Introduction to Batteries

Let me start this by relating to you an incident that happened to us the first night in our first motor home. We had decided for our virgin overnight boondocking trip we would attend a huge Indian Pow-Wow that was being held in Kansas City at the Convention Center. When we arrived at the location where it was being held, several motorhomes were already parked in a remote part of the parking lot. We decided that was where we also were going to spend the night. The evening and night was uneventful, however when we awoke the next morning, it was rather cold and blistery and no heat. We had gone to bed with complete confidence in our batteries and awoke to dead batteries on the Chassis side of the RV. As a newbie, and with no previous experience with a motorhome or a walk-thru when we purchased, here we sat. I couldn’t get the motorhome's engine running and all we had was the coach batteries running the furnaces and they were starting to deplete. I didn’t even realize or know that I could have held the auxiliary start switch down and use the coach batteries to help get our rig started/ and or kept it down and made it to a RV repair place. The problem ended up being a failed motor alternator which we found out after being towed to a repair facility. Then the finger pointing started between the RV manufacturer and the Chassis manufacturer as to who would pay the bill, but then that is another story. From that point on, I decided I would try to learn everything about the electrical and battery system on our motor home.

Submitted by Mike Sundberg - 2/06/06
 

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