Battery Control Box on firewall

[Paul Dobbin]

My 94 Airstream Land Yacht is a diesel pusher with all the electronic's on the
firewall beside the radiator at the rear of the coach.
Above the Battery Isolater is a box maked Battery Control Box. It has a lead to each battery post on the Isolater and appears to be powereed by 110Volt
electrical when using shore power.
Anyway I had one of my new Wal-Mart Marine batteries go dead and had to ultimatly replace it due to a dead cell. In the process fo figuring out why my new battery was dead I noticed a draw from this "Battery Control Box".
It has an 800 # on it so I called and and found that number now serves a
telephone Porn site!
So I disconnected it.
Questions: What is it? Do you all have them? and, Do I need It?
Thanks for any information you can share.
Paul Dobbin in "The Roadhouse"

[gunworks]

Paul,

I have this on my coach, but have not messed with it. If it ain't broke.....
I put two Lifeline batteries in last spring and have been very please with them. Expensive, but I don't have to worry about them going dry as they are sealed AGM. My strater truck battery is back behind the left connection storage bin and is also a maintenance free. It has not given me any trouble since '04 when we bought the coach.

[blkmagikca]

Paul, I have the '94LY diesel pusher too. I have a total of 4 batteries - 2 in the back for the chassis and 2 in the front for the coach. The rear batteries are placed one on each side of the rear compartment, and the road side one has a knife switch on the battery post. These two batteries are used mainly to start the engine and the generator.

In the front there are two batteries located under the hood on the curb side, with a knife switch on one of them. The front batteries are deep cycle marine types, and I'm not all that sure how good they are now.

On the rear firewall, top left while looking in are the ATS switches, which we have rewired to convert the shore power from 115v-30 amp to 230v-30 amp (which acts effectively the same as what is referred to as 50 amp service) so that we can run both a/c units when plugged into 50 amp service.

Have you got the manual for your unit? The manual has the entire electical system laid out in block diagrams. Some items referred to in mine don't seem to show up on my MH, though.