Generator Battery Not Charging

[Tom Warner]

Jeff even after this problem being aired on this forum and the old
wanderlodge forum countless times, the same problem seems to exist which is
how the BB factory provided for the charging of the Kohler Generator on the
1980's FC models. The answer is they did not.

A resistor pack cannot provide DC charging voltage from a AC
source(generator). So throw that idea out.

The Kohler generator apparently had three options, an alternator (which
made no sense to use on the BB version since it already had chargers and an
engine alternator) a Bridge rectifier as part of the controller box, and
nothing as appears to have been how mine was originally equipped (no bridge
rectifier in the control box). BB apparently at least in my
case...nothing. The bridge rectifier version also came with a 8 amp self
setting cirucuit breaker and fed the battery thru a DC meter. The problem
was it only charged the battery when the generator was running and thus no
run no charge. The BB engineers never envisioned that the generator battery
would run down if left in this state for any length of time. When the
generator was running the coach chargers would charge the coach batteries
etc and the same for shore power. Guess thats why so many early BB had so
few hours on them.

You may not want to hear it but BB did make some mistakes in designing and
building these coaches. From what I found out at the factory talking to
Ray Horne when I first bought my coach, the engineers were not aware of
this problem until customers started complaining of run down generator
batteries. Thats when they published the diagram I just uploaded onto the
forum site. Kind of crude but it works.

Tom
1982 FC35
Vernon Center,NY



At 02:11 PM 5/29/2005 +0000, you wrote:
>Although the diode/breaker fix is correct, the comment that there is no
>charging and BB forgot it is not at all correct.
>
>I"m pretty sure that the original genset battery charging on the early
>Kohler was a resistor pack in the control box which trickle-charged the
>battery from the generator output. This was not very reliable (Kohler's
>issue, not BB's) and a later "fix" became available, eventually
>replaced in late '82 by the battery isolator system.
>
> - Jeff Miller
>
>
>--- In WanderlodgeForum@yahoogroups.com, Tom Warner
>wrote:
> > Chuck the diagram for the 1982 is very simple. There is no OEM
>generator
> > charging. They forgot it.<<snip>>
>
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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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