Does a shore line charge the engine battery?

[Weblamer]

I wanted to play the radio in my camper while I was busting out sexy dance moves to my lady. However I became too paranoid that I was running down the engine battery and I turned it off and we watched a DVD instead.

I know plugging it into a shore line charges the coach batteries (mine are about dead) but I was not sure about the engine battery.

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

I doubt the stock converter setup in a 85 rig will charge the chassis battery.  You can install a Bi-Directional Isolator Relay Delay (BIRD) controller that will allow charging in both directions.

Dave

[MotorPro]

In most motor homes the answer is no. A few have that option but a quick check with a volt Meter will tell you.

[demon]

I bet your lady was totally bummed about missing out on those dance moves!.  My winnebago has a switch on the dash that changes the radio power from chassis to house batteries so you can run it all you want

[Froggy1936]

I have a small 2 Amp charger that runs on 110V and is hooked to the starting battery / Chargeing any time I am plugged in When the battery is fully charged it goes into maintenance mode ! Frank

[DRMousseau]

More than once, have I run down the chassis battery,... the most recent was when the alternator belt broke unnoticed.

THANK GOODNESS that there's always a backup in a reliable house system! Several times I've had to use jumper-cables from the house bank to the chassis battery to charge it back up. And I've been fortunate that all batteries are in close proximity to one another. The recent belt failure and a previous alternator failure required that I run down the road a bit with that risky jumper cable setup,.... but I've never been stranded or down for long because of a dead chassis battery. And NEVER, EVER,... Start the chassis engine with the house battery, while the house charging system is active with either shoreline or genny running. I always shut down all house systems if I gotta jump the chassis battery to start the engine, and remove the jump immediately after starting. If you don't know and understand your systems well,... you can cause some serious damage using jumper cables.