MyronTruex

With the manual, you will likely find a small power strip behind a cover on the Magnum. There you can see if you are getting 120 volts out on each line. I had a wire melt off one of the pin breakers. This left me with just one leg.

Without a meter I'm guessing 0.250 amps. That is 1/4th of an amp. It would be easy to check. Put an ammeter across the snap disc when the fan is NOT running. The meter will pass enough current for the fan to run (or should), if you have it set up properly. I would not worry about the little current draw as long as I have some bit of charging such as solar. If it was running in storage all the time without a charging source it would be a problem.

Surface mount conduit is available in various colors or can be painted. I have a run across the top of my long kitchen slide and no one notices it.

Good on ya! Your confidence will grow each time you chase one of these down.

A standard electrical cord that has a hot/neutral/ and the roundish hole that is the ground. The grounds throughout the RV are tied together including the DC circuits. So you can run your own long wire to a known good ground, or grab any extension cord that has the ground lug and plug it into an outlet. I bought a standard replacement plug and ran just one wire inside it. So the plug goes into any outlet and the long wire has an alligator clip on the end to connect to my voltmeter probe. Finding a reliable ground for testing in any vehicle can be a problem, an RV can be a nightmare. I have two dedicated places on mine with dedicated wires to connect to them when needed. However my simple plug is my go to device now. I did not suggest you are looking for 110 which can be associated with a gfci or a breaker on an inverter because I have mostly seen 12 volt fixtures. Electrons are color blind and don't care what color the wires are. White can be hot or the black. Snow flakes and sometimes just out of necessity. Sometimes they switch the ground side of devices which can really throw you a curve. A couple of pictures of the fixtures would assure us of being 12 volt or 110 volt. It might be as simple as having bumped the "salesman switch" on one of your entrys or exits. I might add that you should test your voltmeter setup on a known good circuit. Since you tested some fuses with a test light (checking each end of each fuse), touch your meter positive probe there with the meter grounded as mentioned. Once you have a confident measurement there, move back to the light problem.

How did you check fuses?? Visually or a test light on each end of them? How did you measure the voltage at the wires? Grab an extension cord, plug it into an outlet and then plug the negative lead of your meter into the ground hole of the cord. An alligator clip is very useful for this as well. You may have lost a ground or the hot lead but the only way to be sure is having a good known ground for your meter.

40SKQ Forty feet along approx, Side Radiator, Kitchen in slide, Quad slides. I've lost track of the designations but probably have them in my pile of files.

The water heater should not be on the inverter. However, who knows who or what modifications may have been done. It should be very easy to determine by simply finding the (likely 30 amp breaker), that feeds the inverter. Turning it off will disable the inverter/converter but you should still have power to the water heater assuming you are on 50 amps or the generator is running. I will assume you have a Magnum 2012 or the pure sine wave one for argument. As mentioned, two separate output paths from one input (30 amp) path. Those small breakers on the inverter/charger can fail, or you could have an overload on one of them. One path goes to the microwave, and the other to some less hungry circuits. I'm not sure what a (rebuild) would have entailed other than an inspection and cleaning. The one path that is failing could be a bad connection on the actual breaker inside the Magnum as I found on mine. IF you are comfortable with 110 volts and a meter, you could probably disconnect the two output hots, then move the wire on the breaker that is popping to the other location. There is a simple tie down board on the inverter and you do not have to take it apart, but you do have to remove input power of course. If that breaker now pops, you have some sort of load that is too large, and if the water heater is on that leg by design or accident, that could be an issue. I suspect this problem just came up so the likelihood of the water heater being on that circuit is minimal.

I open cabinets, especially ones with water lines so heat can get in there. You don't have to open them all the way to get heat to the pipes. Yes a low wattage drop light in the water bay is often suggested. You may have heating features for your basement.

The grounds of both banks are connected so only one cable is necessary. You must be absolutely sure of the positive connection on the engine battery bank and the house battery bank. It can be confusing looking at the house batteries. The engine batteries are easy to identify the positive on. With the series/parallel setup on the house batteries you can cause a great deal off harm if you connect incorrectly. Make sure you vent the battery area, have a water hose and a fire extinguisher handy as well as safety goggles. One little spark can cause havoc. If you have a voltmeter, measure from ground to each large post on that large solenoid on the back wall. The engine battery voltage will be/should be on the right large post. The house on the other of course. I believe there is a purple wire on the small terminal of the solenoid. Grab a light weight jumper and connect to the purple wire and then touch it momentarily to one of the large terminals. Be prepared for a loud thunk that may startle you. If you hear the thunk (and the little jumper does not get hot quickly), leave the jumper in place and measure each large terminal once again. IF they are very close in voltage, you have just jumped the battery banks together just as you would when pushing the emergency start button. Those solenoids are notorious for failure so this procedure may not work if you have a failed one. IF the voltage on each side of the solenoid is close, run your generator or shoreline and you should see an immediate increase in voltage on each bank. As Tom suggests, an hour of charging should help, but more is better. With the small jumper still in place and the generator running, try turning the engine over. This should have your house batteries and the charging system helping. I only responded because Tom has not yet and thought you might be a bit impatient .

Ird or Bird, either way, that large solenoid on the back has a purple wire on one of the small terminals. If/When, the purple wire has voltage on it the solenoid should be engaged/closed, just a simple short across the larger terminals which combines the battery banks. With that state, you should measure the same voltage on each bank of batteries. You may have a one way system. A picture of your front run boad would tell the tale on what you have driving it.

12.3 is only 60% charged. It needs to be close to 12.7. While charging it should be 13.5 to 14. There are tons of battery voltage charts. You may find when your engine battery voltage gets up to a certain point that the house batteries being charging. Watch the voltage on both banks. With the engine started, the alternator will bring the voltage up quickly and the house bank should start being charged in just a few minutes, or less.

Your spot in warmer weather is here. Not so warm right now but much better than Kansas cold.

Roy mentions the magnapull device. It is a great tool but be careful, that monster roller magnet can smash your fingers if you get them between it and metal. That magnet is amazing. The kit is fantastic for home owners or professionals. It is one of the few tools I carried into retirement. Don't be shy about drilling between cabinets to run cables out of sight along the back edges. Always take plenty of time inspecting and checking when drilling of course. I have spent around 200 hours running cables and reinventing the wheel on our 2008 Endeavor. Always some sort of upgrade or change, expecially with technology. My body has paid the price for straining myself over the years.

You need to have confidence in taking pillar post covers off if needed. Finding where a bundle of wires exits the inside can get you on the way. Our RV is long. There are cable tubes in the middle of the framework but good luck getting wires through there. Forget about getting anything through the roof either. So once you get the cable outside, you might be able to install some small pvc to run it under the vehicle. Not spit loom but actualy 1/2 inch pvc. Run an extra string through it for future use. You do not need to get the pvc to the precise area of course, just get it to where it is not exposed to the weather. Bring the cat 5 into the areas you need it and install a network hub where you can get power to. You may be able to centralize a hub and move wires out from there. I actually have some surface mount conduit inside above our long kitchen slide. This avoids the sliding mechanism and allows me to install a cat 5 and an HDMI cable. Our entertainment center is above the driver area and our main tv is in the middle of the coach. The original tv did not have hdmi. Forget about using the old cables to pull new ones. Not going to happen. Buy a decent set of crimpers and a cat 5 tester so you can make your own cables. If not possible just carefully circle up the excess out of the way. I have a wi-fi router/hub and two other hubs. These hubs interface my direct tv, hd home run, and the ps4. Probaby other stuff I don't remember but have well documented. Label your cables. Make lots of notes and take pictures. Keep them in a three ring binder so you can reference them. Buy good quality cables or cable if you choose to make your own. Yes my tv's have wi-fi as does the ps4 but the speed is much higer with cat 5 wiring. I have some very sophisticated tools for running cables but they are mostly ineffective in an RV. You just have to knuckle bust, head bust, and grind it out to get it done.

My guess. Computer Control Module Leave it to an engineer to design something with 100 parts instead of using a few simple relays. I have seen it too often. If you ended up with a problem with the module you could probably isolate that wiring, (snip and secure), then possibly use the tail light circuits as is the old fashioned way. However, I had an issue with a 2012 Ford Edge that rejected my backup lights when I used that line to release the brakes on my boat while backing it. The computer controlled system saw the extra load and disconnected the circuit until it was reset by restarting the engine. A simple relay that did not add enough load the circuit was used to solve that issue.

Just another thought. The gauges going through what appears to be a restart constantly, that is, a systems check I wonder if the input voltage is sinking as they try to fire up. A digital voltmeter would not likely show you this. Something taking a bit of a load at startup can sink the voltage to the point where things just want to start over. Perhaps finding the input voltage line to the gauges and substituting your own power, or use a 12 volt test light that has a bulb inside. Not one of the newer ones with electronics inside them. The light should stay bright as the gauges go through startup. The ground side can cause the same issue but a voltmeter grounded from a fresh scratch somewhere or a long run of wire to the batteries can reveal an issue on the ground side if voltage shows up on that side of the gauges.

Just a shot, but I would do some head bumping exploring from the socket following the harness. Those modules could be anywhere of course but you might get lucky and find it closer to the socket than you might think.

The look of the solder on the ones I bought looked crystalined, if that is what the term for brittle looking. My opinion of course. But fifty years of soldering and even being a Nasa level trained solderer keeps my spidy senses awake. I have seen all levels of soldering techniques and watched many competent techs do poor soldering. These are fine for the weekend as I mentioned and only time will tell if they are reliable.

I tossed my assortment. Too many years with the old fashioned way. Soldering creates a solid core conductor which is more susceptible to breaking if exposed to vibration etc. I understand the shrink may provide some protection to that. And I wonder about how much heat it really takes to get the solder at the proper temp. I worry too much about "cold solder joints". These are fine for weekenders. But not in my tool box.

It is very easy to diagnose a solenoid/relay. So easy I need to make a video. It would be about three minutes tops. However, chasing an intermittent one can be a challenge and that large one can have the contacts messed up and they may or may not make proper contact, especially under load. If someone says you should change your oil filter regularly, you do so. If someone says you should just change that solenoid as a good maintenance measure, based on a half century of experience, you probably won't. I do not recommend throwing parts at a problem, however in some cases you need to toss in a new solenoid to eliminate other possibilites. Substitution is a viable troubleshooting technique. Those solenoids have caused (thousands) of problems over the years. I used to buy relay/solenoids by the dozens or even a hundred at a time. Bosh relays were a bargain by the bag and used in so many applications. Heavy duty constant duty relays were quite bit more and not cheaper by the dozen. But we kept them on hand for sure,

Battery switches are commonly built so they are in a Battery 1, Battery 2, or All position. Wiring one incorrectly can lead to some confusion so an ohmeter should be used to identify which poles to use. The switch could be designed for Battery 1, Battery 1 + 2, etc. So you might not get a break in the circuit if wired incorrectly.

Bosh Relay Pinout.pdfbosh relay posts.pdf Bosh Relays.pdfBosh Relays.pdf

If you do have to pull the heater, I suggest you replace the heater element at the same time and any anode rod it might have. It is much easier to flush the sludge out with the heating element out.

If you can turn your valves to water heater bypass for a quick test it may lead you directly to a check valve on the water heater. I had to change mine several years ago. Getting the water heater out was easy, getting that darn check valve took three of us and and a torch to get the old one to break loose. While it was out it got a very good cleaning. A couple of years ago I changed the heating element to a higher wattage one and changed the snap discs so the water gets quite a bit hotter. This is a danger of course so I added a mixer valve and the water comes out steady and hot enough. With the added heat and larger heating element the wife never runs out of hot water. If she did I would turn the propane part on as well. Now that this thread has surfaced, it reminds me it is time to flush it out again. I found that removing the heating element really helped with the flushing.