[infl8it]

First camping trip out had nothing on except phone charging and woke up to dead batteries. How would I go about jumping it? No air pressure to get generator drawer out. Thanks in advance!

[Wanderman]

Are both house and chassis batteries dead?

Chassis batteries are usually located in the engine bay or other non-air sourced bay. Jump those and start engine to charge.

If only one set is dead, try both upper and lower positions on the dash mounted merge switch. That will link the batteries, then start generator to charge.

[hbens]

To add a little to what Rick said, the merge switch provides 12vdc to the solenoid to combine the batteries. If up uses the house batteries for power to activate the solenoid then down uses the starting batteries to activate the solenoid. Depending on how yours is wired and which batteries are dead will determine which way you rock the switch.

[Richard]

I hope the original poster was able to get underway. It would have been helpful to know first names and year of coach in the troubleshooting.

I am posting this to help someone in the future. We have a lot of new owners, and it’s been some time since this topic has been posted. As usual what follows is MY opinion, and I respect other perspectives.

First and foremost. Regardless of what Newell tells you, DO NOT leave the batteries merged. It is only a recipe for stranding yourself. If you want to keep the chassis batteries charged while on the pedestal then install the proper B2B for doing that. Use the merge switch for emergency starts.

There are number of scenarios that we can consider so let’s start with the easy ones.
House batteries are dead, but chassis batteries will start coach engine. Start the coach engine, merge the batteries to charge the house batteries until the generator will crank. Use the generator and inverter/charger to recharge the house batteries. Charging the dead house batteries with the engine alternator can be a recipe for a failed alternator.

Scenario two, house batteries good and chassis batteries dead. Crank the generator, merge the batteries, and charge the merged bank for 15 minutes or longer until the coach will crank. Unmerge the batteries. You can just merge and see if it will crank BUT if you have a lithium bank and you merge it with a dead chassis battery and also add the starter current, you will likely blow the 300 amp fuse in the house battery circuit.

Scenario three, both banks dead. Unmerge batteries if merged. Turn off house batteries. Remove the negative lead from house batteries and carefully join the negative lead to the jump battery. This maneuver takes the dead house battery bank OUT of the jump circuit. Turn the house battery disconnect back on and crank the generator. Once the generator is running, turn the inverter charger off, turn the disconnect switch to off, remove the jumper battery and reconnect the cables. Turn the disconnect switch to on, turn the inverter charger on, and merge the batteries to charge both house and engine. Why go to all that trouble? Because if the house bank is dead, hooking up your car to a bank of dead 8D batteries is going to do nothing for a very long time. You have to get the dead power draw out of the system in order to crank the generator. I know this sounds like a tedious set of instructions but it will get you out of the wilderness if you have inadvertently left the banks merged while boondocking.