Looking for a pre 1997 Chinook concourse Owner

[Blue~Go]

Would that Walmart link be a suitable battery for my house battery?

I think so. I mean, is it the world's best deep cycle house battery? No. But it is at least in theory a quasi-deep cycle marine type battery, it's easy to get, it has a one-year warranty, and you can get another one easily pretty much anywhere (Wal-marts are all over the place). A friend needed to do a "cheap and cheerful" replacement of two house batteries on his boat, and used these.

At one point I wasn't sure I was going to get my charging system up to snuff in time to put in my AGM's, and my alternative was to buy a new "economical" battery to tide me over - I would likely have bought one of these. As it turned out I went another way and instead put in what I needed so that I could charge the AGM's properly.

Also, I checked my voltage at both the house battery and the start battery and they both read at around 11.8 volts

Well ugh, that's basically dead. Possibly revivable, but no way should you be just sitting at 11.8, especially if you had previously been plugged in.

...but the 12 volt system was not working (unplugged from a/c. I still wonder if those disconnected wires are having a negative effect on the house battery not supporting the 12 system. After all, it is a non functioning battery disconnect switch.

Right, mystery time again. Soooo....

Here is a question: If everything is "off," and you are not plugged in, can you measure any amp draw on either your start or house battery? Even if both do, it may be separate problems.

So.... both batteries are low. Questions:

1) Are they getting a charge when they are supposed to or are they not getting a charge?

2) Are they getting a charge but then something parasitic is draining them?

3) Or is it a combination of both?

4) House and start may not have the same scenario either.

You probably can't go wrong in getting a new house battery, as few used RV's I've seen come with healthy new house batteries (and if they did, usually you will have been told about it), and it will eliminate a variable. But then too, you want to figure out if there is any additional problem because why kill a new battery.

I'd be out there with a meter and a clipboard (I imagine you will be too).

Keep us posted! I bet I'm not the only one following along and curious as to your progress.

[Blue~Go]

PS: One handy side benefit to the Wal-Mart battery I linked to is that it has both automotive and marine posts. I prefer the marine posts because you can mount Blue Sea MRBFs to them (fuses) and/or crimped lug terminals.

I used "converters" to change my Odyssey Group 65 AGM start battery over to marine posts, because it only came with automotive style terminals (but even nicer to have both). The Lifeline AGM's I have for the house battery bank come with exclusively marine posts.

The automotive post is the typical big, non-threaded "Frankenstein" lug that you put a clamp around. Marine posts are basically just threaded male studs, so you can put ring terminals, MBRF's, etc. on them and then a lockwasher and nut, and torque them properly.

You can put more than one lug onto a marine post, so that's why I "converted" the automotive terminals on my start battery. I have three things on the positive post: Two are factory Ford wires, and the third is a fuse terminal (MRBF) on which sits the lug of the wire that connects to the house battery. Originally those three cables PLUS the generator start were all crammed onto one automotive post, and it was not pretty (but I have since moved the generator start to the house bank as in later models, as it halves the length of the wire run in my setup). The lugs of the generator start and house cables were nearly punched through and not making contact, because the automotive terminal really wasn't meant to house so many lugs.

[caconcourse]

Would that Walmart link be a suitable battery for my house battery?
Also, I checked my voltage at both the house battery and the start battery and they both read at around 11.8 volts, but the 12 volt system was not working (unplugged from a/c. I still wonder if those disconnected wires are having a negative effect on the house battery not supporting the 12 system. After all, it is a non functioning battery disconnect switch.

It almost sounds like you are in permanent "Battery disconnect" mode, like the switch (unwired or mis-wired) is in the disconnect state. It seems reasonable the AC could power the 12V without the battery in that situation. You could disconnect your house battery and see if the 12v still works with AC. If that is the case, your house battery is probably just not connected to your 12V system at all.

clay

[kyidletime]

Thanks BG and Clay, I'm going to do as you suggested and disconnect the house battery and see what I have. It just sticks in my mind that the lack of a connection at the missing battery disconnect switch could contribute to the problem. However, I'm still going to have the battery bench tested, but I'll most likely get a new battery, maybe next spring, No sense having it set through a cold winter.
I still need to figure out which wires would be connected to the battery disconnect switch though. I'm reasonably sure that the yellow wire that runs directly to the positive post of the house battery, and the purple to orange wire that goes to one of the solenoids under the hood, are two of the wires that should be connected, I'm not sure which wire should be connected to the third post, maybe a whit ground wire?

Oh well, this is giving me something to do, and I do enjoy tinkering. Y'all have a great day!

[Manitou]

1 more pro for the AGM's Blue missed. Outside air temp resistant. "Resistant" isn't the right word though.. not sure what is. Basically they handle freezing temps better (does it get below 32 where you live?). I'm unsure if they handle heat better, but that would be a pretty big pro if they do (since you're sharing space with the engine.. another reason I'll research my starter battery replacement.
If I recall, an AGM is not quiet twice as much as lead acid. LiPro 4X(?)
I'm obviously bias, but like electric cars.. I hope battery tech is adopted and accepted, even if it does cost more upfront.

[Blue~Go]

I didn't know AGM's were more cold weather tolerant. I also wonder how much colder it could get than, say, -20 Fº on a regular basis. Where I used to work it got that cold many times (northern winter), and we left flooded cell batteries on the boats outside all winter. The only caveat was that they be fully charged at the start of the winter (otherwise freezing is a problem).

We did winterize water and engine systems with -100 anti-freeze, plus blow out the water system, so we weren't just being slack.

I'll have to do a bit of research on this though, thanks for mentioning it. Do you have a particular link? (Otherwise I'll just Google a bit.)

PS: Just in thinking about it, maybe the issue is that a badly discharged AGM battery will stand up to cold better? (A flooded cell battery is vulnerable to cold when it's badly discharged.) In that case, I'd say better battery management would be a good thing. It's not great for AGM's (or any battery) to get completely discharged. Okay, off to learn more...

[Blue~Go]

Oh, by the way, on the switch with three terminals. That means it's "single pole double throw" vs. "single pole single throw" which would have two terminals. But you can still use it - you just only hook up to two of the terminals and ignore the third one.

Here's the difference:

1) The SPST just "breaks" the connection, simple.

2) The SPDT theoretically always has something on. In one position "thing 1" is on, and in the other position "thing 2" is on. So you could say it just changes the power supplied so either A (thing 1) or B (thing 2) is on.

But if you just only wire up one of the "things" then it's just a normal on/off switch. You just need to know which is the "source" side of the switch, which may be labeled "c" (common). Or you can test. So one of the terminals will stay empty when you are done, if you want to use it as a SPST on/off simple switch.

This is provided that you wanted a single pole, single throw switch.

BTW, I (and buddy) just looked at your manual's diagram again (just happened to catch us at coffee time again ), and I don't see where Chinook shows the wiring for the "house battery to DC loads switch," which is what you are working on. Weird, since they are so good at showing things. Maybe it is the yellow wire that sort of drifts off? If using the dash switch, it should go to some sort of relay, because you can't otherwise use a "little" switch for big loads like that. But it shouldn't be either of the two relays in the main diagram we've been looking at, as they both have other purposes (combine to jump start, and auto combine/dis-combine while driving/camping). What about that "newer looking but with original older Chinook looking brackets" Echlin relay/solenoid looking thing from your photos? I wonder if that is the solenoid for this switch? Can you trace the wires to it? This one:

echlin.jpg (24.06 KiB) Viewed 4046 times

[Manitou]

I didn't know AGM's were more cold weather tolerant. I also wonder how much colder it could get than, say, -20 Fº on a regular basis. Where I used to work it got that cold many times (northern winter), and we left flooded cell batteries on the boats outside all winter. The only caveat was that they be fully charged at the start of the winter (otherwise freezing is a problem).

We did winterize water and engine systems with -100 anti-freeze, plus blow out the water system, so we weren't just being slack.

I'll have to do a bit of research on this though, thanks for mentioning it. Do you have a particular link? (Otherwise I'll just Google a bit.)

PS: Just in thinking about it, maybe the issue is that a badly discharged AGM battery will stand up to cold better? (A flooded cell battery is vulnerable to cold when it's badly discharged.) In that case, I'd say better battery management would be a good thing. It's not great for AGM's (or any battery) to get completely discharged. Okay, off to learn more...

I forget where I read it Blue. Maybe you've found it already. The idea made sense to me from a "gel" vs liquid and freezing. Agree'd full charge battery before storage of any kind is required.

[Manitou]

[url]http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/arti ... at_agm/url]

for what it's worth "stands up to cold weather conditions" under a pro.

[kyidletime]

Interesting! The newer solenoid on my rig has a grey wire connected to it, and the grey wire is also loose at the switches area in the dash, however, the left of my two older solenoids has a purple wire which changes to orange under the dash and is also loose. Like I have said, the loose yellow wire goes to the positive post on the house battery and is hot. The three post switch that I have gotten is a 12v, 20 amp, single throw switch, the posts are labeled as: "supply volts", "on acc", and "earth ground". What are your thought as to which color of loose wires would connect to which posts of the switch. I also have a loose white wire. So, in summary I have yellow, orange, gray, and white wires loose.