Most frequent item I see on starting with motorhomes in not what we often think about! It will depend on the way you use or don't use the RV!
We get so used to the way we maintain cars that we often totally ignore the difference in the way we use an RV in many cases.
We expect the car to start every day or so and that keeps the battery alive for a long time. We use them and charge them right back up!
So keep several things in mind until you find out what YOU do with the RV. If you don't drive it every few days and keep those batteries up, they WILL go dead and won't last long! The lower they go and the longer they stay down, the quicker they will die!
Motorhomes are not like trailers as they have three sections/groups of power.
The familiar 110AC from the cord plugged in or the generator running. Chassis 12VDC power like a normal truck has and then the added 12VDC for the RV things like the inside lights, etc.
These all tie together at times and places and are separated at other times, so it get tricky to get the smaller points in mind. If I were a new user. I might start with one of these and find out and even make charts or notes to help when we may need the info a year from now!
It never hurts to have the owners manual as a start and a loose leaf binder for the personal notes!
Under the "owners" tab on the Winnebago home site is one great place to start gathering info:
https://www.winnebago.com/
It is also critical to keep in mind that when being new, we likely DO NOT know about how each set gets used to run down nor how it gets charged!
I'm guessing about 40-50% of new users lose the first set of batteries way too early due to a lack of understanding the small points!
You will need a multimeter for around $30 and some ideas of the basic uses, like checking battery voltages!
You can have the world's best monitor panel that shows you all kinds of wonderful things about the battery status but if that monitor panel is shut down when you turn off a battery disconnect, it will do NOTHING to warn you your battery is going dead!
Knowing little points like the fact that the battery disconnect switch leaves several things like safety item STILL connected can be a deal breaker on the fun part!
We can get the idea that when we plug into power when stored will keep the batteries charged but not know that the chassis battery may or may not be getting charged or we may miss the part that the disconnect switch also disconnects the charge!
It's a deep well but as a warning, I advise looking VERY carefully at what the batteries are doing and especially while stored.
Not to bum the idea and I do like the older ones as easier to keep going but just a heads up on how disappointing it can be if we find we have killed our new battery!
Look, learn, and adapt as needed?
Linear Mode
