Camper Radio runnung off Chassis Battery?

[68camaro]

Moved here from previous thread:

I just discovered my camper (living quarters) Kenwood radio only runs off of the engine battery and not the camper batteries, is this normal? This is probably the parasitic load that caused me to put a kill switch on my engine battery. My TV works off the camper batteries and pulls 4.0ah or 48wh, but for some reason the radio is tied into the engine battery, not sure why this makes sense.

You may want to start a separate thread...
Anyway, for the radio, if the Kenwood is part of the chassis, then it would make perfect sense to run it off the chassis battery. You maybe able to rewire it to run on which ever source you like, but the radio has been the culprit for many who discovered to be the one that drained the chassis battery and need to jump start the engine or use BOOST button.

Did Chinook install the camper radio to run off the engine battery but leave the TV on the camper battery bank? Or do you think this was owner change for some odd reason.

Either way the BOOST button saved my bacon several times, but now that I have the DC/DC converter I may have lost BOOST functionality.

[BobW9]

As I first discovered back in 2013, and others have confirmed in some of their Chinooks, the radio in the coach, at least for some of us, has dual connections, to coach and chassis. I would guess this was probably done so the radio only turns on and runs when the coach is active (the store switch is off), but will keep the radio station presets during storage. That is the trickle that slowly drains the chassis battery. Maybe it was mostly/only the Concourses, and the assumption was that for such a small RV, owners might be using them about town, rather than putting them in long-term storage? Beats me.

I moved the radio's connection to the chassis to the wire for the coach, and just lose the station presets if the RV is in Store. Well, I did, before I finally removed my radio entirely to make room for using that area as a cubby for my desktop Intel NUC computer and various external drives and scanner. If I want music, I tend to prefer Antenne Bayern over the Internet (it's a German website that has what I consider the best playlists of any station I've ever found - I don't speak German, but it isn't hard to figure out the playlists, and they tend to play without much talk).

[68camaro]

As I first discovered back in 2013, and others have confirmed in some of their Chinooks, the radio in the coach, at least for some of us, has dual connections, to coach and chassis.

That is the trickle that slowly drains the chassis battery. Maybe it was mostly/only the Concourses, and the assumption was that for such a small RV, owners might be using them about town, rather than putting them in long-term storage?

Thanks, I just discovered this tonight. The coach radio will only turn on when engine battery is on (not disconnected). This makes no sense to me and and you point out is probably the dreaded parasitic load that has been draining my engine battery. The Kenwood radio is 45 watts, 3.75ah, so I can see battery getting drained down between trips pretty easy. My simple solution was to disconnect power to radio since I never used it anyway.

I think coach speakers may run off engine battery also since I did not notice any increase in battery bank draw with radio and speakers on, unless the radio and TV power the speakers themselves. Also, the TV only uses the two coach rear back speakers but the radio uses all four coach speakers. Again odd setup.

For now I'll continue with my ipad connected to Bose mini speakers. It actually sounds real good in small coach space, I'll tackle radio down the road.

[SMan]

I have my coach radio (Double Din AM/FM CD/DVD) wired to the old VCR (coach) power wire. I also installed a rocker on/off switch next to it. I made a post of it a few years back. Like the ignition it requires being shut off but has never been an issue and for me has worked great.

IMO any draw over 20-30 milliamps is worth tracking down.

[caconcourse]

As others have noted, the original radio had power from both the truck and the coach batteries, presumably so the radio settings were preserved while in the STORE position. I rewired my radio to use only the coach batteries. I think I just spliced the coach power wire to feed both power inputs to the radio. If your radio needs more power, you can repurpose or splice into the old VHS power wire for the second power input.

However, I found the radio power wire from the truck to be in the perfect position to connect to my new dual-output solar controller, so the solar can charge my truck battery as well as the coach batteries. This solar controller from Go-Power has dual charging outputs and can be programmed for lithium and/or lead-acid battery charging, and it fits in the original solar controller opening: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007K ... UTF8&psc=1

In the Chinook factory configuration, the battery isolator allows the solar panel to charge the truck battery while it is connected to the coach batteries. When I upgraded to lithium's and removed the isolator and added the DC-DC converter, I lost the ability to charge the truck battery from solar. The new solar controller has dual outputs, so the primary output is set for the lithium's and I set the secondary output to lead-acid for charging the truck battery. I used that old radio power wire (yellow wire) to connect to the secondary output to get to the truck battery. Since it is an "always on" 12V wire, it can be used to charge the truck battery.

Since I installed the new solar controller, I have kept both battery sets fully charged in my driveway, which was an important feature for me. The Go-Power solar controller was designed to deal with this exact configuration.

[68camaro]

I have my coach radio (Double Din AM/FM CD/DVD) wired to the old VCR (coach) power wire. I also installed a rocker on/off switch next to it. I made a post of it a few years back. Like the ignition it requires being shut off but has never been an issue and for me has worked great.

IMO any draw over 20-30 milliamps is worth tracking down.

As others have noted, the original radio had power from both the truck and the coach batteries, presumably so the radio settings were preserved while in the STORE position. I rewired my radio to use only the coach batteries. I think I just spliced the coach power wire to feed both power inputs to the radio. If your radio needs more power, you can repurpose or splice into the old VHS power wire for the second power input.

However, I found the radio power wire from the truck to be in the perfect position to connect to my new dual-output solar controller, so the solar can charge my truck battery as well as the coach batteries. This solar controller from Go-Power has dual charging outputs and can be programmed for lithium and/or lead-acid battery charging, and it fits in the original solar controller opening: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007K ... UTF8&psc=1

In the Chinook factory configuration, the battery isolator allows the solar panel to charge the truck battery while it is connected to the coach batteries. When I upgraded to lithium's and removed the isolator and added the DC-DC converter, I lost the ability to charge the truck battery from solar. The new solar controller has dual outputs, so the primary output is set for the lithium's and I set the secondary output to lead-acid for charging the truck battery. I used that old radio power wire (yellow wire) to connect to the secondary output to get to the truck battery. Since it is an "always on" 12V wire, it can be used to charge the truck battery.

Both of you have good ideas. I will need to rewire the radio to get off engine battery.

caconcourse, I like your solar charger idea, but the only time my rig is in the sun is when driving or making pit spots. This is why I never upgraded/added to solar. My rig only see's sun when driving, 99% of rest of time its under forested canopy. Except for Overland Expo East which I will be at this October.

Two days ago I disconnected the coach radio from its power source and I today when I checked the engine battery it was down to 12.43v, so clearly I have another issue I have to hunt down. Let the fun begin.

[caconcourse]

Two days ago I disconnected the coach radio from its power source and I today when I checked the engine battery it was down to 12.43v, so clearly I have another issue I have to hunt down. Let the fun begin.

A couple of places to check. The truck radio itself has an "always on" input to save station settings, etc. The factory radios (Ford) have a small, expected draw, but an aftermarket radio may draw more.

A second source could be an OBD device, like a Scan Gage or Bluetooth OBD scanner that works with a code reader or Android app like Torque. If you have one of those devices make sure you remove it when the unit is stored, or it can drain the engine battery. I had a Bluetooth OBD reader in my old Mustang that I left plugged in inadvertently and the battery drained within a couple of days.

[68camaro]

A second source could be an OBD device, like a Scan Gage or Bluetooth OBD scanner that works with a code reader or Android app like Torque. If you have one of those devices make sure you remove it when the unit is stored, or it can drain the engine battery. I had a Bluetooth OBD reader in my old Mustang that I left plugged in inadvertently and the battery drained within a couple of days.

Scan Gauge could be culprit, I'll be digging through it this week.

[chin_k]

I think you got the culprit. OBDII port will be on all the time, so a scan gauge will draw down the battery. In fact, I have a OBDII extender with a integrated power switch so that I can cut power to the scan gauge when I am not using it.

[68camaro]

I have a OBDII extender with a integrated power switch so that I can cut power to the scan gauge when I am not using it.

Added to Amazon cart! Thanks.