[Richard]

Jack,

There are several different philosophies on the merge switch use. For years, Newell told owners to leave the batteries merged all the time.

I do not subscribe to that logic for two reasons. The first is that sooner or later while you are not attending the coach, the power pedestal or plug in will cease to provide power. If that goes for a few days, then you return to DEAD batteries for both the engine and the house. Since Newell does not provide a standalone battery for the generator, then you are dead in the water. Yes you could reset the input power and wait for the charger to do it’s thing, but it’s an inconvenience, and very hard on the batteries. The second reason is that I have a large lithium bank and small Leece Neville alternator. No way will I put the load of charging those lithiums directly on the alternator. 95% of the time the coach is a pedestal queen so alternator charging of the house batteries is not something that is required for us.

So I leave the merge switch OFF unless I have some sort of emergency. I have an echo charger that separately keeps the chassis batteries up. It was a pretty common item for Newell to install in our era coaches. Look in the driver side inverter bay. It usually resides in a carpet covered box mounted on the forward wall of that bay with some 12V fuses and cable connections.

Others may have different approaches, and I am not saying they are wrong. This is what works for me.