It's hard to know what is already installed in the motorhome, but there are isolation relay devices out there that will protect the starter battery from dropping to low in voltage but still allow it to be charged if there is extra power in the coach batteries.

Ray I do have a battery toggle switch on my RV dash that I've never tested. And when Eddie did my solar he discovered that Winnebago already had a BIM in the RV but I still don't know the answer to my question. Maybe I'll just run a test on the battery by leaving it on and testing the voltage now and when I leave Sunday and see what happens. That doesn't really tell me the answer either since I have a new gel battery. Anyway the test will be fun. Thanks for replying.

Lisa

Hi Lisa

We do have a class A and we do have a slow drain on the engine battery which I haven't been able to isolate.

At first I thought it was just the battery. We had just bought our MH so I wasn't sure - as the previous owner said it was a brand new battery. But not only was it not, he also failed to mention the slow draw.

So the first "fix" I did was to run a short piece of wire from my solar charging switch to my engine battery as all the batteries are under the same step, so that was easy and it helped me top up the battery enough to get started. Basically I just switched the solar from the house batteries to the engine battery over night and it fired up fine the next day.

However I still am not able to find the source of the draw, so the second step I did (after I killed my brand new battery) was to get a marine style power cutoff switch and installed it by my starter battery so that I can easily isolate and save the battery. Now when we're parked for more than a few days, once we're parked, level and slide is out, my next step is to turn the switch to disconnect the battery.

Lisa,

We got a Trickle-Start for the rig years ago and it's still doing the job of keeping the chassis battery charged. As long as you are hooked up to shore power or on the generator it takes a small bit of the converters charge from the house to the chassis battery(s). You can check it out here:

Trickle Start

thanks for the reply. I replaced my 3-year-old initial RV starter battery with a gel so I wouldn't have to deal with these issues and I think that might solve the problem and I've been checking the voltage and that doesn't seem to go down more than a tenth of a percent over a week's stay but I think I'm going to take your advice and just turn the chassis battery off the only thing I lose when I do that is the ability to raise and lower my front shade.

Lisa

thanks Drew, a few people have told me about those when I stayed in parks but I've never found one that I thought was cost-effective. I'll check it out thank you!

They are $55.00 (way below the cost of a single battery)...just fyi. I got the price from their own site just now.

Thanks but what site was that?

Here:
Trickle-Start

Thanks!