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House Batteries Charging
If the inverters are set to off and the gen or shore power are enabled, will it charge the house batteries?
If the inverters are set to off and you are driving the coach and if the gen is off, will the chassis alternators charge the house batteries?
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16 Replies
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I’ve had installed a magnum inverter/charger and remote control inside electric panel in my 1991.withih the last year. The old one shorted out and fried battery bank. It was automatic and would charge batteries when needed when plugged to AC. Mine is a simple set up but you have to push a button to turn on inverter. It also has a battery button also but I leave that on so when plugged in to shore power it’s charging batteries. Your vanners are supposed to charge house batteries off engine alternator when going down rode. Or at least that’s the way mine is supposed to work.
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Wow…
I would like the answer to that one… I do however have a question… why would you turn the inverters off ?
Or are you just curious like I am now?
The house batteries do charge when going down the road when the inverters are on but not sure what happens when they are off…. the inverters pretty well control everything.
Ben Cummings would know that answer for sure.
Diane
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2 reasons why I asked.
1st just to know, knowledge is power…
2nd I am have my phase 1 inverter acting up a little and I have turned it off, until I get the issue resolved.
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Diane when I cut power to house batteries (turn battery master switch to off) for whatever reason, Inverter shuts down automaticly on mine. Usually leave inverter/battery on.
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Greg… Have you reset your inverter on the actual inverter itself? I don’t mean on the screen inside the power panel but on the actual inverter? That might clear up any problems you are having.. Do you have the Trace 4024 inverters?
Diane -
Greg,
Here is a way to get the answer. I won’t try to answer the question except to tell you how it works on my coaches. Yours may be different.
On my coach and I presume yours, anytime the engine is running and the alternator is charging, my house batteries are also being charged. If I am connected to shore power or the generator is running and I have power to my inverters and they are turned on my batteries are being charged. Even if I turn off power to one of my inverters, the remaining one is still charging the batteries.
Heres how you can answer your own question.
Measure your battery’s voltage with the engine off and shore and generator power also off. Depending on whether your coach is 12 or 24 volts you should read around 12.7 or 25.4 on fully charged batteries.
Start your engine. You should read around 13.5 or 27 or there about indicating the alternator is charging the house. It doesn’t matter if you have one or two alternators. At least one should be charging the house.
Turn off the engine and let the coach rest a few minutes to disperse the surface charge on the batteries. Then turn on shore or generator power and measure the battery voltage again. You can turn inverters on or off and should see the voltages drop or rise depending on whether you have the inverter(s) on or off.
If you don’t have a multi-tester now is a good time to get one. They are cheap and very valuable for doing a lot of things for checking your coach and the operation of various devices.
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thanks Jon, I will give that a try.
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Diane,
I always set my inverters to off when the coach is stored. I plug it in and have the batteries charging and do not want the inverters to kick in and kill the batteries if commercial power is lost while it’s in storage.
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Gil…
I certainly understand that while in storage… Ours has never been stored we use it almost every weekend.. at least 3 weekends a month and the weekend we are not using it I am in and out daily checking it out… Poor bus never gets to rest alone !!
Diane
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Mine are never turned off, fridge is always on and the inverters shut down if the batteries get too low. If there is a shore power interruption, I can depend on the inverters to keep the fridge running. Of course mine is at home in the bus barn, so if it was stored off site, I would leave the inverter/chargers on and turn off the fridge. Don’t forget to disable the auto-start!
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Tom, the battery man can afford to deep cycle his batteries 😉 Tom, you can probably lose power for 2-3 days and still keep the refrigerator cool to cold without power to it.
I suscribe to the if it’s not needed don’t needlessly exercise it. Even needing to keep my refrigerator on for a 3.5 day ferry ride, I only turned on one inverter leaving the other off.
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Not so big boy… I shut down the fridge last week when the inverter went south and overnight it was at 58 degree’s and heading warmer.
Use your inverters, that’s what they’re for and I have a deal for you when your ready to junk those batteries!
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with the issue that I was having with my inverter, just had to push in the reset button on inverter..
Larry, thanks for that one…
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Greg…
So glad the reset did it… it has helped me out more than once… those are the things we remember the most… guess its just like restarting the computer when it gets rattled !!
Glad all is well.
PS…. I”ll let Larry take the credit today but only because it’s Father’s Day !!
Cheers, Diane
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sorry Diane, I realized that after I posted, that you provided the help…
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