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The Winnebago had been sitting for several months, and the main battery was dead. Flipping the switch to connect the coach batteries didn't help, but they were charged, so...
I used jumpers and connected the coach batteries (correctly pos-pos,etc.) to the main battery.
Turning the ignition switch produced a loud Zap! and the jumpers started smokin'. :)
It may have been funny to see me hopping around trying to disconnect the smoking cables, but it left me with a dead motorhome.
I think that either the Voltage regulator, Battery disconnect, or Solenoid is fried. How do I check?
If I try to connect a battery to the main cables now... the cables immediately heat up. There appears to be a major short (in the Battery disconnect or Solenoid?)
In order to find out what the problem is you have to start out from the beginning. If the starting battery/batteries are dead, you either need to resurrect them or put some new ones in. Without adequate cranking power you will never get the answers you need to figure out your problem(s).
I doubt you fried your regulator. It isn't in the starting circuit and shouldn't have been affected by the ZAP.
Once you have adequate juice to the starter you will find out pretty quickly if you fried the solenoid. Again, I doubt you fried it because it is designed to take a lot of juice going through it.
To check your disconnect switch, get an ohm meter and check for continuity. With the switch in the disconncet position you shouldn't have continuity. With the switch in the connect position you should have continuity. If the switch checks out in that manner your switch should be okay.
Why you had a ZAP I really couldn't say without knowing more details.
Umm, yes, pos to pos, but did you also connect the neg to neg post? That might have done it! The neg jumper should probably, if I remember correctly, have been clamped onto the chassis somewhere and not to the neg post of the batt. Also, these batteries are not alike! The coach batteries are not really designed to take a large sudden surge. Some better choices would probably have been 1) a new starter battery, 2) a push start--if and only if the battery was not a no-maintenance battery or 3) a charge from a charged starter battery in good condition (again, neg to chassis) 4) take the starter battery out, if it was in good enough condition, and charge it with a generator or A/C plug-in charger 5) it is possible on SOME models to give a quick boost to the starter from the coach batteries, but should be with the set-up designed by the manufacturer. Another future option if the rig has to sit is to leave small solar trickle chargers attached to both the starter and coach batteries, one solar charger to each, that is. The above suggestion is correct, you will just have to step by step eliminate all the possibilities, fried-wise.
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