has been charging the chassis batteries for the last number of years? Thanks

[YC1]

Originally Posted by Jim McElwee

I am confused. Does the Bird and Big Boy charge both set's of batteries while plugged into shore power? If no what has been charging the chassis batteries for the last number of years? Thanks

These are snow flakes and they have evolved over the years. I do not know your setup but someone here may.

That said, if you are not the original owner then a previous one could have added any number of simple devices to do that.

Unplug from shoreline and turn your headlights on for a few minutes to get the battery surface charge off. Then measure the small leads on the big boy. There should not be any voltage unless you have solar. Check the voltage on the big wires too and write all of this down.

Now go ahead and plug in shoreline. Listen to the big boy. IF you hear it clunk it is being activated by some circuit. To verify in case you did not hear anything just measure the voltage on the little terminals. If you have voltage on them your voltage on the big terminals should now be exactly the same.

[nodine]

Originally Posted by twinboat

A larger function of the Big Boy relay is to charge and maintain the house batteries, thru the chassis battery and charging system, while driving down the road.

Your device doesn't address that.

My Big Boy has been bad for 10 years and I like it that way. I don't want the alternator to charge my house batteries. I have a generator and 560 watts of solar for that. The Big Boy gets as hot as a two dollar pistol and can't be efficient for dry camping. The Trik-L-Start bridges across the Big Boy and maintains the chassis batteries from the house side to keep the parasitic loads that exist while parked from depleting the chassis batteries. So what ever charges the house side, generator, solar, shore will trickle charge the chassis side. Certainly not a fix for the Big Boy but it makes me happy.

Bob

[twinboat]

Originally Posted by nodine

My Big Boy has been bad for 10 years and I like it that way. I don't want the alternator to charge my house batteries. I have a generator and 560 watts of solar for that. The Big Boy gets as hot as a two dollar pistol and can't be efficient for dry camping. The Trik-L-Start bridges across the Big Boy and maintains the chassis batteries from the house side to keep the parasitic loads that exist while parked from depleting the chassis batteries. So what ever charges the house side, generator, solar, shore will trickle charge the chassis side. Certainly not a fix for the Big Boy but it makes me happy.

Bob

Then that works for YOUR situation.