I feel so relieved that it was not quantum entanglement at work after all! Although after reading your link to the bi-directional BIRD thing, I think I understand quantum entanglement better than our Intellitec electronics.
On the Intellitec Battery Watch add-on to its USE/STORE house batt disconnect, if we do have one, and if they are common to all RVs, there are hundreds of RV.net posters who need to know this so they might save the money to upgrade and/or save the worries about battery cooking at CGs.
When I was trying to get answers on this stuff, I don't think very many posters seemed to be aware of what you are uncovering here.
Great quality of research effort. Snowman.
2005 Trail Lite 213 B-Plus w/ 6.0 Chevy
I do hope to compile all this TL battery control information into something more permanent that can be hosted somewhere.
Currently RV-less but not done yet.
Here are some links to documents.
Brochure
Service Manual
Sample Vendor listing
A good day! All I was going to do otherwise was sit around.
![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/smile.gif "smile")
Snowman9000 wrote:
OK, I found our exact hardware online. The Intellitec Single Disconnect Battery Control Center. p/n 00-00635-00. It contains the BIRD function. It appears that TL did not take advantage of the fuse options that are present. At some point I will compare this to my wiring diagram and try to draw up a completely correct version of what TL actually did.
Here are some links to documents.
Brochure
Service Manual
Sample Vendor listing
A good day! All I was going to do otherwise was sit around.
OK, I found our exact hardware online. The Intellitec Single Disconnect Battery Control Center. p/n 00-00635-00. It contains the BIRD function. It appears that TL did not take advantage of the fuse options that are present. At some point I will compare this to my wiring diagram and try to draw up a completely correct version of what TL actually did.
Here are some links to documents.
Brochure
Service Manual
Sample Vendor listing
A good day! All I was going to do otherwise was sit around.
You done good.
A good day here, too. All I did was sit around!
Your work makes me see that all my questions, dead end chases, and unnecessary part replacement, etc. were not my fault, and that my overall simple assessment of how to work with the system was about right.
Is the EM solenoid really needed w/ BIRD?
Yes, the EM solenoid is used by the BIRD to connect the two batteries for:
1) charging the chassis battery when the house battery is getting a charge,
2) charging the house battery when the chassis battery is getting a charge,
3) connecting the two batteries for starting when the chassis battery is run down.
Snowman9000 wrote:
Burl, you were right on. Not only that, you stumped the panel of experts.
Yes, the EM solenoid is used by the BIRD to connect the two batteries for:
1) charging the chassis battery when the house battery is getting a charge,
2) charging the house battery when the chassis battery is getting a charge,
3) connecting the two batteries for starting when the chassis battery is run down.
Burl, you were right on. Not only that, you stumped the panel of experts.
Yes, the EM solenoid is used by the BIRD to connect the two batteries for:
1) charging the chassis battery when the house battery is getting a charge,
2) charging the house battery when the chassis battery is getting a charge,
3) connecting the two batteries for starting when the chassis battery is run down.
couldn't all 3 of these occur w/ simple parallel hookup?
I guess another aspect of it is that the chassis battery is a starting battery and the coach is deep cycle, and they have different charging requirements. You'd ruin the chassis battery if it was drawn down very many times during dry camping.
Without even knowing about BIRD, I wondered why you need a dash ES toggle when apparently simply firing up the genset would couple the batts.
They could just say “if engine batt is too weak, crank genset first."
EDIT
I see that a disconnect solenoid must be part of the BIRD plan and that it seems reasonable to decouple them as you noted.
But with the constant use of the chassis disconnect by BIRD, perhaps the days of referring to the chassis disconnect solenoid as the EMergency Start (EM or ES) solenoid are gone, especially if this BIRD thing is in newer RVs.
With BIRD, the only time a person actually needs the ES dash toggle is in a situation where they know the genset is inoperable, the house batt is charged well, and the chassis batt is not, and, there is no nearby shore power available.
* This post was last edited 06/24/13 03:39am by burlmart *
burlmart wrote:
With BIRD, the only time a person actually needs the ES dash toggle is in a situation where they know the genset is inoperable, the house batt is charged well, and the chassis batt is not, and, there is no nearby shore power available.
With BIRD, the only time a person actually needs the ES dash toggle is in a situation where they know the genset is inoperable, the house batt is charged well, and the chassis batt is not, and, there is no nearby shore power available.
Is this correct?
burlmart wrote:
Is this correct?
burlmart wrote:
With BIRD, the only time a person actually needs the ES dash toggle is in a situation where they know the genset is inoperable, the house batt is charged well, and the chassis batt is not, and, there is no nearby shore power available.
With BIRD, the only time a person actually needs the ES dash toggle is in a situation where they know the genset is inoperable, the house batt is charged well, and the chassis batt is not, and, there is no nearby shore power available.
Is this correct?
No, I don't think so anyway.
The ES is to jump start the engine from the house battery. And also to jump start the genset from the chassis battery.
If you have a dead chassis battery, starting the genset to charge it is going to take the next few hours to get a decent charge. Same with hooking up to shore power. The ES will get you started right away.
One mistaken belief that I've notice a lot of people have is that an RV converter charger will charge a low battery pretty quickly. Typically it does not because despite the high amps rating, it doesn't put out many amps for charging, for various reasons. Cheaping out on the charger, which requires an overly conservative charge programming, and cabling that is too small and/or too long (dumb/cheap RV builders) being the two biggest reasons. Our TLs have all of those.
However, if you carried a six-pack-cooler-sized automotive charger with boost start function, you could use genset or shore power to get the engine started pretty quickly, without the ES. Or even simpler, jumper cables long enough to reach from the house to chassis batteries, which is not that far on mine. Maybe ten feet.
That's what the ES is: built in jumper cables.