Battery on or off?

[kb0zke]

The winds are slowly dropping from 45 gusting to 75 down to 25 gusting to 55. So far no power lines down.

Here's where my confusion comes from: For the past 10 years we were fulltiming in our Foretravel motorhome. Electricity worked this way: mains powered some 120 VAC items including the converter. The converter charged the house batteries. Those provided the 12 vdc for all of the 12 volt stuff. I'm ignoring the automotive side of things, since trailers don't have that part. The tech that did the walk-through with us said that we should leave the battery switch OFF unless we were boondocking. The manual seems to support that idea. My question is what does that battery switch actually do? I suppose I could go outside and turn the 50A breaker off with the battery switch also off, and see what, if anything, works. Complicating things is that I have two charging systems - the converter and a solar panel.

[Redapple63]

The winds are slowly dropping from 45 gusting to 75 down to 25 gusting to 55. So far no power lines down.

Here's where my confusion comes from: For the past 10 years we were fulltiming in our Foretravel motorhome. Electricity worked this way: mains powered some 120 VAC items including the converter. The converter charged the house batteries. Those provided the 12 vdc for all of the 12 volt stuff. I'm ignoring the automotive side of things, since trailers don't have that part. The tech that did the walk-through with us said that we should leave the battery switch OFF unless we were boondocking. The manual seems to support that idea. My question is what does that battery switch actually do? I suppose I could go outside and turn the 50A breaker off with the battery switch also off, and see what, if anything, works. Complicating things is that I have two charging systems - the converter and a solar panel.

That makes more sense. The battery switch is a disconnect switch meaning it disconnects it from the system. If it is off the batteries are completely disconnected.

Bill

[kb0zke]

Thanks, Bill. If I understand you correctly, then, when the battery switch is OFF the batteries are completely disconnected from the converter/charger and are only charged by the solar panel. The other side of that is that they are NOT actually powering anything. When the battery switch is ON, the batteries are charged by both the converter/charger and the solar panel. Should power go out, only the 120 VAC appliances would be gone, and all of the 12 vdc stuff would still work normally.

[DougW9876]

Leaving the batteries off unless boondocking is a new one on me. I only ever turn the battery switch off when I don‘t want 12VDC working in the rv when it is parked without shore power or solar available to keep the batteries charged.

[Redapple63]

Thanks, Bill. If I understand you correctly, then, when the battery switch is OFF the batteries are completely disconnected from the converter/charger and are only charged by the solar panel. The other side of that is that they are NOT actually powering anything. When the battery switch is ON, the batteries are charged by both the converter/charger and the solar panel. Should power go out, only the 120 VAC appliances would be gone, and all of the 12 vdc stuff would still work normally.

You are correct. Off is batteries disconnected, meaning it is disconnected from your 12v distribution panel with the exception of trailer brakes, emergency brakes, jacks, hitch jack and slides and maybe smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Pretty much the only time I have ever turned it off is for long term storage with nothing to charge the batteries or if I am working on it. Not sure how your solar is wired but that switch could also lock out the solar charger.

If you go boondocking, it’s totally fine to leave that switch on. It gains you nothing to turn it off.

Bill

[kb0zke]

I turned the battery switch back on this morning. We'll see what, if anything, changes.