belgian gulfstream driver
Limburg,Belgium
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Joined: 08/28/2003
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Hello, We have a 1996 Gulfstream Sunsport and this vacation we had a strange mishap.
We were standing on a camping ground and the 220v mains were plugged in to the campings wall outlet .
As it was very hot and the refrigirator was full of beverages , I connected an extra 12v Cooling-box into the cigarette lighter. This went fine , but after a few days I noticed that the fan of the cooling-box stopped working. It seems that the engine's battery had gone very low.
It had not been charged by the Magnetec 220v to 12v power converter ??
So i had to charge the battery with an external battery charger.
After a few inquiries and a troubleshooting guide for the intellitec battery isolator , I came to the conclusion that the voltage supplied to the battery isolator must be 13.3V (to engage the relais for charging the battery) and it was only 13V.
When the engine is running ,the battery charges but when I stop the engine and put the wall outlet line in , only the coach batteries are charged.
Is this normal ?
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4gone
Mass
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Joined: 12/07/2006
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Yup. I have never owned a coach where the chasis battery is charged by the house converter/charger. They may exist, but I don't believe it is the norm. Your house batteries will charge when the MH is running however.
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Polishnurse
Schodack, NY
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Joined: 03/13/2007
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Ditto on 4gone, only way would be to push and hold the aux or boost on the dash if you have one. That would join the two batteries together as long as it's held.
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ozman
Ma.
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Joined: 06/16/2001
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If I am reading you right , no chassis battery probably charges off of alternator only.
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Fleet Man
Western WA
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There are devices on the market that connect the house batteries to the chassis batteries for charging from your charger/converter. Trick-L-Start is one of them and is standard equipment on many new coaches now. It charges the chassis batteries at .3 amps less than that going to the house batteries. Search the threads, many comments have been made on this topic.
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MNtundraRet
Bloomington, MN
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On my motor-home, the chassis battery can be charged by the converter/charger while plugged into shore-power. However; your chassis battery is not a deepcycle battery. A 12v DC cooler is not meant to be drawing on a regular battery when the engine is not running. The cooler draws much more amps per hour than is most likely supplied to the chassis battery. The chassis battery was depleted.
It would have made more sense to plug into the house 12v DC circuit. Also the comment about holding the emergency start button to connect to do anything besides starting the engine is a bad idea. You are bypassing components controling current flowing in the house 12v circuits which is bad in the long run.
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Richard Pelletier
Chesapeake, VA, USA
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This will take care of your problem, it has for me.
LINK
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dougrainer
Carrolton
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Joined: 06/11/2007
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Yes, it is Normal for YOUR Intellitec system. ALL motorhomes will not charge the chassis from the Converter or Inverter/Charger UNLESS they have a Intelligent type relay system. You must have a system to keep the Coach and the Chassis seperate to keep from draining both when NOT connected to 120 volts. Your RV is 12 years old. Most Motorhomes built after 2000 have the dash area 12 volt outlets connected to the Coach battery system to prevent the problem you experianced. Doug
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belgian gulfstream driver
Limburg,Belgium
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I Know , It was the first time that I have used the cigaretteligther-socket but I did not knew that the engine battery is not charging when 220V is attached.
It is the first time in 12 years that this happened and I hope it never will happen again.
But in the meantime I have learned a lot about the charging system and battery isolator.
Thanks to all you folks for the info.
Eddy
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Gamoore
West Sacramento
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Joined: 10/08/2002
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Another vote for the "Trick-L-Start". After installing this on our rig we have had no more problems with low chassis batteries. We full time and the rig is always hooked up to shore power. The stereo system runs off the chassis batteries and using the stereo system while hooked up to shore power would gradually deplete the batteries. Adding "Trick-L-Start solved this problem.
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