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Old 09-20-2020, 04:59 AM   #1
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Start Battery Charging

I have a new to me View 24v (and we are new to RVing). Does the starter battery charge while on shore and/or generator power? I know the house batteries charge. Thanks
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Old 09-20-2020, 05:21 AM   #2
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I have a new to me View 24v (and we are new to RVing). Does the starter battery charge while on shore and/or generator power? I know the house batteries charge. Thanks
Generally not. The BIRD solenoid lets the chassis alternator charge the house battery while underway, but not the opposite. It can be easy fixed to charge both ways by using a voltage sensitive relay (VSR) also known as a battery combiner or ACR automatic charging relay.

These are commonly used on boats but work fine for RVs. I installed one on my friend's Class A when the BIRD failed. It has worked great since. Blue Seas makes an ACR and Yanmdina makes a VSR. The difference is the first is electronically controlled, the second is a simple relay one.

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Old 09-20-2020, 06:44 AM   #3
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What year is your 24V?
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Old 09-20-2020, 06:52 AM   #4
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For ordinary cars and trucks I'm reluctant to charge the battery while still connected. Call me old school, but I don't want the charger affecting the charging system or other components. I think modern systems are designed to be charged, but I still don't do it.

But I would have to ask why someone would want this change? I could see it might be useful during storage to keep the batteries up, but if your vehicle is sitting long term there's other things you probably should be doing in addition to removing the batteries to maintain them. And other than sitting long term I'm just not seeing the need to recharge the "starter" battery, other than by driving.
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Old 09-20-2020, 07:21 AM   #5
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One of the Trik-l-start line is a good option.
Ultra TRIK-L-START Starting Battery Charger/Maintainer
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Old 09-20-2020, 07:53 AM   #6
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For ordinary cars and trucks I'm reluctant to charge the battery while still connected. Call me old school, but I don't want the charger affecting the charging system or other components. I think modern systems are designed to be charged, but I still don't do it.

But I would have to ask why someone would want this change? I could see it might be useful during storage to keep the batteries up, but if your vehicle is sitting long term there's other things you probably should be doing in addition to removing the batteries to maintain them. And other than sitting long term I'm just not seeing the need to recharge the "starter" battery, other than by driving.
Not everyone lives in a place where the climate allows for regular driving, particularly in northern areas where snow and ice and road salt are a motorhome's nemesis. I agree that you have to exercise them regularly, but I often get trapped in my driveway for weeks at a time because of the weather, and rely on a simple portable battery maintainer, plugged into one of my inverter fed 110VAC outlets, and then plugged into the 12VDC outlet located below the pull out ash tray/cup holde at the centre of the dash that's "always hot" from the chassis battery. Works for me, and even if not plugged into shore power, the rooftop solar and lithium batteries keep this system up and running automatically. So far, so good, for my purposes. I could disconnect the chassis battery at the accelerator pedal disconnect, but that requires a controlled orderly shutdown of the electronic "brains", and I'm always a little leery of doing that, not knowing what it will do when it's reconnected.
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Old 09-20-2020, 08:07 AM   #7
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I think I acknowledged that sitting long term would be a situation where being able to charge from AC would help. I wasn't objecting to having a trickle charger connected during long periods of sitting. But what I was leaving to implication was I don't think you'd want 120 volts charging every battery every time you connected. Coach batteries sure, because those run down and the alternator may not fully charge them while travelling. There's a clear need for that! But not chassis batteries.

Part of what I'm thinking is the quality of park power. Yes the prudent owner will check it out prior to connecting, but that's not to say that things won't change while connected. While bad park power is more likely to damage 120 volt devices like the Air-conditioning unit than to the 12 volt system, but why risk taking down your entire RV every time you connect?

I have a trailer rather than a motorhome and I always disconnect the plug to the trailer when camping. If there's no power it's so I don't run down the truck's battery. If there is power it's so I don't adversely affect the truck somehow. Either way I don't want to be stranded. I like having the systems separate.
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Old 09-20-2020, 08:16 AM   #8
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All TVs have a relay that disconnects power to the trailer connector when the engine is shut down. There is no concern about running down the TVs battery if left connected. I do it all of the time.

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Old 09-20-2020, 08:31 AM   #9
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All TVs have a relay that disconnects power to the trailer connector when the engine is shut down. There is no concern about running down the TVs battery if left connected. I do it all of the time.

David
Wrong. My GM truck has power with the key off. Maybe it will shut off after a time, as is the case with leaving the dome light on, but it is clearly on after engine shut down.
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Old 09-20-2020, 09:15 AM   #10
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I suspect the relay is stuck.

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Old 09-20-2020, 09:49 AM   #11
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I think I acknowledged that sitting long term would be a situation where being able to charge from AC would help. I wasn't objecting to having a trickle charger connected during long periods of sitting. But what I was leaving to implication was I don't think you'd want 120 volts charging every battery every time you connected. Coach batteries sure, because those run down and the alternator may not fully charge them while travelling. There's a clear need for that! But not chassis batteries.
Many motorhomes seem to have a problem with dead chassis batteries when left sitting, sometimes only for a few weeks, because of the vampire draws they experience, when their chassis batteries are not disconnected. Do a search on it, you'll get many hits. We get at least one newbie a week on all these fourms inquiring about whether plugging in to shore power charges all the batteries, and the answer is almost always categorically "no", only the coach batteries get charged by shore power via the converter/charger. Since I prefer not to disconnect/remove the chassis battery (it's under a floor panel in front of the driver's seat and awkward to get in and out, it's a heavy 100Ah AGM) when not able to move the Navion for more than a week or two, due in part to my concerns about removing power from the various MB on board electronic management systems, and since I have a workable system to keep all the batteries charged, with or without shore power, I use it. I agree, I don't want to go out for an exercising drive one day after the weather clears, and the roads are dry, only to be stymied by a dead chassis battery. Like you, just my personal preference.

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Part of what I'm thinking is the quality of park power. Yes the prudent owner will check it out prior to connecting, but that's not to say that things won't change while connected. While bad park power is more likely to damage 120 volt devices like the Air-conditioning unit than to the 12 volt system, but why risk taking down your entire RV every time you connect?
I have a good quality EMS system (PI EMS-PT30X) to handle bad shore power, and my inverter is a Sensata Magnum 1000W PSW model, so the power quality should be good in all cases. Not one of my regular worries.
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I have a trailer rather than a motorhome and I always disconnect the plug to the trailer when camping. If there's no power it's so I don't run down the truck's battery. If there is power it's so I don't adversely affect the truck somehow. Either way I don't want to be stranded. I like having the systems separate.
As you wish. I agree on doing what you're comfortable with, and not adversely affecting your truck's electronics, and that's why I don't remove my batteries when the motorhome is going to sit idle for a while. Just my personal preference.
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Old 09-20-2020, 10:04 AM   #12
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While my roof top solar kept my house batteries up, I hated to see the voltage on the chassis battery drop over time so I installed (easy) a Trik-L- Start and now chassis battery remains safely charged while the Winnebago Fuse sits for long periods.
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Old 09-20-2020, 10:21 AM   #13
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Many motorhomes seem to have a problem with dead chassis batteries when left sitting, sometimes only for a few weeks, because of the vampire draws they experience, when their chassis batteries are not disconnected. Do a search on it, you'll get many hits.:
I think it's all newer vehicles--Covid-19 exposed that. Lots of people had low battery issues after not driving for a few weeks. Our daughter's 2005 Rav4 did not.

My truck for example communicates with GM while sitting. I once learned of a slow tire leak by email roughly 20 hours after parking. So that means the systems are still monitoring tire pressure and communicating to GM. Not sure what all else my truck is up to when shut off, but the battery did seem to get somewhat low just sitting maybe two weeks.
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Old 09-20-2020, 10:29 AM   #14
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I suspect the relay is stuck.

David
Not unless it's stuck on a ton of vehicles. Here only one person indicated it was switched and one hypothesized that it might shut off with low voltage, but there's nothing about that in the manual (which does mention turning off interior and exterior lights after 10 minutes to protect the battery.)

https://www.coloradofans.com/threads...ys-hot.284794/

BTW, another reason I disconnect is my truck's batteries are AGM and my trailer normal flooded cell.
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Old 09-20-2020, 11:14 AM   #15
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As far as I know all newer vehicles that have electronic ignition items like PCM, TCM, etc. will shut down power after set amount of time. Most people do not know it because they are not looking and assume it is always on, but if you listen carefully as you open a door, you can hear the electronics come back to life. But it is not as simple as just shutting ALL of it off as there are so many things that we want left on, like door locks and the things that react to the key fob being nearby.
It's not mentioned in manuals but then we could write several books about the things not explained in the manuals!
One of the big complications we will see more and more is how to deal with towing vehicles with electronic transmissions. Currently I am only finding two lightweight toads to consider!
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Old 09-20-2020, 11:21 AM   #16
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As far as I know all newer vehicles that have electronic ignition items like PCM, TCM, etc. will shut down power after set amount of time.
Some things shut down, but not everything. One obvious thing that doesn't shut down is an alarm system. If it did, that would be a pretty big defect!

But yeah, when I open my truck door lots of things happen. Dash lights will even come on. That doesn't mean the trailer power connector is shut off.
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Old 09-20-2020, 11:58 AM   #17
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It's not mentioned in manuals but then we could write several books about the things not explained in the manuals!
I like that, writing a manual about all of the things not in the manuals...

On a side note, if we sit for over a week somewhere, I’ll notice the Victron monitor telling me the starter battery is getting low. Now, I have it switched for the dash Entertinment system to run off of the coach batts, but there’s still some draw.

So every once in awhile I just turn on the engine key, to the first position, not enough to turn power the dash, but that connects my starter battery to the converter/charger and it replenishes the started batts.
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Old 09-20-2020, 12:01 PM   #18
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On the Sprinters, Mother Benz suggests shutting off the ignition and removing the keys for at least 10 minutes, before disconnecting the chassis battery at the accelerator pedal. That's the part that bothers me, about disconnecting and removing the batteries for storage on my unit. At least 10 minutes or what happens? What if it takes longer than 10 minutes for the orderly shutdown? I was an I/T hands on guy for over 30 years, and I know how things with electronic brains can get messed up by powering them off too soon, even though that's what most call centers will tell you to do when your computer is down (reboot or do a power off/on reset). It (usually) works, but not always.
Just do whatever floats your boat, if it works.
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Old 09-20-2020, 12:50 PM   #19
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I'm currently quite sensitive to some of what does happen when things don't go as planned as I "think" I have finally gotten a bad case of it solved.
I have the 2014 Focus and it has been to three different Ford shops under an extended warranty for repair of an intermit no crank problem. If it had been shut down for 8-10 hours it would not start when the key was turned the first time, but would on second or up to 15 tries!It cranked and started fine if you did it every four hours or less! It never actually failed to start but did give lots of heartburn when it took lots of attempts to crank. It always started fine once cranking but you just never knew how many tries to crank it might take. First garage, after third trip, decided the battery was going down and wanted to install a new one without having looked to see I had put a new one in before going to them, nor did they load test, etc. so we moved to a different shop.
Second shop worked hard on several different trips, thought they had found a cure as a bad ground but that only lasted 8 days and then Covid put us down and we just lived with it for a few weeks until the transmission totally failed and we had it towed to the nearest Ford dealer. Four trips and about two weeks and they disconnected the battery cutoff system and solenoid and said we needed to have it checked as there was "something" draining the battery,so that the PCM (power control module) was not getting the correct answers. So far they had changed the TCM several times, the transmission (part off the TCM went down the gears), starter, fuel pump, fuel injector pressure regulator, ( all under extended warranty) and it still was not right!
But it did work right for the last three days with the cutoff solenoid, RVI brake, and other wiring for towing disconnected! So I started the search!
There was one set of two wires which would not move when I pulled on it, so I started taking parts off to see why. Pulled the air filter, filter housing, battery, battery box and finally find the wires when installed were sandwiched between the bottom of the battery box and the metal support! Apparently it took about two years to wear and press hard enough to leak just enough voltage to not let the electronic brain work but not enough to stop it from cranking, once the brain got the right inputs from all the sensors!
I put it all back together this morning and hope it works tomorrow!
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:32 PM   #20
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I'm currently quite sensitive to some of what does happen when things don't go as planned as I "think" I have finally gotten a bad case of it solved.
I have the 2014 Focus and it has been to three different Ford shops under an extended warranty for repair of an intermit no crank problem. If it had been shut down for 8-10 hours it would not start when the key was turned the first time, but would on second or up to 15 tries!It cranked and started fine if you did it every four hours or less! It never actually failed to start but did give lots of heartburn when it took lots of attempts to crank. It always started fine once cranking but you just never knew how many tries to crank it might take. First garage, after third trip, decided the battery was going down and wanted to install a new one without having looked to see I had put a new one in before going to them, nor did they load test, etc. so we moved to a different shop.
Second shop worked hard on several different trips, thought they had found a cure as a bad ground but that only lasted 8 days and then Covid put us down and we just lived with it for a few weeks until the transmission totally failed and we had it towed to the nearest Ford dealer. Four trips and about two weeks and they disconnected the battery cutoff system and solenoid and said we needed to have it checked as there was "something" draining the battery,so that the PCM (power control module) was not getting the correct answers. So far they had changed the TCM several times, the transmission (part off the TCM went down the gears), starter, fuel pump, fuel injector pressure regulator, ( all under extended warranty) and it still was not right!
But it did work right for the last three days with the cutoff solenoid, RVI brake, and other wiring for towing disconnected! So I started the search!
There was one set of two wires which would not move when I pulled on it, so I started taking parts off to see why. Pulled the air filter, filter housing, battery, battery box and finally find the wires when installed were sandwiched between the bottom of the battery box and the metal support! Apparently it took about two years to wear and press hard enough to leak just enough voltage to not let the electronic brain work but not enough to stop it from cranking, once the brain got the right inputs from all the sensors!
I put it all back together this morning and hope it works tomorrow!
Probably not likely to help, but there were several lawsuits against Ford by unhappy Focus owners. Sounds like you found the problem yourself.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-201...you-could-buy/
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