Gary Cole

I have a tractor with the regen system. It gives me a warning that a regen is due and allows me to initiate the process manually. Do over the highway diesels give a similar warning and if so would it be prudent to initiate the cycle manually before traveling in mountainous areas?

If one placed both 120 V legs on one side of the circuit breaker the 2P circuit breaker would still trip at its rated amperage , 50 A for example, when overloaded therefore preventing the neutral from being overloaded. All the breaker sees is the heat generated by its bi metal strip (small frame breakers). Or if it has instantaneous trip capability a fault going to ground. It doesn't know how many wires there are or what size. However the picture shows what is clearly a series fault. A fault which is not going to ground. An inverse time/instantaneous trip, or fuse for that matter, has no capability of detecting a series fault except in a few very limited circumstances. Unfortunately series faults are responsible for the huge preponderance of electrical related fires. There is a new generation of circuit breaker available when as I understand can detect both types of faults. Some even combine GFCI detection. I mentioned that type earlier in the post. Not to familiar with how they work at the moment.

That is a good observation Gary. The vertical axis of the top gear is in line with the lower gear indicating that it should be shimmed and not the lower gear. You 've probably seen a few things in your line of work. 🙂

Those gears do have far to much lash. Would have been a better design if they had of used dissimilar materials in the pair since they run dry. Been thinking about using a lubricant which would not attract dust and grime. Maybe something used on woodworking tools.

There is a label on the instrument housing indicating the terminal callout. Check for 12 V between grnd, white, and hot with ign on. 12 V+ Wire color is red and as I recall and term 4.

Norman, One day you are going to find yourself in the ranks of the respected RV masters when you overcome this latest challenge life has blessed you with. Then you will find yourself attending to the tired, the poor, the hungry, those of whose wives have hidden all sharp objects from.

Wow, scary picture. I've noticed that whenever I stop by the local auctions there is always an ample number of burned out RV hulks ranging from travel trailers to luxury liners. I have read that about 50% of RV fires are electrical related. I worked in the silicon forest for many years. In the industry, most generally, engineering specs prohibit the use of wire nuts on conductors larger than #12 and then only on lighting circuits where the current draw is low. Bolted connectors are available for every wire size, are vibration resistant, and much safe in every respect. After seeing your picture I am going to redo every connection in my RV and eliminate all wire nuts. I also plan on upgrading to arc fault circuit breakers. The technology contained in the circuit breakers represents a truly dramatic increased capability in detecting arc faults and preventing heat generated electrical fires.

The pdf at the Lowes site which Tom linked to explains the ins and outs quite well. The integral driver mentioned is an integrated chip which requires an ac circuit power input in order to perform its magic. Type A will only work with the higher voltage a ballast supplies while type B will work with ballast voltage or 120 V. The pdf said the tubes are compatible only with rapid start ballast, solid state or transformer style. There is a ballast type which uses a pre heater circuit. Would not work behind that type of ballast.

As a temporary measure when on shore power one can use jumpers with alligator clips in parallel between the house batteries and chassis batteries so long as the resting voltage between the sets is similar. Don't do this if one set is discharged because the charged set will charge the other with a very heavy current flow. Batteries with different standing voltages connected in parallel also present challenges for the charging system.

Should add one thing regarding the fuel level sensor if it is a Centroid. The unit uses a solid state board to translate capacitance to resistance. Your mechanic should be careful to not short the output leads to ground. Would imagine that the senders are spendy.

Norman I'm somewhat skeptical when a tech decides two components have failed. If you have the Centroid level sensor then I believe that it will be the capacitance variety. Your tech might not be aware of that. Those are difficult to troubleshoot in the traditional manner using a multimeter. The fuel level gauge is of the usual resistance type, 240 ohms empty, 33 ohms full and can be checked by using resistors in a circuit to ground. Interesting bio. Good luck.

Its a Cub Cadet model #3532. Had one with the snow blower attachment.

A couple of weeks ago I replaced my cooktop with a shiny new one with auto ignition. When I inspected the appliance regulator I found that it was defective. Doing nothing, no restriction in either direction. As I understand it the secondary regulator is a backup in case the main tank regulator fails and possibly fills the interior space with propane at upwards of 200 psi. I'm wondering what are the odds of a regulator failing open as I stand there holding one in my hand. A very serious hazard would be a failure at an appliance which started automatically such as the water heater or refrigerator. The new one cost $8.00. Turned the propane off till I can replace all the regulators including the one at the main tank. I don't see any point in taking a chance. Just because an older regulator is working one day doesn't mean its not going to fail the next. A few days after that I had a 12V 4D house battery battery go bad and reach a temperature of 176 degrees on charge before I spotted it during a walk around. I had thought that the inverter might be able to detect such an event. Apparent not. I checked the inverter temp sense lead and it was hooked up. To the battery next to the one which failed.

Interesting videos. I'm guilty myself of spending far too much time on old cars and vintage motorcycles. No one that I know makes money doing it, including myself. I looked at the RV a couple of months ago through the fence as the office was closed. Very nice looking and well maintained except for the scalping. I'm guessing he nearly cleared a low overpass. Didn't even crack the windshield. Came close to doing that myself one time. First thing I noticed was the chunks of concrete missing from the bottom of the bridge as I approached it at some speed. The hardest part was having to back out against uncooperative traffic and into a very busy street.

I have no idea what happened. I did notice that all the loose furniture was stacked up in front of the coach and the drivers seat was leaning forward at a 45 degree angle. It starts.

Just to be clear, the software would be specific to the controller manufacturer, not Monaco. A wild guess would be Allen Bradley given the age. Anyone with Allen Bradley's, software, or other could locate and diagnose the problem.

Hi Rich, I know absolutely nothing about the multiplex system. However it sounds like the more knowledgeable members here are describing a digital system which probably uses something called an RS-485 protocol (Modbus) which transmits digital bits of information. One cannot troubleshoot these systems with a multimeter. The only thing one can check for is conductor integrity and the presence of a standing voltage, about 5 volts. The switches, input, and other output devices, relays for example, require a unique address, sometimes programmed, sometimes set with dip switches, depending on the age of the system. If your switches use dip switches then you can obtain another switch and simply copy the dip switch settings. The switches are dumb. The software program is contained in a CPU with a certain amount of memory somewhere in the system. Unfortunately one cannot access the controller and examine the programming without expensive, most certainly OEM software.

A Dr. is consoling a grief stricken wife. "We're sorry Mrs Smith. We did everything possible to save your husband. The paper work was just to much."

Thanks for the info Jim. I've found that the solution to a lot of my problems, real and imaginary, has been the rear radiator. One can't see anything. If you did have a problem you couldn't get to it without turning the RV upside down or inside out. So I just try to be happy and not worry.😳

That's interesting information about the RV LED replacement tubes. Something I wasn't aware of. Makes me think that the RV ballasts are designed to use a type of florescent tube which uses a preheater filament and when the gas is ionized the tube then operates on 12 VDC without a voltage boost. I really don't know how energy efficient such a design would be considering the lumen/watt ratio. I upgraded my coach to LED lighting sometime ago and did not keep any of the old ballasts or I would check one out to see exactly how they work and measure the current draw. Maybe I didn't save as much energy as I thought I was going to.

Rich, an LED bi pin replacement for a florescent tube requires a 120 V AC source. It has a built in 120V AC/12V DC power supply. One has to remove the ballast as it boost the voltage up to 175 V or so depending on the tube wattage in order to ionize the gas in the florescent tube. The LED strip on the other hand requires a 12V DC source. You most certainly blew a 12 volt fuse. Kind of hard to visually detect a blown fuse in the panel sometimes. I'm just surprised that the tube worked long enough to even light up.

Mike, this site has many downable files which can help you. I had several files printed at 48" X 36" so that the details were readable, (not so when blown up on my monitor), and I could keep them with my RV if needed. As you probably know high end commercial printers use algorithms which will print a pdf file at that size without image degradation. "Mountain bikes as toads" Bikes are my preferred toad. I only drag a vehicle around as a last resort. Sometimes I just plan on using a taxicab a few times if necessary. The cab fare is minimal. My winter project is going to be hydraulic rear lift for a motorcycle. Good luck on your new RV.

Push button when its time to buy a new one.

I should add that one needs to disconnect the level arm from the axle making sure that it stays in its neutral position in order to prevent air loss. Anyone willing to venture a guess as to how much that week long service call to retrieve the coach with a temporary fix cost the customer?

Gary, the spark indicated that current somehow flowed in your meter test circuit. You probably blew the typical 10 amp fuse in the meter. Easy to replace. The truth about most all handheld digital multimeters is that they all use the same type of transistor which probably cost about a nickel in bulk lots. I once checked a $30.00 Harbor Freight meter against a $5000.00 test bench instrument and found that they agreed to 1 and 2 significant digits ( the resolution limit of the cheap meter) when measuring the 3 basic functions. An insignificant difference giving what most people use a meter for. What one should look for in an inexpensive meter is one with a button, usually labeled REL, which is used to zero out resistance in the internal circuit and the test leads, Which in turn compensates for cheap leads, rotary dials, and other assorted things. I've seen $60.00 meters with this function.