Pre-Delivery Inspection

[mefly2]

We rarely drive long /far-enough to even top off our two RV batts ... let alone actually charge them if well down; they charge from the alternator RV line in our diesel truck very slowly. Suggest to consider a generator to provide some power and the 12vDC power cord for recharging your batts.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Teamaron

I have a 2010 interstate and it does charge house batteries or at least provides some sort of power to inverter/panel supply. Also I notice if you check battery test switch during engine running and not running you'll see the volts run about the same 13-14 volts while running and then house volts drop when you shut down.

As the saying goes, "your mileage may vary." When my house batteries were too low to start the generator, the alternator would NOT charge them. I tried it. The unit was only a month old, batteries brand new and not defective (as subsequent events have shown). I belive I know why, that battery isolation relay previously mentioned, that decouples house and chassis systems to prevent both from being depleted at once. I believe if the house batteries were less severely depleted the system would have worked as described in the manual because the isolation relay would not have decoupled the two systems.

The "Check battery test switch" isn't reading battery voltage while the engine is running, it's reading alternator output. You can prove this, if you want, by disconnecting the chassis battery entirely, starting the engine with jumper cables, disconnecting the jumper cables and leaving the engine running (it will still run if the alternator is good), and then going back to your battery test panel. Even with no main battery in the system, it still shows a main battery voltage, which is actually the alternator output.

I recently had to change both the house batteries as I found out they had gone bad through trial and error. And mind you that access by removing rear seat is one design change they should work on.

I learned after that one time that when placing my unit in storage between trips, before disconnecting the house system I recline the sofa part-way, enough to be able to reach the front machine screws, but not so far as to make it hard to reach the bolts holding the rear of the seat. Then if I come back and there's no power, I can still access the battery compartment.

What happened was that each time I tried to start the generator there was never enough power to barely 'kick' it over, but if I had engine running it would have enough power to crank it up and then I could shut engine down.

I will admit it didn't occur to me to try starting the generator after the engine was running. If my house batteries die again (and they haven't in the past seven months) I'll have to try that.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by mefly2

We rarely drive long /far-enough to even top off our two RV batts ... let alone actually charge them if well down; they charge from the alternator RV line in our diesel truck very slowly. Suggest to consider a generator to provide some power and the 12vDC power cord for recharging your batts.

Apologies for the consecutive posts. Just wanted to point out that charging systems for Airstream trailers and for Airstream Interstate class-B vans are not directly comparable. What works for one may not work for the other.

[Gene]

After reading about the issues with the Interstate batteries and charging, the whole thing seems really crazy. One thing is common to all motor vehicles, an alternator will not charge a dead battery. I'd carry long jumper cables to start the generator with the vehicle battery when the house batteries don't start it and a battery charger to charge batteries when 120 v. is available (don't have to use the generator then).

Gene

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by CrawfordGene

After reading about the issues with the Interstate batteries and charging, the whole thing seems really crazy. One thing is common to all motor vehicles, an alternator will not charge a dead battery. I'd carry long jumper cables to start the generator with the vehicle battery when the house batteries don't start it and a battery charger to charge batteries when 120 v. is available (don't have to use the generator then).

Gene

My jumper cables are long enough to do that. However, the generator on an Interstate is tucked up underneath, between the spare tire and the rear axle, inside an enclosure, and it starts from the house batteries. Which you can't attach jumper cables to unless you disassemble the sofa to get at the battery box.

They do make a gizmo where you can just plug in a special jumper cable on a car without raising the hood. Forget what it's called, but my dad's shop truck back when he owned a service station had one. I may get one of those for the house batteries, so I can jump-start the generator by plugging jumper cables in by the rear bumper.

Interstates are the best Class B's on the market, but even the best class B is a collection of compromises all rolling in loose formation.