Electrical problems since maintenance work

[Ralph Bohn]

Hi, 1999 Beaver Contessa, 330 Catepillar engine,
' Original owners took fantastic care and sold to someone who rode hard and put away wet. No preventative care done for 2 years. We bought on a Wed and were on the road by Friday. Only problem was with Tow Dolly( now dead).
We took to well known place to have 47 point inspection for $800 dollars. No report received, only note was that all was" looked at." Next trip was to Durango and heating/cooling line burst. We took it to a local RV repair, spent $6,000 for maintenance. It took a month to have work done and now, 15 days on the road, we have had repeated problems with electrical, coach only, until this morning when ignition wouldn't crank.
Can anyone please tell us where the main coach GFI is located? We keep losing power to front TV and plugs behind passenger chair. We must turn everything off and restart to regain power.
We must unplug the chassis battery at end of a day trip to avoid draining. We did that this trip, but now RV won't start. It's friday and we have to wait until Monday for Good Sam tow.
What are we doing wrong??
We are wondering if the problem is in the inverter? Can anyone direct us with info about golf cart batteries (we just bought new) and the inverter?
-Sad and broke in Georgia

[Tom and Pam Brown]

Where in Georgia?

[Tom and Pam Brown]

Ralph I am in Georgia my phone number is in the directory, call me maybe I can help.

[Karl Welhart]

Ralph,

Sounds like you have a inverter/charger problem.  Did you try the AUX switch that ties the coach batteries and the chassis batteries together for starting purposes?  What kind of voltage are you showing for the batteries?

Karl

[Ralph Bohn]

We are in Savannah, a lovely RV site. I don't know if it's okay to say their name. I'm also thinking it's an inverter problem. I'll check to see if any other campers have ideas. We have to wait until Monday to have someone look at the RV. We did try using the generator to jump the starter. My wife plugged our connection back into the 50 amp to see if that would work, to no avail. How do you measure charge on the golf cart batteries?
Thanks All.

[Steve Huber]

Ralph,
Welcome to the forum.
You should be able to see the house battery voltage on the inverter panel inside the coach. If not, you can use a multimeter and measure across the 2 output cables. The house batteries are 6v but each group of 2 are tied in series to yield 12V at the output. If fully charged you should see about 13V. Fully discharged will measure under 12v.
Steve

[Keith Moffett Co-Admin]

Ralph
1) Welcome to the club!
2) There is a learning curve with RVing in general and one for each new to us coach.  We have all been there but it will get easier and better!
3) Ask anyone you like for ideas but take them with a grain of salt until experience shows you otherwise.  I have had folks tell me things in a spirit of helpfulness but they had no bearing on a Beaver coach at all.  Just move slowly as you learn about your coach.
4) There are always floks looking to take advantage of someone.  $800 inspection and no report? Well, remember God looks out for travelers and payback can be a hard pill.