Question about batteries/electrical system

[kevinmcc08]

Hi all,

We've had our 3950BR for about a year now.

Last summer, everything seemed great. Then by early fall, we started having problems with the monty being dead after brief periods in storage (say a week), despite the battery disconnect being turned "on" when the RV was in storage.

The situation became untenable and so we added a single 170 watt solar panel and replaced the stock 12 volt batteries with two Interstate 6 Volt batteries (GC2-ECL-UTL).

One other thing I've noticed is that when towing, it doesn't seem to charge the batteries. I've been told that after an hour drive time, I should have added substantially to the systems charge level, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Mainly I want to see, what are you expectations of the electrical system as described. I went to the RV last night, and it said the charge level was 80%. I opened it up, turned on the lights and the furnace for maybe 10 minutes. The charge level dropped to 50%. After no activity it bounced back up to maybe 60%. So would it take 20% of the total power to open the slides and heat the coach one time with the furnace?

Is this consistent with what others are experiencing? The dealer can find nothing wrong, but this just seems like terrible performance to me?

Sorry if a lot of this is random information, but I'm just trying to diagnose the situation. Thanks for any thoughts.
-Kevin

[DQDick]

First the battery disconnect switch does not disconnect the battery, it just cuts down one what can use it. Things like the slides and propane detector and many of the control pannels still draw juice and so your battery will die in short order if you don't actualy install a true battery disconnect yourself. Second, depending on the truck you have, some trucks have to have a fuse installed, a modual added or something else done to get the truck to charge the trailer. Check with your dealer on what needs to be done. Third, the slides draw a lot of juice normally but in the winter, when the fluid is thick, they can really draw a lot.

[daveinaz]

Perhaps the problem is with the misleading labeling that Keystone puts on the battery disconnect. You would think, logically, that since the switch is labeled "disconnect" that "on" would mean that the battery is disconnected -- BUT that's not true. Just forget about the work "disconnect" on the label and think of it as "Battery" on or off.

To disconnect the battery from the coach, turn the disconnect switch off.

It confused me at first too. Apparently Keystone slept through that part of grammer class where they taught about double negatives...

[AZ Traveler]

To check to see if your truck is recharging the batteries:

1. Connect your 7 pin connector between the truck and rig
2. Connect a voltmeter to your batteries or look at the volt reading in the Lippert control panel
3. Compare voltage with the truck running and not running

If it is higher with the truck running, the truck is working to recharge your batteries.

[jeffba]

and if you don't have a voltmeter or lazy like me, turn on your leveler controler, hit the down arrow and it will read battery voltage for you.

[rohrmann]

On the battery disconnect, which only disconnects the 12 volts to the inside panel, when the key can be removed, the switch is open. If it is turned to whatever position you may think is off, and you can't remove the red plastic key, it is still closed and the batteries are still connected.

[Slow Hand]

I added a real disconnect to my batteries. There is a carbon monoxide detector that is always on. I got tired of removing the battery cable from the battery when I put my rv in storage. Funny thing these things aren't cheap.

[Phabask]

I also installed a battery disconnect to neg side of battery to shut all power off, my factory disconnect had nothing connected to it.

[skypilot]

https://www.amazon.com/58270-7-Way-B...gateway&sr=8-4


Just answered another post re this - the above is an inexpensive tester that will tell you if you have power on the 12V charging line. On my 2017 Ford F450 I have to use the paddles on the Integrated Brake Controller to activate that line.

[Starman]

I couldn’t figure the barrel switch, red key switch out so I disconnect the battery cables for short periods of storage and pull the batteries and take home to my trickle charger for winter.