[New topic created from another - Michelle]I empathize with you Dub, for me electrical is a complete mystery. We just got back from a trip to the western slope of Colorado and after 240 miles yesterday the batteries were almost flat this morning. We plugged in to 50 amps all night and had to put the boost on to start, dash meter was showing 11 amps.
The only up side is my son in-law is an electrical engineer, computer wiz and heaven only knows what else so he'll be over this week. They will get the coach when we downsize so he's more than happy to help.
So chassis/start batteries almost completely discharged despite the drive? I'd start with checking chassis battery connections to make sure they're clean and tight, then move on to the alternator to make sure it's working.
Terminals are squeaky clean and brass and tight.
Wait for the son in law, I've disconnected the batteries and I'll charge em up tomorrow and then we'll see.
So start at the back pulling connections and cleaning and re connecting and testing and I'm already tired haha
Wonder boy tested every wire and connection, I stood back in awe. We had the motor running and adding a touch of throttle when he called for it.
Here's a picture of the culprit, new one and then he crimped the connectors and now everything works just fine.
$7.04 for the part and less then an hour fiddling.
Where was that relay, and what does it control? Just asking for future reference.
Not real sure what it specifically does however a wire runs back to the sense terminal on the alternator, and the do hicky mounts on the front of the engine space on the wall under the bed.
Ah, Thanks. A sticky do hicky will get you every time. Sounds like it's a relay to give the alternator the voltage signal to start charging. If that was bad, it would make sense that the alternator didn't charge the batteries because it wasn't seeing the voltage signal.
Not to be picky, but if the purpose of the relay wire was to tell the alternator to "start charging" then it would be connected to the EXCITE terminal. If, instead, the wire actually is connected to the SENSE terminal, that wouldn't make any sense, because the SENSE terminal wire should be HOT all the time. Connecting the SENSE wire to a relay would be nonsensical. 8)
Lets not start a trend,some of us are electricly challenged,no more do hicky talk,call a relay a relay.
Must be why my son in law came over and fixed it for me as I don't know the difference between a sense terminal and an excite terminal. I'm truly sorry for not understanding the difference between a relay and a regulator.
But what I'm really really sorry about is some people have a broken humourarse.
I went out to the coach to continue post trip cleanup, yesterday I disconnected both batteries. I looked over towards the dashboard and the stereo was lit up mmm, no battery power ?
Hopefully just on temporally from capacitor. Otherwise we've had ET and ghost suggestions when this happened before.
Do you have a battery maintainer for your start batteries such as a Trik- L- Charge could be hooked up to your isolator between chassis and coach posts.
Way to go Dug, there's a solar panel on the roof for trickle charging I suppose that could be the source ? As I've stated before electrical systems are for the most part a mystery to me and I lucked out with my son in law !
Solar would keep the radio on.