Need some schooling… stranded on side of road

[KRedburn]

Originally Posted by Orangecrush

Can you be more specific? 😂

Can I jump it?

Looking closely at your picture it appears you have no power to the BIRD unit.
There should be a green led lit up on it.

Check the inline fuse that is buried in that cable mess on the electrical bay floor.
May be blown.
This fuse is also on the sense line for the AGS unit which should have a red LED lit.

If you have a meter. Check both sides of the large solenoid heavy cables to ground. Both should have battery voltage there. 1 side is coach other is chassis.

With the generator running you should have charging voltages on those cables.

Hopefully you will have something better than 12volts on at least one side.

While genset is running hold the Boost button and try to start the truck engine. Again hope this starts. If so get to a repair shop or home.

If not, might have to call mobile services.

Good luck.


Ken

[DavidMort]

Not sure which inverter/charger you have but does it show AC power on the panel? It may be that the transfer switch (lower right) in you picture is not switching the generator power in to the inverter/charger so it cannot charge the battery. They have failed on a few units.

[MR.M]

Originally Posted by Orangecrush

I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. I am trying to jump the charging solenoid that the generator charges the house batteries. It seems the house battery will not charge by the generator as after three hours of charging, it’s still at 10.6 V.

Same thing ! to low of voltage and it won't work so you can jump the leads but you'll still have low voltage until it charges the battery . then i'll bet the solenoid will start to work again .

[DavidMort]

Just a thought: If you have a toad with you you can jump the chassis to get it started. Make sure the boost is not engaged when you jump it. After the truck starts it will charge the house batteries if the the solenoid system is working. Chassis doesn't care how low the voltage is on the batteries it is charging. If solenoid is not working you can use the boost to provide a charging path to the house batteries. Not sure if the boost is fused; if it is it might blow the fuse. If it does blow the fuse and the solenoid doesn't work you can jumper over the solenoid to charge the house batteries.

[Orangecrush]

Originally Posted by van_fl

The best thing you could do is get the coach running. Get it charging the truck battery’s. Then check out the overall problem.

Update:

So I waited for goodsam for a couple of hours. Even though the coach batteries did not show over 10.7, hours flipped the switch to cut off the chassis battery and let it run for a bit. I know I said the generator wasn’t charging the batteries but the chassis batteries did go from 9.3 to 11.0.

I took a chance, used the battery. Post button and by the grace of god, the truck reluctantly started. It wasn’t a matter of two minutes that the coach batteries were in the 14 bolt range again.

Now that I have shore power and the truck is running, now I can start some testing.

Thank you all for your helpful advice.

Mark

[flyflotrtim]

Originally Posted by van_fl

The best thing you could do is get the coach running. Get it charging the truck battery’s. Then check out the overall problem.

2X get someone to give you a jump to get the coach running. As flybob said, it will take a long time to recharge from the generator. Your batteries may be severely damaged, consider replacing

[camaraderie]

Originally Posted by Orangecrush

Update:


I took a chance, used the battery. Post button and by the grace of god, the truck reluctantly started. It wasn’t a matter of two minutes that the coach batteries were in the 14 volt range again.

Mark..pls. understand that your chassis battery and house was NOT in the 14 volt range in a matter of minutes....your ALTERNATOR was supplying over 14 volts to a battery bank that was still critically low and likely badly damaged for future deep cycle use. Treating them like they are fully charged should not be attempted until you've had them on a charger all day. Then you should have someone load test them to get an accurate picture. Autozone, and the like can do load testing for you.

[KRedburn]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Mark..pls. understand that your chassis battery and house was NOT in the 14 volt range in a matter of minutes....your ALTERNATOR was supplying over 14 volts to a battery bank that was still critically low and likely badly damaged for future deep cycle use. Treating them like they are fully charged should not be attempted until you've had them on a charger all day. Then you should have someone load test them to get an accurate picture. Autozone, and the like can do load testing for you.

X2

[vlamgat]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Mark..pls. understand that your chassis battery and house was NOT in the 14 volt range in a matter of minutes....your ALTERNATOR was supplying over 14 volts to a battery bank that was still critically low and likely badly damaged for future deep cycle use. Treating them like they are fully charged should not be attempted until you've had them on a charger all day. Then you should have someone load test them to get an accurate picture. Autozone, and the like can do load testing for you.

X3. LA/AGM Batteries also do not recharge linearly. They start very slow, speed up and then slow down such that getting from 80 to 100% can take days after being discharged below 10V. I have an aircraft battery shop so lets not go down the how I know that.

I will also say for the record, that I cannot make sense of the recovery description. Something has been left out.

[GTinsman]

You need to turn the search mode off for the system to work correctly,Xantrax yes?

[Orangecrush]

Originally Posted by GTinsman

You need to turn the search mode off for the system to work correctly,Xantrax yes?

Good catch. I noticed this last weekend that I must have turned on the search mode. I realized it and turned it off. Not sure how much of a difference it makes but it appears everything is working correctly.

Now that everything is back to normal, I need to start some testing to see why the AGS kicked on twice during the night and then the batteries died.

My thought on this is I had LED under chassis lights on and it drained the chassis battery this leaving no voltage for the generator to kick on.

Maybe someone can explain to me something. When the AFS turns on, does it start off the chassis batteries? If so, that would explain why the generator would t start.

Just trying to get a grasp on where to start.


Thanks for everyone’s help.


Mark