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amphi_sc

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Everything posted by amphi_sc

  1. Just FYI, my '07 Patriot Thunder wiring diagram shows the Trlr Charge line as ALWAYS hot and fused with a 20a fuse F7-3. I can verify the charge line is indeed hot all the time the chassis battery disconnect is on. By the way I've been debating cutting that line (as I can't find that fuse in case it ever blows) and using a spare relay socket on the relay board in the RR with signal from the nearby ign relay (which I've already tied into for switching the TPMS booster) and a 15a or 20a CB and a standard 85a diode like is used for toad lights. Anyway just my thoughts as I was desiring a charge line to my toad and don't really like how my coach is presently wired.
  2. If your existing Halogen bulbs are dimmable make sure you get dimmable LED that won't flicker. I went with 20w equivalent pucks that were a little whiter than the yellowish Halogen but be careful about going too blueish. Probably 10w equivalent is fine for the BR as I end up dimming those down, but like the full 20W brightness in the LR. (My source from 8 years ago doesn't seem to be around anymore or changed their domain name.)
  3. When I had flakey things happening with my house lights & multiplex system I chased an introduced noise theory for quite a while. Unplugged each G4 (two pin) light bulb in each socket & reinserted to make sure they had a good connection. Killed all power & batteries to the coach, Loosened and tightened each ground bar connection in the rear closet as well as the ones I could in the upper left corner of the engine bay. Replugged each switch panel, cycled all the connections on the cpu and subsequent boards, etc... see thread: Good luck
  4. My Patriot Thunder has the almost same setup by the bed but the mattress doesn't cover them. My fan switch is overhead between the overhead reading spot lights easily reached by either occupant. Your mattress must be much thicker. The pillows do affect the unused phone and seldom used 120v socket. When you raise the bed up and unscrew the plywood frame to gain access to the wiring you might find enough slack there to accomplish relocation without splices.
  5. I'd be curious about how well the AGS starts the generator ... I was thinking back to the question I asked a while back why I would never hear the generator crank when the AGS started it as it just always fired off ... never would notice a crank just popped to life immediately. But when I'd try a manual start with the switch it would crank 4, 5 or more times before firing off. It was suggested the AGS primed it and I wasn't manually priming it by holding the generator stop button for a while before pressing the start. Anyway, just curious following this thread. (By the way your BigBoy wasn't as badly green as mine was last time I did the annual cleaning. I probably should make it a semi annual routine ...)
  6. These stops should "hit" just before the linkage goes past over center on the gear movement, thus the motor will get high current and the controller will turn off. Evidently yours doesn't get a high current situation until the gear runs all the way out of gear teeth. You might also check how worn out your bushings are in the linkage. I recently replaced the bushings as mine got so sloppy the linkage would rattle at the extreme and just "bounce" enough so the motor never got a firm stop (but also didn't go past center full extension) ... i.e. the pivot bolts were too sloppy in the joints. Easy enough to take the bolts out, knock out the bushings, drive in new ones and cut to length with a hack saw, smooth out the cuts on a grinding wheel, and reassemble. While I was at it I noticed the motor was engaging the top half of the teeth so I added a washer on top of the gear lowering the gear just a tad so motor engaged the gear with full tooth to tooth alignment. Years ago I also added a screen door spring to assist the starting of retraction. Probably not necessary after I cleaned up all the gunk sand/mud in the glides with a lot of WD-40 and water pressure. (Winter driving thru sanded wintry slush sure makes a mess!) The attached pictures show the angle of the linkage retracted and extended.
  7. Do you have the metal brackets that engages between the two steps when extended? See my picture below:
  8. Hello Jeff, Continuing off the TV topic for a moment expanding on the BigBoy: The BigBoy relay is engaged automatically by the circuits when either the Engine is charging the chassis or the Magnum Inverter/Charger is charging the house bank. Thus both banks are supposed to stay fully charged. With no active charging source it disengages thus isolating the banks so your house activity doesn't drain your ability to start the big diesel nor the generator. The boost switch manually connects the banks (assuming you have charged house batteries) so you can put a charge into the chassis batteries to start the big diesel or the generator (which could then charge both banks). It is not recommended to crank the big diesel with the relay engaged as that would draw way more than the 200 amp rating of the BigBoy, IIRC only use to put a charge into the batteries. Thus when I'm driving down the road the residential fridge running off the house isn't draining the house down as the BigBoy allows the alternator to charge both banks. What I was noticing via the Aladdin electric displays & dash gauges when driving was the engine alternator putting out a constant 13.6 volts on the chassis side and also the house batteries doing a 25 amp discharge and then sometimes charging back at 40-50 amps for a while at 13.5 volts and then dropping back out and discharging again and dropping way below the alternator voltage. I.e the BigBoy contacts were corroded green and depending on vibration were making intermittent contact. Before I took it all apart to verify I did a simple test of disengaging shore power ( as I was parked for a few days). Turning on the ignition the Alladin showed 12.4 volts on the chassis and 13 something on the house as the house surface charge was still present but chassis has parasitic drain lowering them a bit. I then flipped the chassis disconnect leaving the house connected, watched the Aladdin display for the chassis batteries as I turned the ignition key (not trying to start but only power the ecm) and when I pressed the battery boost switch I'd see the chassis and dash guages come alive (from nothing) with voltage but not full house voltage. Thus there was a significant voltage drop across the BigBoy. So while parked I wasn't maintaining a full charge on the chassis due to corroded BigBoy contacts, and likely causing the fluctuating house voltage while driving. So I swapped in my spare BigBoy I always carry and redid the test now getting full house voltage thru to the disconnected chassis batteries: thus knowing IF I had to depend on battery boost it would now conduct juice. Then I flipped the chassis disconnect back on & started the big Cat and watched the Aladdin show a steady 70 amp charge going into the house (as the fridge and wife had used juice while I was working on the coach). All good again. When I disassembled the BigBoy the internal contacts were mostly green as was the contactor disc. Typical problem so I cleaned - reassembled - and carry that one as a spare until next time. I do find the Aladdin most useful on monitoring many things ... Voltages & tank levels, even the alarm clock. It is always on. I just wish it separately monitored Solar going to each bank rather than just the solar coming from the roof. I've considered adding separate shunts and external displays to the outputs of the factory solar charger. Now hopefully getting back on topic of his outside TV not coming down from the bottom of the slide. The only reason I mentioned the BigBoy in the first place is that I have found the Intellitec multiplex house system to be susceptible to induced noise...dirty bulb connections, wall switch panel connections needing to be unplugged/replugged, fuses loose but connecting or just needed reinsertion, bad ground bar connections in the upper left corner of the engine bay, etc. Electronics can act flaky with voltage ⚡ variations. I could tell you an interesting story of a computer serial mouse lockup when it got its power from the serial port CTS & DTR pins on the UART and the software quickly toggled those signals during software initialization. Anyway... End of Hijack
  9. Could it be a slide "out" push pin switch (like the bay door open detection) not working? Bring the slide in and out again? My external TV won't go down if the slide isn't all the way out. Likewise the slide won't come in if the TV isn't all the way up. I have two momentary Carling switches by the door for the TV ... One is off/on, the other is center off/up/down movement. Mine seems to have about a second delay between pushing the first momentary switch "on" giving a signal to the up/down momentary switch before any movement will begin even if both switches are "engaged" simultaneously. Both of those Carling switches only light up when the TV is down. I also have a regular house single pole light switch behind the couch that kills 120v power to the socket for the TV and it's lift mechanism. Sometimes it gets accidentally knocked "off" when we put something behind the couch and wall. I would try to kill power to the Intellitec CPU for a few minutes to give it a cold reboot as there is some Intellitec logic involved as indicated by the one second or so delay after engaging the first switch before the 2nd up/down switch will do anything with my TV. The one time I had a problem with mine not wanting to go down I couldn't make sense of the wiring diagrams and power I was seeing with a volt meter at the switches and 120v socket. But at the same time I was also having (what I would have considered totally unrelated) a case of my BigBoy needing to be cleaned again as while driving my house batteries would charge for a while and then not and then charge again. Anyway a few days later I got around to swapping in my spare big boy and thus flipped both battery disconnects and shore power in the process. Mysteriously a couple days later I went back to continue diagnosing my external slide TV problem and it had magically solved itself. Could the corroded "green" contacts inside the BigBoy introduced noise into the 12v system that caused flakey behavior? Did just cycling the power fix it? (However that 120v socket is inverter powered and the house battery disconnect does not kill the inverter...it has to be turned off at the remote...i.e. my fridge microwave etc always have power unless take more actions. Anyway I routinely end up swapping and cleaning my BigBoy about once a year ... often thinking maybe I should eliminate it going with a ML Mcr or maybe a BIM 225 ... but then again it's easy enough to clean up the BigBoy contacts. I've tried various substances to attempt to fight the green gunk on the copper but it always comes back. I've thought about silver solder coating the contacts but so far just resort to disassembly and cleaning... My apologies for the long "ramble". I hope you get the TV figured out.
  10. Don't forget that there's often other sources cheaper than Amazon if you don't need the packaging material https://www.ebay.com/itm/305284752443 and still get free shipping. When the original poster said "There’s two connections on the one for the washing machine that I do not have and one for the AC. I can jump it in the air-conditioning will work" it sounds like he's already found the Intellitec box. But without his washing machine I wonder why the box is bad as the relay should not be changing states. When mine failed years ago it was a solder joint to the board's relay... easy fix ... but I got a new one anyway and put the repaired one in service with a double throw switch as an alternative way to load share the front A/C with the Aqua hot for when I'm on 30 amp service. Even with the potential of the Aqua Hot element being switched under load the relay has held up.
  11. I guess I'm in the minority here, but I have a lot of use for the Alladin system. In many parks I let the Alladin system keep the fresh water full as they have low water pressure so my water pump is always on. As the tank drops to the 80% full level the Alladin system opens up the fill solenoid and fills back to 100% and turns off. No worries. I calibrated the black tank by filling a 1 gallon milk jug and counting the dumps into the toilet with the toilet fill water turned off. The gray via the shower and a 5 gallon water can. Sure it was tedious but pretty darn accurate now. And as I was filling from the fresh water tank + pump I could verify the fresh water readings on the Alladin as the tank emptied. When I first got the coach I couldn't figure out why I couldn't fill the fresh water tank until I realized the Alladin had to be powered up for the valve to open. Voltages and current are important information for me to see on the Alladin. It helps me determine when the Big Boy needs disassembly and cleaning. My dash and bedroom displays are a very readable white font on an orange background. No problems with reading them in the sun as opposed to the TST tire monitor system which is impossible to read. The old TST B/W monitor was very readable but TST broke the usability with that monitor with an engineering change that when deployed to the field on new systems made the installed base of existing monitors go crazy with indications of pressures 400+ or 500+ psi. The purchased new color monitor is not readable in broad daylight when driving needing sunglasses. Anyway, everyone has their own preferences.
  12. As stated earlier, it's a Jen-Air not a Samsung. Probably will just continue to raise the ice maker arm as I've always done. The hint on vacation mode to avoid the 100 DC amp draw and the unnerving fridge/freezer temp displays is handy knowledge.
  13. My dear wife made it to the fridge this morning just before me so when I opened the door maybe 5 minutes later the vacation mode light was off. That would have been about 8 hours after I turned it on. The ice maker dumped since turning on vacation mode last night, but as I was still in the bathroom when DW opened the door this am I don't know for sure if it just dumped or dumped much earlier while we were sleeping. However it's now been 25 minutes since she opened the door and the ice tray feels frozen (I just thought about a skinny finger touch to the ice surface) and not as fresh liquid water ... implying vacation mode didn't also disable ice making. But I think I need another test run or two before decisively concluding.
  14. Re: Jen-Air vacation mode. Learning something new. I pressed the button on, the led lit up. I opened and closed both fridge and freezer doors several times and the vacation led stayed lit ! I pressed it off. Then I pressed it back on again just before retiring for the night and will see of it stays lit after tomorrow morning's breakfast routine.
  15. The electrical connection on the top and short size threw me off compared to the other more typical shocks. By the way, owner's manual has no description of the dash switch.
  16. So do I have 6 shocks on that one axle? Three per side? The other two longer ones look different.
  17. Looking under my coach at the rear I see this oily cylinder next to the shocks. I have only air leveling - no hydraulic jacks. So what's the function of this cylinder and where might a replacement be found? Does it have anything to do with sport vs comfort mode on the driver's console switch?
  18. Hi Frank, Interesting you've seen a mysterious 100 amp draw too that went away when fridge breaker is manually flipped! My Fridge is the factory installed 22 cu ft Jen-Air. When I noticed my high amp draw it was after driving for the day and getting set up to boondock the night. I always turn off the ice maker the night before travel day as I wanted the tray to be securely frozen and didn't want it dumping ice and refilling with water while driving. So my 100 amp draw was with ice maker arm up - shutting off the cycle from the previous night. But still the strange draw seemed fridge related.
  19. As stated in original post: residential fridge. And then temps were back to normal within 10 minutes. So wondering if temp sensors were measuring temp at the evaporator coils as maybe??? it was on an automatic defrost cycle and then when the circulation fans kicked back in the sensors measured true temp?? So can I trust the freezer display of -1 or +14 just minutes apart? However still begs the question why inverter showed 100 DC amps until fridge breaker cycled and fridge seems okay today. But back to the observation that battery volts between Aladdin display - inverter display - and hand held meter at the bats all read significantly different. Today I also measured voltages at the lugs in the front run box and got another set differing readings.
  20. After 10 years with this coach I'm trying to understand what to believe in the various 12V voltage displays vs a meter ... or if I should wire in another remote display directly at the house batteries and maybe a shunt. So ... We are unplugged, have a the factory provided Heliotrope 30D, about 600 Watts on the roof, 4 pm mostly clear sky with a few thin clouds about 4-5000 ft, been driving about 7 hours after boondocking yesterday, and big boy has likely been engaging "sometimes" and has clicked off now. Here's what I see at this exact moment: Handheld voltmeter on either set of 2 per parallel set of 4 12V Lifeline 4D batteries (two different compartments) 12.6v and 12.54v Set of 4 Lifeline 12v Chassis batteries 12.6v Magnum remote says inverting 12.1V at 25 amps Aladdin solar display 16.1v 14.4a charge and Aladdin house bats display 13.1v 29a discharge. (Notice 12.1 vs 13.1 vs at the bats 12.6) (Aladdin may typically show anywhere from 11a to 30a discharge depending on of residential fridge and or bay Engle 110v freezer is running at the moment ...) If I remove & measure at the 30a solar fuse at the house bats I get battery voltage on one side (makes sense) but 2.4 volts on the other side of the fuse holder. At the Heliotrope itself house is indicating 12.6 and Chassis 12.8 across the terminals. The "bulk" led is lit. With fuse at the house bats removed I get the 2.4 volts and bulk led goes off. So I guess the solar controller shuts down if no battery voltage detected? Driving during the day the Aladdin house showed 13.5-13.6 jumping occasionally to 14.5 for a few minutes then back down. Sometimes showing 0 amps, sometimes 3-4 a discharge, and other times maybe 7-25 amps charge. (In the early AM driving I was getting 50-70 charge from the alternator I believe recovering from overnight). Chassis batteries stayed fairly constant at 13.5 to 13.6 even when the house indicated 14.5. During the drive Solar ranged up to 18.4 volts and 25 amps. So how is the alternator - big boy - solar - inverter all playing together? Indicated voltages are all over place but chassis seems what I would expect. Is the big boy engaging sometimes if the house & freezer draw the battery down when the solar is providing less current than demanded? If the demand is low is the solar going into equalization mode and big boy disengaging. My handheld volt meter can't handle reading more than 10a so I don't want to plug that inline with the 30a fuse to get an amperage reading. (Maybe at dusk as current drops). I also noticed what looks like a 18 ga pair of wires hooked as one wire on one of the "temp comp probe" terminals and the other "minus ext voltage sense" Strange?? Anyway, I'll ponder all this for a while... Oh, one more thing that led to my pondering all this. Last night when I shut down to boondock the Aladdin showed 100 amp discharge which was very very very unusual so I started flipping breakers trying to find the uncommon heavy load. Started think fridge died as freezer showed 14° and Fridge side 52° and when I flipped the residential fridge breaker the heavy load went away. But flipped back on and no heavy load and within 10 minutes freezer showed -1 and fridge at 36°. Did I just randomly catch it at some defrost cycle drawing a lot of current? It is working normally today.
  21. Just curious if that 125 psi rating is sufficient or if there is some regulator that reduces the air suspension pressure from the main tanks as my system cycles between 110 low psi to 135 psi compressor cutout. Or maybe my Valid system uses differently rated valves.
  22. After jumpering you got fuel at the nozzle so fuel solenoid is okay. Another common thing that prevents the fuel solenoid from opening is the high temperature cut off. If your controller is cycling the motor and starting the sparking cycle ( you should be able to hear it spark a few times ) and then detecting no flame and doing a shutdown cycle I might think the controller is okay but the safety temp cut out has failed thus preventing the fuel solenoid from opening so there is no fuel for the spark to ignite. Anyway did your tech verify the temp cut out was functioning? As I recall the electric and diesel temp probes are the same on some units and thus could be swapped to diagnose. FWIW
  23. My Valid keypad got wet 10+ years ago from a sudden rain storm when we were out and the driver's window was cracked open. It still works for leveling, however, the "battery" light stays on and the LED's for front rear level indication may have both a red and green led on (I.e that green is apparently stuck on but the red will go out when we are level). As the keypads aren't cheap and mine functions I haven't replaced it Maybe I should while they are still available.
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