2004 Journey interior lights Aux power

[Millerracing]

Hello all,

I just bought a 2004 Journey. I have it plugged into shore power. The interior lights only are working when AUX Power switch on the dash is on. is this correct? I thought once plugged into shore power it switched over automatically?. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much

[Morich]

We can't look at specifics of your RV without knowing WHICH 2004 Journey but in general the inside lights should be working off the coach batteries and they should be charging from the converter when plugged into power.
When they work when the Aux switch is on is because coach batteries are connected to the chassis battery!

Danger here!
It is common for the chassis battery to not be charged from the shore power cord, so if it is used to power the RV while camped, there is a high possibility both the chassis and coach batteries may be run down with no quick way to start the RV!
Other RV only have the momentary switch to help avoid running both sets down!

[emiddleb]

First guess... your battery disconnect switch is turned off. Often called the salesman switch (dash right of gauges.) This turns off the 12v house stuff (lights etc) but also turns off the charging of your house batteries. When you press the Aux battery switch (dash left of gauges), which should be a momentary switch, you are bridging to the engine batteries. Second guess... your house batteries are drained, perhaps due to the salesman switch being off and not charging your house batteries. A symptom of this would be that, while on shore power, your AC appliances (TV, microwave, power plugs) all work but the DC stuff (ceiling lights, vent fans) do not because the inverter does a pass-through on the AC power regardless of the salesman switch.

While unplugged, no gen, no engine, check your battery display on your One Place monitor and see what it's saying about your battery status.

[cbeierl]

On the 2004 Journey the 'Aux Battery Switch' IS the 'Salesman Switch' or House Battery Cuttoff switch (see attached image from the 2004 Journey Operator Manual), not to be confused with the 'Battery Boost Switch', which connects the House and Chassis batteries together.

So with the Aux Battery Switch OFF (almost) everything 12V in the coach will be off, including all of the interior lights, which are 12V DC

[Morich]

This sounds like the true answer! Once again tripped up by lack of info and the way Winnebago changes the names every time we turn around!

Bigger point may be that newer users really do need to look at the manuals as things in the new RV are quite likely to be different than any they have used before!
Knowing what each of the switches does will be a minimum standard to getting good use out of the RV!
It's very easy to ruin the first set of batteries if there is not a good understanding of what the electronics are doing when stored or when plugged into power!

[emiddleb]

Originally Posted by Morich

This sounds like the true answer! Once again tripped up by lack of info and the way Winnebago changes the names every time we turn around!

Agreed. When I first got my Vectra I found the term "Aux Batteries" to be confusing... Aux to what? They are the primary house batteries. I tend to think of them as "House" batteries for the living area and "Engine" batteries that start the motor. Not sure if "Aux" is a Winnebago term or industry-wide, but do think they could make it simpler for new owners.

OP: your last line in your original post... yes, there is an automatic switching of power you heard/read about, but that is something called an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS). This has more to do with 120v switching between shore power and running your generator, not the 12v system. Some models of RVs require the owner to manually unplug the shore power cable and plug in a power cable from the generator when switching power. You don't have to worry about this. Both your shore power and your gen are connected to a box which will automatically switch when needed, no swapping of cables required.

[Morich]

There are so many different ways for the RV to work as well as so many ways for different people to describe the problem!
Without knowing more from the OP, it will be hard to guess exactly what form of switching they were expecting?
Were they speaking of switching the incoming 110AC power? I was assuming they meant the inside lighting would switch from the battery power to the newly connected 110 AC power from the cord??

I may have been too harsh in thinking they were confused about the lights and how they might switch.
I think many new users are confused but the idea that this poster is new may also be jumping too far!
We really need more info, both on what they expected and why as well as how much they might know versus any confusion involved.

Dealing with the forum, one thing is pretty obvious to me. Confusion is easy to find and it's not always by the new user!
I get into confusion on different questions a lot and it has reached the point where it doesn't even surprise me!