We have a 2006 Roadtrek RS as well. We have owned it for 1.5 years, spent 60 nights in it and have covered 14,000 miles. Let me help you with some of your questions. Assuming your Rig is equipped like ours, and keeping in mind that some choices are personal preferences, her you go....
Here's one thing that would help me a bunch. Even though our orientation session was three hours, I'm perplexed on the Roadtrek control panel over the sliding door.
What do I turn on, when? The only control that we routinely use is the battery on off switch. We turn the battery switch into off, when the unit is going to be parked for more than a couple of days. This keeps the house batteries from slowly discharging from small loads taking electricity, such as smoke detectors, etc. For some reason when you connect shore power to the Rig, you are supposed to have the battery switch in the on position. I do not fully understand why, I just comply. Otherwise the other main function of the control pannel is to let you hit "test" which will show you the state of your holding tanks, fresh water and LP. My indicators on all of those are notoriously inaccurate.
Should any lights be showing when the Roadtrek is parked, inacative, in the driveway? The only led that will glow when the unit is parked would be the battery on indicator if you have the battery switch in the on position.
When I drive down the road and want some power, do I turn the inverter on? When do I turn it off? You can turn the inverter on at any time that you are not running the generator or on shore power. I do not know that it would hurt anything to have it on at that time, but it is redundant. The purpose of the inverter is to supply AC current from the DC house batteries to the outlets in the coach. We mainly use the inverter to cook while driving with a slow cooker in the sink, or to watch TV/DVD when we are dry camping and not connected to shore power. The diesel engines alternator will pump out enought electricity while driving to meet any of your inverter needs. You will want to check this on your Rig, but on ours not all of the AC outlets are connected to the inverter. The one above the galley area, and the one in the TV cabinet are. Others are not. For a while this baffled me, and I thought I had an inverter problem, but we did not.
When I run the generator, do I have to turn anything else off or does it automatically switch from battery to supply owner? Simply turn on the generator and the unit will act like it is on shore power. I have never run the generator while on shore power. I am not sure that it would hurt anything, but it would sure be redundant.
I want the fridge on when driving. What do I do to make it happen? When on inverter (battery) r electrical hookup, do I have to switch anything in the fridge or does it do so automatically? Our reefer is a manual three way AC/LPG/DC. It does NOT have a switch to change automatically. In an attempt to save money, on the first few night out, I switched it to DC while driving, AC when on Shore Power and LP when dry camping.
We met a couple in Marfa TX who had been dry camping for 40 days in Walmart/McDonalds etc. They told me that they just leave their's on LP. We have since changed to that. In one 21 day outing we used 1/3 tank of LP. It is amazingly efficient fuel wise. If you go this route you will want to make sure that you have the reefer thermostat turned to as cold as possible.
Maybe someone has an easy to do checklist they did they can share??? A lot of this is learn as you go and personal pref. One thing that we have learned is that when you are choosing what to store in the vehicle, like pots/pans/plates, camp chairs, vacuum, grills, etc. is that with very limited space you are generally better off making very careful decisions and that usually entails buying the more expensive options. For example our camp chars are the PICO type. I never would have thought that I would pay $100 a piece for a camp chair, but now I would not RV without them.
http://www.rei.com/product/767164/gci-o ... ping-chair
Happy Trails,
Gordon
What do I need to know about my '06 Roadtrek RS-Adventurous?
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