Chinook RV

Hi all. Nice to meet you. I have lurked here for quite some time while waiting for the right Chinook to come along. I must say, I'm amazed at the wealth of information on this site. Some of the members like Blue~Go are so dedicated to helping, one must wonder when they find the time to work on their own projects.

New to me, a Chinook Destiny. Not my first motor home but definitely, my first Chinook. All went well on our return ride home except no charge getting to the house batteries which seems to have made huge paperweights out of them. They will only hold slightly over 10 volts. Appears a PO removed the smart charger solenoid. Taking Blue's advice I have installed a Blue Sea 7622 with slight modifications to the wiring because of space limitations as to where I can install my MBRF fuse next to the chassis battery. I am still waiting for the fuses to arrive so, everything is not completely tied down yet.

Attached is a picture of the 7622 installed along with the remote switch. I am also including a PDF file showing pictures taken along with a copy of the wiring diagram from the 2003 Destiny manual and a modified copy of Blue Seas' wiring for the ACR. The name plate on the fuse panel below the galley indicates I have a Todd Engineering LC30. which I assume means it is designed to be installed in a coach with 30 Amp service. I would hope it's more than a 30 Amp charger.

According to the Chinook wiring diagram, it looks like all I need to do is remove the old converter/charger, wire a new one to the house battery circuit and plug it into the back of the AC panel. If I'm correct, the AC is already wired to that panel and I shouldn't need to do anything with it. I haven't stuck my hand way back into the cabinet yet but, I hope to find that the charger is at least screwed down rather than just laying there.

I'm looking for some guidance from someone who can confirm what I am actually looking at and make a few suggestions on how I might proceed. I haven't decided what kind of batteries I'm going to install yet so, would like to use a charger that will work with either AGM or flooded. The next question would be, if I install AGMs, will they survive when being charged from the old solar panel setup?

I guess that's enough for the moment. I will graciously await replies from anyone versed in the subject.

Hello Trouble Congrats on your new Chinook! And welcome.

I'm on the road at the moment, so only have time for quick posts; but I just wanted to let you know that your post wasn't forgotten.

Blue~Go wrote:Hello Trouble Congrats on your new Chinook! And welcome.

I'm on the road at the moment, so only have time for quick posts; but I just wanted to let you know that your post wasn't forgotten.

BG, thanks so much for your response. I was beginning to wonder if my post had really shown up or not. Could certainly use some advice on selection of a replacement charger and also a replacement controller for my solar. Careful on the roads with all the nuts out there. I'll be looking forward to hearing your suggestions.

Hi again,

Okay, settled into a camp - with the surprise bonus of good internet (wasn't so hot last time I was here).

I took a look at your .pdf - thanks for putting that together. A few things in the schematic and photos look a bit different than the Ford/Premier/Concourse, but same basic idea. Good job on getting the 7622! I can't quite tell, is it on the firewall by your start battery? It would be nice to have it not in the engine room (heat/moisture), but I understand all can't always be perfect. Maybe not a totally kosher use of an MRBF, but considering most rigs either don't have fusing, or have fuses with a too-low AIC rating, I'd say you are in an improved situation.

I didn't easily find a manual for the Todd LC30, but based on the fact that the Chinook diagram shows a 30 amp fuse in that line, I'd guess it might be a 30 amp charger.

As far as your other questions, I'd start by asking you a question (erm... questions ): Do you have a use-case scenario for the rig? Primary use? Secondary use? What's your traveling style? Boondocking? Full hook-ups? Do you like to "not even know you're not at home" with all the mod-cons? Or are you a "hard tent" camper? Or somewhere in between? What are you looking to get out of your power system? How much are you willing to invest (time and money) into a system that will work really well vs. say (at the other end of the spectrum) keeping things relatively inexpensive and replacing batteries more often?

My own scenario is that I boondock most of the time, and while I definitely want a certain level of power (computer, compressor refrigerator, fans), I'm not an "I don't even want to know I'm not at home in the suburbs" type of camper. I like to be able to camp in the shade. Sometimes I do road trips; other times I sit in one spot for some weeks. I'm used to watching resources from boating (power, water, etc.) Knowing I have a decent setup, how it's wired, and being able to see what it's doing is something I value -- and while I'm not rolling in clover, I don't mind spending the money for a good setup. This is just one example of a fairly focused use-case scenario.

You know what? I just went back to your .pdf to take a look at something, and realized there were more pages after 1 and 2. Duh! Nice .pdf with lots of detail.

Some of the annotation ran slightly off the page for me, so I wasn't sure if you were labelling something or asking about it, but I did see the question mark on "LVD"? Yes, that blue finned thing is the LVD. In Chinook's original scheme, it serves not only as an LVD (although by the voltage at which it disconnects, your batteries are already in the ER...) but also as a sort of electrical roundhouse for a bunch of small functions (house on/off switch, buzzer to remind if generator is one but on/off switch is off, etc.). I removed mine when I re-wired, so I got familiar with it (labelling all the wires, deciding if/how I wanted various functions, etc.).

I can see that various components are in different places on your rig, but mostly they are the same ones as one the Concourse/Premier of the era (mine was very similar). The one different thing I noted was the Todd charger and the fact that it looks like (by the diagram anyway?) the charger and the load center (DC fuses) are separate. These were all in one "brown box" in the Chinook/Premier. Just a detail.

HereComesTrouble wrote:

Blue~Go wrote:Hi again,

Okay, settled into a camp - with the surprise bonus of good internet (wasn't so hot last time I was here).

I took a look at your .pdf - thanks for putting that together. A few things in the schematic and photos look a bit different than the Ford/Premier/Concourse, but same basic idea. Good job on getting the 7622! I can't quite tell, is it on the firewall by your start battery? It would be nice to have it not in the engine room (heat/moisture), but I understand all can't always be perfect. Maybe not a totally kosher use of an MRBF, but considering most rigs either don't have fusing, or have fuses with a too-low AIC rating, I'd say you are in an improved situation.

I didn't easily find a manual for the Todd LC30, but based on the fact that the Chinook diagram shows a 30 amp fuse in that line, I'd guess it might be a 30 amp charger.

As far as your other questions, I'd start by asking you a question (erm... questions ): Do you have a use-case scenario for the rig? Primary use? Secondary use? What's your traveling style? Boondocking? Full hook-ups? Do you like to "not even know you're not at home" with all the mod-cons? Or are you a "hard tent" camper? Or somewhere in between? What are you looking to get out of your power system? How much are you willing to invest (time and money) into a system that will work really well vs. say (at the other end of the spectrum) keeping things relatively inexpensive and replacing batteries more often?

My own scenario is that I boondock most of the time, and while I definitely want a certain level of power (computer, compressor refrigerator, fans), I'm not an "I don't even want to know I'm not at home in the suburbs" type of camper. I like to be able to camp in the shade. Sometimes I do road trips; other times I sit in one spot for some weeks. I'm used to watching resources from boating (power, water, etc.) Knowing I have a decent setup, how it's wired, and being able to see what it's doing is something I value -- and while I'm not rolling in clover, I don't mind spending the money for a good setup. This is just one example of a fairly focused use-case scenario.

I don't know what happened to my posts so, I'll re-post and put both of them into one:

Thanks again for your response. We generally take week or longer trips. One of the last ones having been 4 months from our home in South Florida to California and back, with a lot of sightseeing along the way. Total trip was just under 9,000 miles. We don't actively look for hookups. Wherever we are when it's time to settle in, that's pretty much where we stay. It could be a primitive campground, a Walmart, a well lit gas station/truck stop, even the parking lot of a Hilton once or, even a real campground. We've been RVing on and off for 23 years and have never spent a night with full hookups.

Generally, we stay in one place for a couple of days or a week and make day trips till we're ready to move on. We never plan where we will stay in advance. Whichever way the wind is blowing, that's the direction we're headed. We hate making plans and sticking to them. Most times we camp without utilities. I carry a small inverter to run my laptop. We have USB chargers in the cigarette lighter sockets to charge cellphones. A lack of power was never a problem in the past and now, I'll have more than twice my old house battery capacity. We do run the fridge most of the time. Occasionally we do crank up the generator if it gets too hot at night or, to quickly do something in the microwave. I also have a 2,000 watt inverter I may install or, a 1600 watt motor generator that only runs when the circuit is completed.

I replaced the house battery several times in the old RV because if you left it plugged in too long, it would cook. I'd like to avoid that and make this unit less maintenance intensive. After a bit more studying, the manuals indicate that the charger is indeed a 30 Amp unit. The solar system is 55 watts and is single stage. I'm wondering if I shouldn't change that out also. I don't want to get carried away money wise on this project but I also don't mind putting some money into it. The items on the shopping list at the moment included replacing a broken A/C shroud, battery disconnect, replace eight year old tires with a set of Michlin LTX tires, Main and solar battery chargers with temperature compensation, a set of Batteries, Blue Sea 7622 and MRBF fuses.

Yes, I mounted the 7622 in the engine compartment above the A/C and just behind the start battery. #2 cables were right there on an old starter solenoid that was wired to the "Boost", but not wired to the "key on" circuit, hence no charge for house batteries. I left the old solenoid there with only the control circuit from the "boost" wired to it. If I had mounted the fuse holder on the battery instead of the ACR, there wasn't enough clearance to put the nut on the fuse terminal.),

Also would like to do something to make sleeping on that hard power sofa a bit more comfortable. With my wife and I both having health issues at 72 and not knowing what's in the cards, we just want to travel a bit more like a couple of hippies, while we still can.

Attached is a pdf of the owners instructions on the Power Source chargers of this vintage. This was printed in 1998.

I'm sorry you had to repost. For some weird reason the other day your reply only showed up as a "quote" of my post.

I'm on the road again but should be settled in to a new camp with Internet by later today. I have some thoughts and will post them. Much easier now that you have given me your use-case scenario(s). I like your plan of traveling like hippies, just doing what you want each day. Yeah!

Long story short (and I will post more on this later) is that your charging system is antiquated (fifteen years old in RV electrical terms is what I mean) and even when it was new, it was basically meant to go from power post to power post (i.e. full hookups). Not a rap on Chinook, because this is how they all were (and mostly all still are). The two choices in "short form" are to keep things pretty much as they are and just buy cheap batteries often (this would drive me nuts, but can work for some people), or to throw some money and effort at it and have a real working boondocking/driving type system (you aren't boondocking for weeks, but you are either boondocking or driving, so that's what I'd maximize for).

Basically what's inadequate for your uses (not plugged in) are the solar panel, the solar controller, the wiring between the two, and your alternator charging and wiring (to a lesser extent). I camp similarly to you (although with a bit more staying in one place and a bit less driving) and with a decent solar power system (good controller and wired for very little voltage drop), I'm pretty well taken care of for any non-huge power draws (huge being microwave, roof air-conditioning, any AC appliance that makes heat) (but you can run the generator for those). Thus I only upped the wire size and got rid of the Surepower on the connection from start to house bank. Without going to a battery-to-battery charger, the alternator is a "stupid" charger. This is fine to supplement if you have a good solar charging system. So my vote if you are only going to do one thing is probably the solar charging system. It will work when you are driving (well, not at night or in clouds), AND when you are parked. You can then improve the alternator (start batt) connection to the house bank and have decent bulk type charging from that when you are driving if/when the solar cannot keep up. (Whereas if you maximize for the alternator charging, that won't really help you when you are parked/camped, so that's why I favor solar upgrade if you aren't going to do "the works."

The shore charger is also horribly inadequate (and battery killing), but if you don't use it for charging much (it will come on when you are running generator, but my sense is that you mostly run the generator to specifically run microwave, etc. at certain times), and you don't want to do everything, you might move that down the $$$ list. I did put in a new shore charger a year or so ago as part of re-wiring my rig, but I haven't once used it (yet). Solar keeps up 95% of the time (the way I travel/use my rig) and the alternator helps out (in its limited way) the rest of the time.

Let me ask you one more thing for now: How do you park the rig when you are not using it? I ask because if it gets sun (or you can reach sun within around 25' of the rig), then the solar could also work when you are parked/not using the rig. If it's buried in a garage hundreds of feet from sun, or you keep it in a very cloudy place, that might need tweaking.

Okay, more later. Have to gain some altitude before it gets any hotter....

B~G
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I delayed posting back because, I was awaiting further prior maintenance information from the previous owner. What I have determined is, the original Todd 30 amp charger was replaced two years ago with a WFCO WF-9845 (Arterra) 45 Amp, 3 stage converter/charger which cannot be upgraded to add temperature compensation.

Installation Manual: http://wfcoelectronics.com/wp-content/u ... Manual.pdf
Operation Manual: http://wfcoelectronics.com/wp-content/u ... Manual.pdf

If I wanted to go to AGMs, it would be necessary to replace this converter again. I think I prefer to simply replace with flooded batteries at the moment as I get Deka (East Penn) batteries at wholesale thru a local boat builder.

Speaking of East Penn, I noticed your comment in a past thread, regarding the unavailability to Duracell AGM batteries west of the Mississippi. Just for reference sake, Duracell AGM batteries are not manufactured by Duracell. They are manufactured by East Penn and may be available in your area as a Deka 8A31 which has a single marine type terminal. Or, a Deka 8A31DTM which in addition, has an automotive type post. These batteries spec as per the literature at:

http://www.eastpennmanufacturing.com/wp ... r-1740.pdf

Next would be an upgrade to a "battery to battery" charger like the one by sterling, you made reference to. I'm not sure I understand the difference between that and their alternator to battery charger. An explanation would be much appreciated.

Then would come an update to the solar charging system that would need to be capable of being upgraded to handle temperature compensation, for if and when I may decide to go with AGMs in the future.

My last RV only carried a single smaller house battery. The only time I ran out of juice was once, when the solenoid that facilitated alternator charging of the house battery failed. Also, not having a smart charger cooked my house battery once or twice. Based on that, I'm thinking with a larger battery bank of two batteries supplying my house needs, it may not be necessary to get carried away with throwing too much money at my rig at this time. Then by upgrading to a converter with compensation later, I could then upgrade to AGMs anytime I choose to.

If I decide to go ahead and upgrade to a temperature compensated converter/charger and AGMs now, (I see used WFCO WF-9845 converters like mine are now selling on ebay for around $120, which would reduce the cost of a new unit by an equal amount. What converter would you recommend? What do you think? If I'm thinking about this wrong, please provide me with some guidance.

Hi Trouble (I always start humming Cat Stevens... "Trouble..." when I type that ),

I totally get where you are coming from, and I think your line of thinking is sound. You understand what the WFCO type charger cannot do, and for now can work around it. Having a reasonably inexpensive source of flooded cell batteries means that - for now at least - you can just replace them as needed and that's part of the plan.

So just to go over your concepts:

1) Keep the three-stage WFCO charger for now. You understand that even though it's supposedly a smart charger, it's really only smart in comparison to the quite stupid original one. The issues with it are that you cannot set the charging voltages for the stages (and the pre-set ones are not necessarily correct), and that without temperature compensation, those voltages are incorrect anyway unless the batteries are at 77ºF. But this fits in with your plan now, and you can get another one if/when you upgrade batteries to AGM (or heck, maybe lithium by then).

1a) is that you *could* choose to upgrade the battery to charger/loads wiring now, which would mean you'd at least GET some voltage to the batteries. I should add a caveat: I don't know how the wire run works in the Destiny. In the Concourse/Premier, they use the same wire for both charging to the batteries, and loads from the batteries, and it's an 8AWG wire that's around 30' long. Any voltage drop calculator can do the math, but..... there is a lot of voltage drop. So once again if you were to set your precious voltages (as AGM likes) on a smart charger..... they'd change by the time they got to the batteries anyway. And another problem with this is that the fusing has to be very low (50 amp) because the wire can't be fused any higher (no problem with small charger, but maybe a future thing.

The wire run (if yours is similar) is so long because on the 21-footers it starts out in the ell under the sink, goes to the outside wall, then goes UP over the window, all the way forward up there by the roof, then all the way back down the pillar behind the driver, out through the floor, and then over to the battery compartment.

What I did was run a new wire that simply runs along the outside wall under/behind the couch (behind the water tank on 21-ers). Nothing tends to get near it anyway, but I also have it in protective loom, etc. This run is less than half the length, and the wire is also larger, so double win. I now have an 8AWG wire running up to the overcab and/or the base of the pillar that I can use for something else if I want to. I also separated that wire from the wire that feeds the load center, but that was obvious for me as I no longer have the all-in-one load center and charge wire. (That all in one wire is what necessitates the "buzz, buzz, hey, you have charger on but the coach switch on store!" alarm.) But you could run a new, larger/shorter wire and still have it do the dual functions, to keep it more stock like.

2) Alternator charging.
So first of all, pardon me if this is obvious review, but we'll back up and talk about charging in general. And also we're talking about lead-acid batteries (flooded cell or AGM) not lithium which have some different characteristics. But the way the charging works is that the batteries will take all you can throw at them (which is a fair amount for flooded cell, and even more for AGM) until they get up to around 80% charged. This is what would be called the "bulk" stage on a good charger or solar controller. The voltage will start out at whatever your batteries are at (say 12.6 or so) and all the amps possible will be plowing into the batteries as they make their way up to around 80% charged. The charge voltage will keep creeping up. When it gets to whatever is set as the "absorption" voltage (say around 14.4 volts) then it goes into the "absorb" stage. In that stage the voltage is held constant, and the amps slowly taper down to around 2 amps (for a pair of batteries). This is the stage where the battery goes from around 80-85% charged, to 100% charged. This can take a long time (relative to the bulk stage) because the amps are limited by design. The last stage is actually after the batteries reach 100%, and is the "float" stage. Basically maintenance, in the low 13.x volt range.

So, the alternator has no stages and no smarts. You get what you get. In my case, watching my Scan Gauge, it generally puts out around 13.7 volts. Well, you can see why this never gets the batteries more than about 80% charged: it never reaches the absorb voltage (much less holding it there for hours). And of course no temp comp, and probably plenty of voltage drop with the original wire (however you have lost the voltage drop that the original separator type induced). I suppose maybe the batteries could get up to 100% charged at 13.7 volts if you went on and on and on. But in general it's somewhere between a bulk and float voltage (and really a bit high for float on my AGM batteries.)

What the "B2B" (same as smart alternator charger or whatever you want to call it), such as the Sterling ones do, is take that "unsophisticated" charging coming from your alternator, and make it three stage smart charging. I have not had one, so not sure if they have temperature compensation, or how much you can set the voltages, but the basic ideas is they mimic a smart charger. The reason I have not looked into one is that with 200 watts of solar, I don't really need any alternator charging. Very occasionally I could use some, and that's when I manually connect my alternator/start battery to the house bank. But that's been like three times in the past year, so not a high priority for me. Of course this may differ for others.

3) Solar charging
Presuming you buy a decent solar controller (which does not have to be super expensive; I have a Morningstar Sunsaver MPPT 15 and it's $225 ($315 total including remote display and temperature sensor cable). It's not even necessarily the cheapest one. It is a good controller though. So with this controller (or many other similar ones), I can set the exact voltages of the stages, and it's temperature compensated. So since/if/when you'd be adding solar (the stock system doesn't really count as it's more of a battery maintainer when rig parked and not in use), there'd be no reason for you to get anything but a good/smart solar controller. That will take care of AGM's, flooded cells, or lithium even.

So to recap, here is what I would probably do if I were adopting your "I'm going to stick with flooded cells and the WFCO charger for now" and had your scenario.

1) Consider upgrading charge battery cable, presuming it's anywhere near as small/long as the one on the 21-footers. True your charger is still not the greatest, but at least you'd be getting the volts it does put out (this would hold for shore or generator charging.

2) Upgrade battery combiner (you have already done this with the 7622).

3) I forget if you said that you upsized the cables from start to house battery. There are two good reasons to do it. One is for less voltage drop, and the other is that you can't fuse that cable at the stock size. Too many amps go through it and the wire can't handle the correct size fuse.

4) Add solar charging system. Reason I put this before B2B addition is that solar will charge your batteries well and smartly when you are camping OR driving. Enough so that you may very well not need any smart charging from the alternator. In fact you may not need alternator charging of house bank at all, and/or only for bulk charging (which is all it can do now anyway) and solar takes care of the rest.

5) B2B type charger (but I'd do step #4 first as you may find you don't even need this. I don't.

For me solar was the BIG upgrade, and I don't really need any other charging. That would not hold for everyone, but I think it might cover you as well.