wamcneil

It'll be hard to diagnose without any kind of current measuring device. I'd recommend buying a DC clamp meter so you can see what the current really is. Start out at the battery, and check the current draw. Then trace it downstream till you isolate where the current is going. Or start pulling fuses till the current drops way off. (Make sure it's a DC clamp meter. The cheaper clamp meters are AC only; DC clamp meters are a lot more expensive) Installing a shunt and battery monitor would also be really helpful. That'll tell you the current and also amp-hours drawn from the battery. I think you said you did a load test on the batteries, but I'm not sure that's a conclusive indicator of battery health. If your eight batteries are draining to 12v in 4-5 hours, that means you have a massive current that's got to be going somewhere. Which should be pretty easy to find because something should be making a bunch of noise or generating a lot of heat. But I think your batteries are bad. Cheers, Walter

Getting closer... The batteries are built and waiting for shipment!

I don't have a Trombetta in my arrangement, but I can comment in general... There's nothing specific to the battery technology in that 13.2v threshold. If the chassis-side of the system is above 13v, the system knows that the engine is running and the chassis batteries are charging; and therefore it should connect the two systems to allow alternator current to flow over to the house side. I am also concerned about how much current the lithium batteries would draw from the alternator. But I'm not sure that concern is entirely legitimate. Think about the all-electric coaches that have eight golf cart batteries. Four GC batteries like I have will easily take >100a when they are low. So eight AGMs would draw far more than the alternator can produce. But that's apparently not causing rampant alternator failures? Battle-Born is apparently not that concerned about it. From the BIM product page: "The LiFePO4 Battery Isolation Manager (BIM) monitors voltage and connects batteries when needed. Under normal charging conditions, the BIM will connect for 15 minutes every 35 minutes. That means that the BIM will connect for 15 minutes, disconnect for 20 minutes, and repeat this cycle until the coach battery is charged. If the coach battery resting voltage exceeds 13.4 V then the BIM will disconnect. A resting voltage greater than 13.4 V indicates a fully charged battery. Note that “resting voltage” means that no current is flowing to the coach battery. The BIM will disconnect if the alternator voltage exceeds 14.4 V. This protects the coach battery from over charging. The LiFePO4 Battery Isolation Manager will disconnect if the voltage difference between the alternator and the coach battery is less than 0.1 V. If the voltage difference is too low, then there is a negligible charging current, and no need to connect to the coach battery. The BIM will disconnect if the alternator voltage drops below 13.3 V. If the alternator voltage is too low, then it cannot adequately charge the coach battery, so there is no reason to connect." Personally, I'm leaning toward removal of the original battery isolator and installing a small dedicated battery charger for the chassis batt. And then later maybe install either a DC-DC charger or the battleborn BIM in place of the existing battery isolator. Cheers, Walter

Yeah, he’s got a really good forum too: diysolarforum.com Will and the other battery builders on the forum have dumped a lot of knowledge on there. I had planned to build them myself, but the assembled batteries aren’t much more than the components. Cheers Walter

Getting the right charging voltages should be pretty easy with any kind of modern configurable charger. I've got a Magnum MS inverter and a Morningstar MPPT solar charge controller. Both of those have fully customizable setpoints. The engine alternator is the part I haven't fully figured out yet. In the short term, I might just remove the battery combiners, isolate the chassis from the house batteries and figure it out later. Maybe install a small battery charger to maintain the chassis batteries and then think about adding a DC-DC charger. Cheers, Walter

Well, my 5yr old GC batteries are toast. So rather then buy more GC batteries I'm going to Lifepo4. Last week I did my first transaction on Alibaba and ordered two custom 272AH 12v Lifepo4 batteries to be built. It's a pretty reputable Chinese battery builder that has been supplying a lot of DIY components and batteries for solar forum users. Fingers crossed that they turn out nice and SAFE. It'll be several weeks before they arrive, but I'll update this thread as I disassemble, evaluate, test and review them. The specs for each battery include 4 272AH 3.2v Lifepo4 prismatic cells and a 300a BMS in a steel box. Wish me luck... Cheers, Walter

That’s a very different arrangement than mine. You can see the row of vents down my centerline. And the duct running straight through the roof aperture. That duct apparently runs all the way from front to back and all 3 ACs dump into it. So the AC intake draws air around the duct and up into the AC. Then the outlet blows down into the duct. One of these days I’ll snake a camera in there and see what’s happening inside. If I close off two the forward vents, it builds a lot of pressure at the front of the duct, but doesn’t push nearly as much air back down the duct as I think it should. Cheers Walter

As far as I can tell there are only a couple options that have 2 legs of AC in and 2 legs of AC out like the old RV2012. That's a big factor that pushed me to the Magnum MS2012. It's as direct of a swap as you'll find and doesn't require any major rewiring or reconfiguration or AC or DC. Almost the same footprint, same basic wiring requirements with connections in similar locations. AGS was the hardest part. The magnum AGS requires a wire that Trace didn't use, and finding that wire in the Monaco harness was an adventure. Cheers, Walter

Just following up in case anybody is chasing a similar problem. Thanks again for the great advice. With cooler weather approaching I got motivated to look at it again and found the hose clamp loose at the radiator cap. I don't remember messing with it, but I must have taken it loose last year when changing the antifreeze. Maybe the hose clamp was in the way and the cap was hanging up on it. The clear hose appears to be intact and not hardened so I'll defer replacement for the time being... I've been through 4-5 heat/cool cycles and it appears to be acting normal. Cheers, Walter

I’m not sure annoying people at IDLE is the real problem... My life would be a lot more pleasant if all the cowboys around here with their stupid open pickup exhaust were only IDLING past my house. Maybe I should find something more important to worry myself about Cheers Walter

That’s CRAZY talk. And then what’s next??? Huh??? Air conditioners that are quiet and efficient??? Refrigerators that don’t catch fire and use current-millennium technologies ???? 😱 cheers Walter

How old are your batteries? Are you sure your batteries are good??? You've got four or more golf cart batteries, right? Those should last at least 5 days at 3amps. So either you're drawing a LOT more current (like >50amps) or the batteries are shot. Cheers, Walter

I hope you figure it out. I have the same problem every once in a while. I've found that twisting the key from On to Start briskly seems to help, but I can hear a solenoid clicking either way, so I don't think it's the switch. I've never observed the problem while starting from the engine bay. Cheers, Walter

Yeah... that was plan-b in case I ruined the circuit board with my ham-fisted soldering...

Mine acted a lot like that except I could tap on the control box and sometimes get it to retract. Turned out to be burned contacts in a relay on the control board. Can you hear the relay click when pressing the switch? My theory is it takes more current to retract the awning which stresses the tiny relays. And I suspect that bypassing the current limiter makes things worse. I had a sketchy current limiter and also a sketchy relay which was fun to diagnose... Instead of bypassing the current limiter I lucked into their updated ‘adaptive’ version on eBay. The little relays are discontinued and nobody domestic has them in stock. But you can find them on eBay shipped straight from China. I’m (edit) NOT tremendously skilled with a soldering iron, but I was able to replace the two relays. It’s pretty tight on the board and I was just barely able to replace myself. Takamisawa 4pins JV12S-KT Relay. There’s a very similar relay available domestically, but it has a higher current trigger coil. My electronics friend said the circuit board could probably handle it, but I didn’t want to risk it. Cheers Walter

Yeah, if you need more than just a little bit of heat, you'll need leave both switches on. Think of it in terms of heat flow. My AH electric element consumes about 14a@120. That's around 1700 watts or 5700 btu/hr and is equivalent to one little 15a electric space heater. That 5700 btu/hr of electric heating element in the boiler tank will heat up the antifreeze in the AH tank just like your water heater at home. And when somebody takes a long shower in the house, they're consuming hot water faster than the electric element can replenish it, so if you stay in the shower long enough, you will run out of hot water. And then it takes the water heater a long time to recover and get back up to temp where the thermostat shuts off the element. Same thing happens with the AH. That 1700w element will heat up the water, but then when you call for the heat (labeled 'furnace' in the thermostat), hot water starts circulating through all the little hydronic radiators and they will pull the heat out of the AH tank a LOT faster than a 5700 btu/hr electric element can replenish it. The electric element will stay on, but the water temperature will continue to drop till the diesel burner fires. So unless you only need a LITTLE heat, the electric element will stay on continuously and the diesel will cycle. The term "heat strips" was used several times. That's something different. Heat strips could be installed in the AC units to provide resistive electric heat. I don't have heat strips in my heat-pumps and I doubt you have them either. The hydronic blowers will definitely run without the diesel or electric being on or hot. The thermostat doesn't know the state of the AH. When the thermostat is set to 'furnace', and it calls for heat, it sends a signal to the AH to start the pump and blowers. The pumps and blowers don't know or care if the boiler water is hot or not. It's like the heater in a car; if you jump in a cold car, your heater will blow cold until the engine warms the coolant. Same in your AH; if you boiler water is cold, the hydronic air will blow cold. The old AHs are not very smart. There's the electric element that is controlled by a thermostat in the tank, and the diesel burner that is controlled by a separate thermostat in the tank, and that's about it as far as boiler tank temperature regulation. Cheers, Walter Do you have an ammeter installed to monitor power usage in the motorhome? The electric element should draw about 14a when you turn on the 'water heater'. The current usage should tell you if the electric element is coming on. Is your thermostat set to 'furnace' all this time, or are you changing the thermostat mode? I'm surprised that your hydronic fans come on only when the diesel switch is on. That's not how my 2003 behaves. After your diesel burner turns off, does the light on it also go out at some point later? The light on the diesel switch should stay ON. If that light goes out, it indicates the AH is having a fault and has shut down. I had a problem with my diesel ignitor where the ignitor would work when everything was cold, but after the unit heated up, the ignitor would later stop sparking and the unit would shut down. So it would go through at least one cycle and then at some point the burner would try and start back up, not detect flame, the light would go out and then the unit would shut down with a fault. Cheers, Walter

Unless you can SEE the water seeping in under the gasket, I'd be looking for something like this. My gasket was thoroughly fused to the fiberglass and I've read other posts indicating that that's just what happens. So while I don't have much practical experience with rooftop ACs, it seems to me like these seals wouldn't be a likely source of water intrusion. And if water is coming in the gasket, it should be easy to observe. The gaskets are pretty soft and most of the weight of the AC unit bearing down on it. It really shouldn't need the bolt pressure clamping it down in order to seal. In the default installation without the drain pans, the gasket starts off 1" thick, and there are some hard foam blocks about 3/4" thick at the corners of the base pan. Apparently the intention is to compress the gasket ~1/4" and pull the unit down onto the harder foam blocks. But in the drain pan installation, you've got 2x1" gaskets and they give you a couple additional strips of soft gasket to prop up the back of the unit. In this installation, the hard-foam corner-blocks don't contact the roof, so the unit is being supported by the soft double-stacked gaskets and they will happily compress right on down till the drain pans hit the roof. That's how mine are. Apparently they'd been re-tightened periodically and the unit pulled right down till it's resting on the drain pans. This would likely leave the rear of the unit sitting up higher than the font and that might allow water entering the base-pan to run forward where it can find its way into the front and then down the intake area. Over-compressing the gasket could also cause the drain hose(s) to get pinched. I had this happen with my new unit and only 1/2" of compression. This caused one of the drain cups to overflow onto the roof when the coach is tilted toward the one side that was obstructed. If your drains are pinched from over-compression, maybe the incoming rain is overwhelming the cups and making its way into your intake duct. Cheers, Walter

Just for clarity... The drain kit comes with ONE of the necessary gaskets. Use of the drain kit requires TWO stacked gaskets. The other square gaskets are available a-la-carte

Do you have a ducted setup with vents in the ceiling? If that’s the case I’m not sure the bolts should ever be tightened. My duct stubs are set up for 1/2” of duct compression. That’s starting with 2 stacked 1” gaskets, and results in the A/C pan being 1-1/2” above the roof. If you crank it on down, it’ll smash the duct down with it. Even if your bolts are loose, there’s still the weight of the unit pressing them down on the roof as you crank the bolts down. Are you positive that the water is coming in through the gasket? If so, I’d probably try and lift the unit up and put sealant under the gasket. But, those gaskets get fused to the roof like you wouldn’t believe. And they are not exposed to sunlight, so it’s not like they get brittle and crumbled. So I’d look really hard and make 100% certain it’s truly the gaskets before replacing them. Cheers Walter

I keep this 150psi trim compressor on board: a Bostitch CAP1512-OF 1.2 Gallon Oil-Free High-Output Trim Compressor More expensive than the pancake compressors, but fairly quiet. It also runs fine on 2000w inverter. Cheers Walter

Yeah, I ordered similar plugs from a truck supply, but without the custom dipsticks attached and then swapped parts over. The new parts were identical to the old ones. Cheers Walter

Smoking on startup is usually valve guides, right? Either way, I’m not sure any amount of smoke is ‘normal’ The noise sounds to me like a loose belt to me. Cheers Walter

I've got a similar problem... I've got the MCD tracks, but I don't have covers. Anybody got some disused MCD covers they'd like to part with????

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Personally, I wouldn't bother to carry a spare. If you blow that high-current fuse, there's something bad wrong. I would suspect a dead short in the cable or maybe the inverter is destroyed and unsalvageable. If I found the fuse blown, I wouldn't just replace it with a spare and hope for the best like a normal automotive fuse. If your inverter is capable of drawing more than 250A you need a bigger fuse and probably bigger cables to match. In my setup, the inverter cable goes from the battery, back to the run bay, through half a dozen connections to the parallel circuit breakers and then to the inverter. In my opinion a fuse might be better than a circuit breaker in this case and I'm in the process re-wiring the inverter cables. I've purchased a 300A high current fuse to go between the battery switch and inverter, eliminating a lot of cable, connections and resistance. I don't have any data to support this, but I suspect that a high current fuse has less resistance than an equivalent circuit breaker. Cheers, Walter