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Forum
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RE: Digital Multimeters- An RVer's Best Friend
I'm an ET with 40 yrs of experience and concur. However, just one little caveout. A digital meter can indeed trick you so a handy 12 volt bulb tester as suggested can be very useful and user friendly. Checking fuses will give you a simple go/no go visual. Checking trailer connections won't get you tricked by showing you voltage but when you plug things in it does not work for example.
Not having to look at a meter versus seeing a light is sometimes less painful too. Twisting and turning while making several fuse test under a dash can be difficult.
So I highly recommend you have one of each in your tool box. The test light is about $10.
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YC 1
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05/18/13 09:07am |
General RVing Issues
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RE: Trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco
It is an easy day trip if you go up I5 and cut over North of Stockton. I have heard you can park at Harris Ranch overnight if you don't want to do it in one day. We do the trip from North of Sacramento a total of 450 miles in a day easily.
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YC 1
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05/18/13 08:57am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Alternator Failure
One note on using the Generator, particularly on a diesel. Some have a cutout circuit to block the house charging system from supplying power to the engine batteries when the ignition switch is on. In this case you need to keep the aux/emergency start button depressed. So just starting the generator may not do the trick by itself.
Since the op's generator would not start he could have used one jumper cable to combine his batteries long enough to start the gen. Not the safest thing to do because at that stage there probably would have been a good spark and that is not good. Turning off the battery disconnect switches would probably suffice while connecting the cables.
So if you notice something like this get the generator fired up early on.
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YC 1
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05/18/13 08:47am |
Tech Issues
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RE: Chassis Battery Not Charging On Shore Power/Generator
1.
2.
3.
See if any of this helps you along. Since it DID work you probably have a bad combining solenoid. Often called the BIRD relay. There is lots of reading in the links and once you get a bit more familiar with the operation you may be able to help us help you. There are pictures in some of those links.
Click number 1, scroll down to Tompen and look at the module. You will see it has a generator input.
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YC 1
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05/17/13 03:33pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Chassis Battery Not Charging On Shore Power/Generator
Faucet1, you nailed it with the description of the generator running and the engine running and not charging the batteries unless you pressed the aux start button.
That is exactly how the BIRD is designed. The device has a generator input connection and if the ignition is on the BIRD is disabled. Kind of a strange design and I just learned this a month ago on my 08 model.
I discovered the issue by accident. My BIRD was a small circuit board mounted in the front run bay. Yours is probably different and I will get the picture for you. It may be in the links I provided before.
So your bird module is either bad or the connections need to be exercised.
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YC 1
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05/17/13 03:31pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: battery problems
Interactive site
Check this site out. You can experiment turning the engine on, connecting shoreline or running the generator.
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YC 1
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05/17/13 05:56am |
Tech Issues
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RE: No 12 Volt!
Salesman switch information
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YC 1
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05/16/13 11:39am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: No 12 Volt!
check your left front compartment, in the electrical box you will find a large relay, just had to replace mine, 120 was fine no 12 volt..
If the relay was dead why does it work properly while in the inverter mode? (what OP claims)
I think he meant that 110 volts was running, hence his batteries were ok, BUT, his 12 volt systems were dead.
This really points to the salesman solenoid.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 11:37am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Electrical / Battery Issue
As suggested, if it was this way from the factory she may have sick batteries. I would check the batteries and then of course the actual draw on each battery. Could be as simple as that.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 07:55am |
Tech Issues
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RE: No 12 Volt!
See if you have a panel like this below driver outside
Scroll down to the 3rd response and look for front distribution panel. There is a relay on the left. Mine has a circuit breaker as well but the most likely culprit is the solenoid. Just measure voltage on each side of the thing on the large connectors. You should have the same voltage on each large post if it is energized.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 07:49am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: No 12 Volt!
check your left front compartment, in the electrical box you will find a large relay, just had to replace mine, 120 was fine no 12 volt..
Ditto:
Commonly known as the salesman switch/solenoid. Cycle your switch by the door several times to see if it sparks to life.
Since your inverter works the batteries are not dead.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 07:46am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Chassis Battery Not Charging On Shore Power/Generator
One note on the BIRD device. It may be set up so the chassis batteries do not charge when the generator is running and the engine is running. They disable the BIRD under those conditions on some rv's.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 07:41am |
Tech Issues
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RE: Chassis Battery Not Charging On Shore Power/Generator
Scroll down to YC1 third response and look for bi-directional charger
This is an explanation on how the device works.
Also scroll down to Recaffeys picture to see if this is what you have,.
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YC 1
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05/16/13 07:32am |
Tech Issues
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RE: Chassis Battery Not Charging On Shore Power/Generator
1.
2.
3.
See if any of this helps you along. Since it DID work you probably have a bad combining solenoid. Often called the BIRD relay. There is lots of reading in the links and once you get a bit more familiar with the operation you may be able to help us help you. There are pictures in some of those links.
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YC 1
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05/15/13 05:38pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Have generator power no AC power
If your load shedding relays got confused because of the extreme load of an AC and Hot water heater on at the same time and your battery charger cut back and they ran low etc etc.
Well, I would disconnect shoreline and turn both banks of batteries off in the battery compartment. Not just any switches you may have. Getting the 12 volts off the coach circuits could bring it back up. I would not run AC and hot water heater on electric with 30 amps. This brings you right to the edge of the limit. I have done it but first turn my charger down to 20% rate.
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YC 1
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05/15/13 01:40pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Battery/electrical experts -- question on refrigerator
My default is 11 volts. That gives you some leeway when the compressor or any other load hits. At 12 volts my generator comes on too often.
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YC 1
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05/15/13 01:35pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: Cleaning the curtains in front window of coach
Had ours dry cleaned last week. Ours is an 08 HR. I had to sign off on warnings about them sticking together. They came out ok but they are not holding the nice creases now. I think as suggested, washing on delicate would have been just as good.
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YC 1
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05/14/13 07:25pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Think he got a ticket?
Hey, "The Salesman told me it would pull it".
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YC 1
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05/14/13 04:46pm |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: Using sani-con
I would highly recommend an in tank flushing system.
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YC 1
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05/13/13 08:10pm |
General RVing Issues
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RE: I-5 or CA99?
Traveled the I5 route a couple of weeks ago. Much better than in past years. Yes there are some bad bumps crossing bridges. The stockton area is making some progress. At least this time the traffic slowed way down so the bumps were not as bad.
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YC 1
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05/13/13 08:08pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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