House and car batteries dead on Interstate

[trapport]

Both batteries are not working, one circuit breaker is tripped and will not flip back on. Plugged unit in and still no power. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Interstate being the class B motor van thing?

Onboard generator available? On the travel trailers we need 30amp to reset GFI breakers. Did both batteries die while you were driving? Or has the unit been sitting for a long time? By being plugged in, is that just 15amp circuit or +30amp?

[trapport]

It is the Class B. There is no power to unit at all. Plugging it in to 30 Amp does not provide power or charge. Unit has solar, been sitting about 2 weeks without being ran.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Can you identify what that breaker is that isn’t flipping back on? If you’re on 30 amp service and nothing is charging then it’s telling me that power isn’t getting to your batteries so either the breaker is bad (the one that won’t reset), you have a short somewhere, or your converter/inverter may be going bad.

Someone will have to jump in here, I’m not familiar with the class B or major electrical systems.

[richard5933]

Have you tried to fully push the breaker into the 'off' position before trying to reset it? They are designed to not reset until fully off.

If that won't let the breaker reset, then my next step would be to see if there something causing it to trip, like a failed device plugged in.

What breaker is this you're trying to reset? Is it the main 30-amp breaker supplying power to the whole rig? To the converter/charger? Or to something else?

[uncle_bob]

Hi

First up, what was going on during the 2 weeks the van was "not being ran"? Was it hooked to shore power? Was it just sitting with no power at all? What was turned on during that time?

It's very easy to flatten the batteries in 2 weeks with very minimal items powered up. Even with nothing powered, the parasitic loads can add up pretty fast. Toss in a weak battery or a partial charge and 2 weeks becomes a long time.

Once the batteries are flat most converter chargers will not do anything for them. They look at the voltage and decide there is an issue. They then shut down and wait for something else to fix the problem.

Breaker issues (as noted above) depend very much on just which breaker this is .....

Bob

[Andrew T]

Hello. Unfortunately the Magnum Inverter/Charger in the interstate will not charge a dead battery. What you need to do is jump start the engine from another vehicle. A few minutes after the engine starts you will see bulk charging start on the magnum inverter panel (if you are plugged into 110).

If you shut the engine off the coach batteries will continue to charge but of course the engine battery will still be low. It needs to idle for about 45 minutes to charge the engine battery.

When you store for a couple of weeks there is a battery disconnect cable just above the gas pedal. Undoing it should keep the engine battery charged.

The Magnum inverter has a 4 amp draw even when it is turned off so the coach batteries will die even if the kill switch is off. On 2017's we add a second kill switch under the rear sofa that kills everything but the solar charger battery connection.

I hope this helps.

Andy