wamcneil

It's ok... I think he's just using the term 'amps' when he means 'amp-hours'. Here's a diagram showing the front run plate terminals feeding the front fuse panels

I think you're right. I've got that same arrangement, but I do NOT have the lower jumper wire. The top terminals connected by the bar are chassis and feed the generator and hydraulic pumps. The lower terminals I believe are Domestic Hot and switched domestic. And if so, those should NOT be jumpered together. One is always hot and the other comes through a salesman relay. See attached wiring diagram. You should be able to trace wires coming from the terminals to the fuse panels that they feed.

On my 03 dynasty, that circuit breaker connected straight to the battery feeds the ‘domestic hot’ fuse block in the front electrical bay. It’s the bank of fuses to your right as you look into the electrical bay. With the halogen lights eliminated, I don’t think the house loads would ever exceed 50a, so the two solenoids are way overkill. A solid state relay like Rocketman suggested would be pretty slick... and anything bigger than the 65a model he suggested would be overkill. My original configuration involved one latching relay that cascaded to a continuous relay. After swapping out the 70-80 amps worth of halogen ceiling heaters, I was able to remove the continuous solenoid and put all the salesman-loads through the one KIB latching relay (rated at 60-65a I think). You've got house lights, water pump and a few other things, so there's really not much of a load on the salesman switch once the halogens are gone. Each of your continuous solenoids draws about 750ma , so that simple change would save at least 36amp-hours per day right there. Good quality DC clamp meters are kind of expensive, but a really great tool for figuring out where your current is going. Cheers, Walter

I have a new scissor arm that I’d sell for $100. There are several different ones. This one is approximately 21” long and 1-1/4” wide. Turned out to be the wrong size for my 03 dynasty. My original is 21” length, but 1” wide. Veurinks rv parts (findmyrvparts.com) has a video describing the variations. Cheers Walter

Right? I’m not sure what the thought process was, but that temp sensor is for the middle AC. As soon as I get around to installing my new middle AC I’ll move it to the front CCC2. I’ve already got a phone cable pulled alongside the duct from the front unit to the middle unit. The data cable to daisy-chain from front to middle should be all that’s needed to move from an old penguin on rear ccc to a new penguin II on my new front ccc2. Of course the temp sensor will still be in the bathroom… no easy way around that unfortunately. Whenever I get a replacement unit for the bedroom, I’ll probably make ithe bedroom zone3 on the front ccc2 and replace the bedroom ccc with a remote temp sensor. cheers Walter

Did you figure out which remote you have? As I recall there is one different button, maybe ‘favorite’? You could also pull it out from the panel and look at the label on the back.

I don't think your hose is 'deformed'... I think the tubes don't line up exactly and it was probably installed that way when new. If the hose is solid I'd leave it alone until something requires removal of the hose and replace it then. Like others have said, installation will be a miserable ordeal if you can't pull the rigid tubes apart and make room for the hose to easily go in between. There's no rule that says a piece of hose must extend all the way down the clamping surface and butt up against something. There's a bead on the end of the tube and the clamp needs to be past that. As long as you've got enough hose to go 1/2" past the clamp that's all that's needed. You've got plenty of hose for the hose clamp to do its thing. Either way, you have my sympathy... I too suffer from a strong compulsion to fix things that are not broken. 😳 Cheers, Walter

I wouldn't expect any problems. The battery charger will see the elevated voltage like a fully charged battery and should just sit there at its float voltage (which should be below the alternator voltage so producing no current). Also, there should be a switch on the dash to turn off the block heater outlet and power down the charger. Cheers, Walter

Ok… so you’re removing the relay in order to isolate the house batteries from the alternator and chassis batteries. Right? Jumpering the chassis batteries to the house batteries defeats that purpose. The dc/dc charger will siphon some current from the chassis batteries and alternator and give it to the house batteries when the engine is running (assuming you connect an ignition wire to make it active only when engine running). And you’ll need some way to keep the chassis batteries charged while parked. I have a small 10a permanent mount battery charger in the engine compartment for that purpose. Plugged into the non-inverted. block heater outlet. cheers Walter

That's great! They sound like really good batteries. I hope they work out. If they live up to the specs for continuous output amps of 100A each you should be good. Running my microwave draws about ~165A from the batteries. The refrigerator and other base loads add at least 15A. So with a TV on and other loads it's pretty easy for my system to pull 200A when running on the inverter. The magnum specs for 2000w inverters say maximum continuous power draw 267A. So, if it were me... I'd beat on those batteries mercilessly and try my best to break them before the amazon return window closes. If they survive a torture test, they should be good for a long time! Cheers, Walter

What you're describing could be consistent with a salesman relay failure. I assume you hit the salesman switch again after having turned on the battery switches? You can check it by testing voltage on the input and output terminals of the salesman relay. Cheers, Walter

Do you have an electrical bay underneath the driver's seat? That will have both chassis and house fuse panels. I have one bank of fuses labeled 'Domestic Hot' which bypasses the house battery switch and is always live. Cheers, Walter

The DC-DC charger has an Input terminal and an Output terminal. Input would be connected to the chassis 12v system (alternator and starting batteries) Output would be connected to the house 12v system (house batteries, inverter/charger, solar) The DC-DC charger takes whatever Input voltage is present on the chassis side (8v-16v) and up or down converts it to the specified Output charge voltage for the house side. I think some models come with an ignition sense wire so the DC-DC charger only charges when the engine is running. Cheers, Walter

X2. Personally if I were buying preassembled batteries on a budget, I would stick with something where I can see the teardown video and some objective technical reviews. Building a quality battery is more complicated than just connecting some cells and dropping them into a case. Trusted manufacturers like battleborn spend a lot of time and effort engineering the batteries to last, exactly balancing/matching the cells and carefully constructing the batteries. And they get paid for all that work. Maybe those Himassi batteries you linked are fabulous batteries... but the reviews seem to mostly cover their little 6ah battery that the reviewers didn't fork out their own money to purchase. And the "EE-BMS" app has four apple appstore reviews, three of which are one-star. IMO, the phrases 'you get what you pay for' and 'sounds too good to be true' are especially relevant when dealing with Chinese suppliers. Cheers, Walter

Why does it need to be explosionproof? Are starting batteries in the compartment with house batteries?

I think the main concern around the BIM is for your alternator, rather than battery health. Since the lithium batteries can accept charge so much faster than the GC batteries, it may peg the alternator at its limit for long periods and overheat. So you generally want to keep the house batteries disconnected from the alternator to protect the alternator. DC/DC charger would charge the house battery underway, but it won't keep the chassis battery charged when parked. Personally, I've removed my battery isolators, have not installed a DC/DC charger and so far haven't missed it. IMO, the DC/DC chargers seem really expensive for what they do. For my purposes, it's not like a sophisticated 3-stage charger is needed. I've considered a cheap buck/boost converter with adjustable output voltage and set it to something like 13.2v. I installed a small 10a battery charger dedicated to the chassis batteries (plugged into the non-inverted block heater outlet) to keep the chassis charged when parked. And I've still got the big battery combiner solenoid that I could engage if needed. But so far I haven't felt compelled to add a DC/DC charger. Underway, there's usually plenty of solar, and in warm weather the generator is running for AC. Cheers, Walter

Mine was about 12 gal also. You know there'll be several gallons of water left after the flush right? So you'll need at least a couple-gallons of concentrate to hit 50% final concentration. It's been a few years since I've looked for it, but I had trouble finding my coolant of choice in concentrate. Seems like the suppliers like to stock only pre-diluted... Like somebody else said, flushing probably isn't necessary. My OCD requires some level of flushing, but unless it's contaminated, Cummins doesn't advocate for it, even when moving from legacy HD coolants to OAT. Cheers, Walter

My original transfer switch was Esco ES50. I'm not sure if it was loose terminals or a problem with the contactors, but the insulation near the terminals showed obvious signs of getting hot at some point in the past, maybe before we bought the coach. The terminals were nice and tight when I discovered the burned insulation. It seemed to be working fine, but I wanted to change the contactors just in case. I called Esco tech support and he said it could be a problem with the contactors, and they could sell me replacements, but the new ones could be pretty noisy. And like they told Vito, he recommended replacement with LPT50BRD. So I replaced it with LPT50BRD couple years ago. Cheers, Walter

Pretty much… For the purposes you described, none of the whiz-bang features will be used. Something to keep in mind is the amount of ancillary gear, re-engineering and massive re-wiring of the systems that are needed to take full advantage of those features. Inverters come in a dizzying array of features and configurations… A few will plug straight into your stock configuration and some will require a LOT of work in order to install and make use of the advanced capabilities. Cheers Walter

I hope this one works out! Alibaba is a crap shoot… I’ve had some really good customer service from Xuba on alibaba. They made me a custom pair of assembled batteries for a pretty attractive price. Long story, but the first set had some shoddy assembly and they replaced them altogether with very nicely built batteries. And I didn’t need to file a claim with alibaba trade assurance. I’ve purchased more cells from them since. Cheers Walter

That's funny. I was in Gonzales just last week!

Loan me your oil drain pan. I will renew your faith in tool-moochers! 😬

Does your Windsor have viper alarm? The alarm wiring plug (also used for key fob module if no alarm option) includes “dome light” that is connected to the entry lights and triggered by the viper alarm. If yours is also triggering the dome light from the keypad, I don't know how that could be happening. Unless the alarm is sensing the unlock signal from the essex and then triggering the dome light. I haven't looked at the Windsor wiring diagrams, so maybe there's something different going on. If you don't have the viper alarm, then I don't know what's going on there. The original key fob module did not have a dome light output, so wasn’t possible with the original key fob option. When I replaced the original key fob module with Avital, I connected it’s dome light output, so that does work on mine (but NOT with the Essex). The Essex keypad also has a dome light output, but it’s not used (green wire). I recently discovered an unused yellow wire that goes all the way from the Essex pigtail to the bundle with alarm plug that I'm planning to utilize for the kaypad dome light. There’s also the Essex’s “Arm” output wire that could be repurposed to trigger the dome light. Cheers Walter

Ok, so there are 5 wires that actually do something. The Red boxes show which 8 wires are connected to my plugs. Callouts show what color wire they connect to in the harness. Monaco must have done something a little different in 2004. I remember reading another thread where somebody reported a single 12-pin plug at the essex instead of two 4-pin plugs like I have. Do you have a purple wire in your plug? If so, what wire is it connected to on the essex? If you ground the purple wire, it should unlock the bay doors.

Ok... so what's connected to the coach-side purple wire??? My essex has two 4-pin plugs on it. One of the plugs has purple, blue, brown and green on the coach side. Purple is the bay door unlock wire. Which is connected to the brown 9/0 wire on the essex.