wamcneil

2 hours ago, Just Jim said:

hey Walter,

your notes:

Updated wiring:
New Avital box wiring>>>>>>>>Original Box Wiring
Red(Constant 12v)>>>>>>>>>>Red
Green/Black(Lock)>>>>>>>>>>White/Green
Blue/Black(Unlock)>>>>>>>>>>White/Red
Red/White(Unlock BayDoors)>>Purple/White
White(Parking Lights)>>>>>>>>White
Black/White(Dome Light)>>>>Black/White
Black, Black/White,Violet, Violet/Black(Grnd)>>Black, Gray

My existing wiring does not have a green/black wire or a blue/black wire.  I assume you mean a green wire with black stripe or something similar to that?  The existing wiring does have a black and a white/black.  The new wiring does not have a white/green or a white/red.  It does have a Red/white and two black/white wires.  

So would love some clarity on your instructions above.  Does black, black/white, violet, violet/black mean to tie all those together and connect to the black, and grey?  You have the black/white listed twice... once going to the black/white and also to the black and gray. 

In looking at the new wiring harness that I received, it seems to match what you have listed as the original wiring.  Perhaps you have the titles switched?  Original should be the new Avital box?  I'm still missing a few of the wires for what I have as existing... but maybe I can figure it out.

 

Ha! Sorry. I think my instructions would be more useful if the titles were not reversed. Looks like it should be New Avital on the left and Original Box on the right. 

Q- "Does black, black/white, violet, violet/black mean to tie all those together and connect to the black, and grey?" Yes

Q- "You have the black/white listed twice... once going to the black/white and also to the black and gray". You should have two Black/Whites on the avital (positions 3&4 on the plug). Position 3 in the plug goes to ground and position 4 goes to the old Black/White, but which one goes where probably doesn't matter. As I recall, this feature wasn't used in the original configuration. 

The wireless box works by supplying a "signal" to an output wire. Take the input/output pair of wires 3&4 for example. Wire 3 is the signal "input" for the domelight and wire 4 is the signal "output" for the domelight. Our application uses negative signals, so the signal input wire is connected to ground. If some or all of the input wires were connected to 12v+, they would provide 'positive signals'.

When the box calls for the domelight to come on, it provides a 'negative signal' to the domelight relay by connecting the domelight output (#4) to ground (#3). This completes the circuit of a relay coil and causes a relay to close.

That's why all those wires are connected together and go to black and gray in the harness. As I recall, the black and gray wires are crimped together in the same pin in the harness, so I crimped them both together with all the wires in the avital pigtail. But you could just clip off the gray wire and use just the black wire. Wire position 11 is ground for the wireless unit, and all of the other wires connected with it are ground 'inputs' for the various functions.

5 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Thanks guys.  I'll order a wireless unit and some key fobs and poke around on the keypad to see if I can figure out if it is bad.  Should I buy the wireless unit from A1 since they have good instructions on how to rewire?

Jim

That was my thought too, but it won’t matter where you buy the wireless unit because the A1/Essex wireless instructions actually aren’t very useful for our application.
The useful instructions are in that irv2 thread that I linked. 
There’s really nothing special about the Avital wireless unit. It’s truly an unrelated 3rd party automotive accessory. But I feel like A1 selling it along with the Essex keypad is an indication that maybe it’s better quality than the average generic wireless kit. Mine has held up well and the keyfobs don’t feel cheap. 

Yeah. The black box looks to be the wireless receiver.

The door keypad is entirely separate though. The wireless box and the keypad are both connected to the coach's lock solenoids, but they are not otherwise integrated with each other.

Essex advertises their keypad with a 'wireless option' which makes it sound like the wireless is somehow integrated with the keypad, but it's not. When you purchase the 'wireless option' from A1 electric (essex distributor) you get the essex keypad and a 100% separate 3rd party wireless system. 

When I bought a replacement essex keypad from A1 in 2017, it came with an Avital 2101L wireless system, and it seems to be of good quality. I don't use the keyfobs often, but they are still working fine after 6+ years. Not sure if that is still a current avital part number, but I'm sure it will be easy enough to find an equivalent on amazon.

Do you have a build sheet on the rig? That would say if you have the viper alarm. 
Either way, I think it is set up similar to the dynasty and the wireless or viper box should be inside the dash forward of the gauges. According to the wiring diagram, the viper plugs into the same plug as the wireless box. 
Sorry, can’t help you on the doorbell!

If the keypad doesn’t beep it’s probably dead. Certainly possible that it’s not getting power or something, but in my limited experience the keypad just fails. 
And if you don’t have a fob for the wireless, just replace the wireless unit. They’re cheap. 

23 hours ago, Just Jim said:

I did a quick search of the cabinets on the door side and found no bell.  It may have been completely removed???  No idea what the Ford keypad looks like so I took a picture of it.

That's the essex keypad. Here's the documentation, Should be able to reset it. Does it beep when you push the buttons?

1 (keyless.com)

The wireless module is something separate. Here's my writeup on replacing the wireless module

Essex 1603 Keypad and Wireless Replacement - iRV2 Forums

Cheers,

Walter

15 hours ago, Dragnfly said:

, fridge runs and cools but no interior light,  

I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that the fridge runs, but the FRIDGE interior light stops working?

or are you saying that the fridge works but the COACH interior light stops working???

If you’re losing the coach interior lights, that suggests to me that there’s a problem with the ground strap between the house batteries and the frame. 
The old xantrex had an internal shunt to measure house loads. And the extra ground cable was to pass house ground(chassis) through the inverter and then through the inverter negative cable to the house batteries negative.
When that 3rd inverter cable is missing, is breaks the path between house 12v loads and the battery, cutting off house 12v power, but the inverter would still work fine. Maybe there’s a problem with your new cable from batteries to chassis 

4 hours ago, Dragnfly said:

 

Fridge is newly installed residential fridge, we put zantrax 1000 extra inverter in before new house inverter went bad and tied it in through house inverter so it would run going down road also, my remote on house inverter is reading 13.7 volts, remote on extra inverter reads 13.7 volts also, the problem doesn’t stay constant it moves back and forth, also don’t know if it’s another issue but the heat turned on by itself in the aqua hot and the fan for aqua hot came on

Which inverter is running the fridge?  Maybe BOTH of them???! I’m really confused 

Ok, so you’re saying that the fridge runs, but the light inside the fridge stops working?

What kind of fridge? Is this a residential fridge that’s running on the inverter, or a norcold rv fridge?

Have you checked output voltage on the inverter?

1 hour ago, Jim McGarvie said:

 So what kind of lithium batteries did you end up with, how many and what amp-hours, and how do you like them?

I had two 4-cell 270ah batteries custom manufactured in china through alibaba. Custom allowed me to size the batteries to fit neatly in the 4xGC tray with a total of 8 270ah cells in two stainless boxes. 
If I were doing it again I still might go custom or diy, but there seem to be descent turnkey options available now. There weren’t many options besides battle born at that time. 
I’m happy with them now, but it was an ordeal. The first pair were not satisfactory so the company (Xuba) agreed to reengineer them and build me two more batteries, which turned out well. It took them a while but they eventually made good. 
 

22 hours ago, Jim McGarvie said:

Folks, I am researching replacing my 6v AGMs with lithium. The four AGMs produce 440 Ah, of which about 220 is usable. I would like to get at least 50% more usable, maybe 300 Ah minimum. I would like batteries approved for 100% discharge, or close to it. 

I can’t comment on the specific batteries that you’re considering, but I can share my experience with battery capacity. 
With a residential refrigerator, I generally use a minimum of about 200ah/day. 250 with kids watching tv and other misc loads.
With 4 golf cart batteries I could run a full day without plugging in but I had a lot of anxiety about running the batteries too low. I felt like I needed them totally full so I could make it through the day without killing the batteries. 
I sized the lithium batteries to go 2 days unplugged and it eliminates a lot of anxiety. Now I don’t stress about having the full capacity of the batteries available at any given point 

2 hours ago, timaz996 said:

Jerry don't focus on fully charging your lithium batteries. They will last many times longer if they stay between 20 and 80 or 90% SOC. I purposely set the charge and float voltage a little lower on my solar controller and my MultiplusII so the batteries don't top off. Go on Will's forum and do a little research.  

And also, is there really a need to charge the batteries at 100a? If running the generator to charge, probably don't want the generator to run any longer than needed, but on shore power, cut the charge rate way down to minimize voltage drop and make life easier for the charger.

That being said... 0.7v drop sounds really, really bad for such short runs and 2/0 cable, and thats what Magnum recommends for 2000w inverters with short runs. If there's .7v sag when charging at 100a, how hot are the terminals when inverting at 200a????

Sounds to me like the crimps are horrible. I'd get a proper hydraulic crimper and start over again on the wiring. The crimpers are pretty cheap on amazon and work really well. With 2/0 can probably get by with a hand crimper. 

I agree with the gripes on the magnum voltage sensing. I've got a magnum inverter with the magnum BMS. The BMS is sensing voltage separate of the inverter via its own power wire and will show me an accurate battery voltage that is lower than what the charger sees. But regardless of whether the inverter is working alone or has the BMS connected to it, the charger uses voltage at the inverter's battery terminal exclusively. I called their tech support to confirm that my observation was accurate and they did indeed confirm that the battery charger does NOT use BMS voltage to regulate charging voltage. 

23 hours ago, Ray Davis said:

Most auto air cond work very well and that's essentially what our coaches have.  However, we are asking the AC to do too much,  it's overwhelmed by the area and heat. My first thought about a 12v elect compressor was that'll never work and I still can't imagine an improvement in cooling.  So why reinvent the wheel,  but then I'm reminded of Ted over on IRV2 who took his engine coolant fan off and converted it to elect.  Truthfully, I thought that'll never work, but apparently, it's working very well.  https://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/electric-cooling-fan-conversion-2000-endeavor-dp-557437.html         Ted also has a youtube channel  https://youtube.com/channel/UCaQHHoLTPa5QGklGwqXCoYw   he is a real getter done engineer guy, get him interested and he'll probably at least let us know if he thinks it's feasible.  He may even take on the task.

Yeah, Ted was my first thought when I started reading this. At one point he was planning to replace his compressor with a 120v compressor up front driven by the inverter and replaced his engine compressor with a 2nd alternator to help supply the extra power needed. I don’t think he got around to installing the compressor, but he spent a lot of time planning the project and was thoroughly convinced that the solution was practical. I think a120v compressor would probably be a lot more cost effective than 12v

That being said… I’m with y’all that are thinking that repairing the hose is by far the path of least resistance.  

That sensor was the problem. Just like Jacwjames said, it's easily accessible from underneath and just above the starter. There's a second 2-wire sensor close to it that I assume is for the gauges.

Apparently on the ISL it's a switch, not a sensor; the original switch had the same P/N. I didn't need to program anything and the code went away immediately. 

Weird how things happen in threes. Until recently I don't think I've ever had a vehicle oil pressure sensor/switch go bad on me. Now it the last 12mo I've had to replace oil press sensors on two cars and now the bus.

Error code gone. Won't be able to get it out and drive it for a while, but I'm really hoping this makes my jake brake start working again...

In case anybody else is curious about the location of this oil pressure sensor... I finally found a good diagram in the troubleshooting and repair guide on quickserve.cummins.com. I haven't actually put my hand on this yet, but it looks to be accessible from the bottom. 

Thanks. I drove it 80mi on the highway before checking the codes!  The oil pressure warning light and dash gauge are working, so apparently on a separate sensor. And I’m pretty confident the lubrication system is working properly. 
Anybody know where the sensor is located?

Hi all. I've got a warning light on the dash and bluefire says there's a error code (PID) Engine Oil Pressure low voltage or shorted. Dash gauge reads good oil pressure so I'm pretty sure it's a bad or disconnected sender.

Where is the ECM's oil pressure sensor on this motor?

This might not be exactly the response you’re looking for… but I faced the same problem last year and replaced the vertical bar and hose  with this one so I could use a standard residential handheld shower head:

KES Shower Slide Bar for Bathroom... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085KVDRGY?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
I was able to use the original screw holes in the shower wall. 

On 3/30/2023 at 12:47 PM, saflyer said:

Now I see I need to give more information. My coach does not have a B.I.R.D. When I installed lithium house batteries I disconnected the alternator charging circuit to them. So I’m depending on shore power or solar to keep the house batteries charged. That brings me to what I need to do, charge and maintain the chassis batteries when the engine isn’t run for some time.

Sorry, missed that part... I just read how you were looking for a portable charger.

I had a noco battery charger on the chassis batteries for exactly the same reason. Wound up replacing it with a victron 12v>12v converter to hold the chassis batteries at 13.2 by charging off the lithium house batteries.

22 hours ago, cbr046 said:

For the mower I had a Noco Genius 2 that "failed" last year when it got stuck in charge mode and cooked the battery.  I replaced it with a Schumacher (maintainer).  It might be the Noco design philosophy is a beat weak . . . . or just a random failure.  Who knows.  Ok, I confess - there was a lightning strike nearby that took out various network components in the home.  The mower is on a completely different meter / underground path to pole . . . . that runs next to the ISP cable to the street.  💡

I had an extra Schumacher maintainer years ago that I regret selling with a motorcycle.  It was beefier (heavier) than the current Schumacher.  

The Noco seems to have more features, like lithium capable.  One feature I DIDN'T LIKE was their quick disconnect - works fine but not SAE 2P which is my standard across all my chargers. 

I know that probably doesn't help LOL

- bob

I really wanted to love the Noco. And for every purpose other than maintaining the chassis batteries it has been great (have 3  of them total).
I’ve actually had two noco chargers on the chassis batteries. The first (older 2a, not the current generation) would trip the gfci every week or so. The 2nd one (current generation 5a) would error and go offline about every 2weeks and need to be reset. Maybe it’s a little too “smart” for it’s own good…

In my opinion, a charger in this role doesn’t need any smarts, it just needs to be able to produce about 2 amps and hold constant float voltage somewhere close to 13.2.

Cheers

Walter

On 3/25/2023 at 6:29 PM, Cousin Eddie said:

My 2003 Monaco Dynasty has the receiver unit in the copilot armrest, under the cup holder (remove cup holder for access). Hope that helps. 

That's weird. My 2003 dynasty has the receiver inside the dash under the access cover forward of the gauge panel.

Here's what Trace documentation says about connecting to Onan generator, and the Onan wiring diagram showing which wires are E C and A. Should be able to match this information up with wiring instructions for the new inverter.

On 3/23/2023 at 5:40 PM, johncvandoren@gmail.com said:

Tom,

Thanks for the quick response!  I failed to indicate that I have already upgraded from the Magnum ME2012 to a Victron 3000 Watt, 50A Multi inverter/charger.  I don’t need the wiring diagram which will only show which wire is on what connection—which we already know; I need to know the actual path the wire takes from point A to point B, so I can pull the new 6/2 wire from the inverter back up to the breaker panel.

Why does the inverter need 6ga wiring? Just because the inverter has a 50a transfer switch doesn’t mean it will ever carry a 50a load. 
If you keep the stock configuration (fed from the breaker box) the inverter output is only capable of 25a, right? 
I think the inverter has 50a relays in it with the intention of installing it inline with the transfer switch and in that case it needs to carry the full 50a. 
So unless the full shore power will be passing through the inverter, there’s no need to wire it for 50a. 
I’m thinking that installing the inverter inline with the incoming shore power would be better and far more practical. 
But at the end of the day… I think most systems are bottleneck’d on the 12v side anyway. If the 12v system can’t supply a sustained 3300 watts (ie- 275a) at >11v, the inverter can’t supply 3000 watts at 120v and will shut down.

Ive got lithium batteries capable of supplying 500a, but there’s no way to deliver that to the batteries using the about 70’ round trip run of 4/0 battery cables. My voltage drop at just 1500w is substantial. 

Cheers

Walter
 

Depends on your inverter... If you have a trace rv2012 inverter, it actually has an internal AGS. I'm not aware of any other inverters that already have AGS integrated.

Certainly no need to change the inverter. Magnum makes a stand-alone AGS. Maybe others as well. 

Are you sure the onan AGS is discontinued??? Onan EC-AGS+ Diesel Application Kit - A065U740 (cummins.com)

That might be the easiest option if you don't already have the AGS wiring avaiallbe over by the inverter.

Cheers,

Walter

I'm surprised the SW3012 manual doesn't have wiring diagrams to address that. From the description, it sounds like the inputs are configured exactly like the picture posted of your original configuration. Am I missing something?

It sounds like you just need to run both neutrals to the single Neutral terminal exactly like your old configuration. The manual should tell you if the terminals are rated for double connections. If not, you may need to splice them together with a pigtail and then take that into the Neutral terminal.

Edit: I just looked up the manual for the SW3012. It looks like they assume everyone will have a single run of 3-conductor (with ground) cable, rather than two runs of 2-conductor (with ground) like we've got. You'll just need to combine the neutrals like in your original configuration.

On 3/11/2023 at 5:42 PM, InGodWeTrust said:

Second is getting AGS (auto gen set) properly configured to generator mainly the 20 point connecting wiring do colors on current Trace correspond to new 3012? Any help with this is greatly appreciated.  

Mine originally had integrated AGS with trace/xantrex.  I’m not sure if the newer xantrex uses the same wiring as the old inverters with integrated AGS, but the Magnum AGS requires one more wire than original xantrex, (run sense). That wire wasn't in the harness leading to the inverter.
The gen start/stop cabling in the main wiring harness does have everything needed for the AGS, but monaco didn’t pull all of them over to the inverter.
After much digging and swearing I found a pigtail off of the main wiring harness for the AGS wiring. It was in the same compartment overhead as the inverter, but on the other side of the coach. 
The splice was illustrated on the Genset Remote Control page of my wiring diagram. But the diagram was wrong on the location of the splice

Cheers

Walter

Sure, we can help with the wiring. But you’ll probably need to figure out the specific wire connections!
Do you know for sure your rig was NOT originally supplied with a wireless unit? Or likely pre wired for it?

Before installing the wireless unit by the door, fish around in the dash and see if you can find an original wireless unit. It’s possible you’re missing the remotes and there’s an old wireless unit dangling back there. My only experience is with the dynasty, but as far as I know they were all under an access port in the top of the dash. But I think Richard installed his by the door and that worked just as well.

I’m not a car stereo installer and really only have direct experience with the Avital unit. But it seems like there’s a lot of standardization in the car alarm industry so I suspect they’re pretty much all the same and likely use consistent colors for the wires. The wireless unit works by connecting a “signal” with an “output“. If you connect the signal’s input wire to 12v, then the function will provide a 12v ”signal“ to trigger something. Conversely if you connect the “signal” wire to ground, it will provide a ground “signal” to the locks (this is what you need). I’m not sure that all wireless units have isolated signals like I just described, but the Avital certainly does  If you wind up with one that’ll can’t provide a negative signal, you’ll need to use relays to convert a positive signal to a negative signal. 
The wireless unit will require 12v power and ground, and then each output will have a corresponding input (signal) wire. The signal inputs will all be spliced together with ground and the outputs each connected to its respective function wire in the harness. 
There will likely be a bunch of wires that you don’t need and can just tape off like switched ignition. 
The picture I posted earlier in this conversation shows wire associations at the door module. Just match those up with your wireless module. 
Also, check out this write up on installing the Avital in place of original wireless module behind the dash

https://www.irv2.com/forums/f115/essex-1603-keypad-and-wireless-replacement-330319.html
Cheers

Walter