randys006

Nicely done. I wish I had seen this before my adventure this past week. I had the symptom, but ended up buying a cheaper ATS and scavenging the board from the 40250 and rewiring/relocating the sensors so I didn't lose the data on the Aladdin. I suspect that old board has some damage, so I still would've done that, but this would've provided great perspective!

Great suggestion Rick! In addition to taking more space in your bay, this one might be more work in a lot of cases though. But it's certainly viable for folks who prefer not to handle the circuit board. Assuming most coaches are like mine, there isn't much extra length on the input wires (nil on shore and maybe 6" on genset. The input to the coach has some slack though). Those all have to get into the new box (40100 or equivalent), so you have to choose between extending the wires, adding heavy jumper wires between the relay input terminals, or moving the old-one-now-monitor-only box so the new one can take it's place. I would move the box, since extending the wires safely would require jumper blocks that then have to be put inside another sturdy enclosure; and as Rick said, the heavy jumper wires are a pain. Remove the current sensors after you get the old box out and slip them onto the coach input wires while you're wiring up the output (the same as I did). Then, in order to see the proper text on the Aladdin*, the old box does need to have both inputs connected. Only a small current will be flowing though (maybe 1/4 Amp to power the old circuit board), so assuming you did not choose the "heavy jumper wires" approach, you just connect the inputs of both units with 14-gauge wires. I think both units have spade terminals available. Now, on the 40250 there was also a set of wires on the output terminals. These are presumably just output voltage monitors and nothing else, and I didn't see that being reported by the Aladdin so I just left them out. (I'll report back if I learn that they are necessary in the future). Viola! Note--the Aladdin text is simply operated by a timer on the old board, so you do have to remember that the actual timing is likely different since it's controlled by the new board. This acts the same as the way I did it. Also, if any of the old relays do still work, you can try to disable them or just leave then alone. The old switches will operate if they're able to, and that does bring up some considerations. On power usage, I would guess 1A tops while the relay is closing, but their static power draw that holds them closed will be tiny. 14-gauge input wires is plenty. You'll probably hear the extra "click", but you already know if that will annoy you since it's the same click you have always heard 😉 Of course there are still other ways to do it, but I think these are the two best options in situations when the relay(s) have failed, but the communication still works. @Tom Cherry suggested I move the rebuild discussion over to a new post; I'll do that and add this to it as well. * the Aladdin displays messages such as "No AC power connected", "Power Delay Active", "Shore Power Selected", "GENSET Power Selected", and it has timed progressions between them during transition states.

Your question piqued my curiosity, so I scrubbed off the road grime and checked. Mine are 4 x LIFELINE GPL-4DL, 12V, 210Ah, all in parallel. Yeah, that would suck if one went bad because it'll pull down all the other 3 and reduce their lifespans too.

Oops, guess I never hit 'send' yesterday. Guess y'all are getting two for the price of one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Update from yesterday (10/27): popped the board out of the ATS and did some bench testing, poked around, and verified that either or both of the shore power control and relay are toast. I wasn't really able to test the relay since I don't have a schematic, but the few things I tried would not get it to engage. (details omitted for safety purposes/CYA) I learned that the company (formerly TRC, mine is a Surge Guard 40250 btw) is now part of Southwire and they do still sell a comparable unit...the 40450RVC3, for a paltry $1200... I found a cheaper version (40100) at the local camping world for $189. They actually still use the exact same switches that mine has! Although, the physical contacts on the original unit are fine--I do get full power when I hold the switch closed manually. I'm seriously considering going Mythbusters on the thing and attaching a linear actuator on it so I can engage it manually when I need to...I'll let y'all know what I decided in a few days 😉 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today (10/28): I decided to use the new 40100 and and since the RV-C diagnostics from the 40250 were still working, I'm hoping to reuse it's board. The sensors are usually passive, and with digital communication I expect it to work.I'm pleased that say that it was a success and everything is working great! The Aladdin displays all the diagnostics without complaint. I also picked up an external surge protector since the 40100 doesn't have one. On the 40250 RV-C board, it seemed important to connect it the same as the original, so I labeled everything clearly before starting. The 40250 (old one) has three sets of 3-wire voltage probes; red-white-green for both inputs (shore and genset) and output which are color-matched to standard 240V RV wiring. The 40100 (new one) already had extra spade terminals on all of the inputs, and I scavenged some of the spade terminals from the 40250 for the output side. This allowed me to reuse all of the existing wires from the 40250. Let me mention that it's important to make sure you're not overloading anything when adding circuitry like this. In this case, the probe terminals are directly connected to the inputs and the size of the wires (in the 24-28 gauge range) tells us that it is low power. Since it's the same manufacturer and I can see a lot of the hardware on the board, I'm quite confident it's a "dumb" measurement and the boards will not interfere with each other. For current probes, the 40250 simply had two transformers (the donut type), one on each HOT output leg. The 40250 (old one) had an extra screw block where the wires from the relay output connect on one side, and the feed to the main circuit breaker on the other. The 40100 (new one) did not have that block, so I just slipped one transformer onto each of the red and black feed wires before connecting them to the output. It's still a mess right now, and I need to go pick up an enclosure for the 40250 board (it's existing box is WAY too big to reuse). I'll post some pics after I finish getting it all buttoned up and tidy in a couple days. Cheers 🙂

Awesome, thanks Tom! Lots of good points to touch on from those posts! I can't say I'll get to them all haha, but since you took the time I'll sure give it a go to show my appreciation... Troubleshooting skills...well, I'm a nuclear physicist who used to work at linac facilities and a few of the major national labs, so I'm great at diagnosing MW klystrons, measuring million-volt picosecond pulses, etc., and good fundamentals. I've never really taken the time to "learn" residential or RV systems though, so I consider myself just knowledgeable enough to be dangerous. And of course still learning the terminology...and of course we all always miss things occasionally... :). On the house solar--I've since learned it isn't a Tesla charger--just a DIY, hardwired 220 receptacle. It's just that they used a panel controller that connects to the Tesla app, so it fooled me. So, I have found most of the diagrams..just not all of them. In this bad boy, the "250A inline battery fuse" is actually 300A, so it can in theory run the inverter at 100%. That makes me nervous though, especially since I haven't found the stupid fuse yet. I'm hoping to never have to replace it in any case, so I don't run the charger above 90%. Probably overcautious, but...yeah. To fill in some more info, I have three dogbones--two 50->30 and one 50->20--as well as a 30->20 plug adapter. They all test good on DC resistance, and I tried all possible combinations before posting. However, street sense also tells me to agree that they still shouldn't be trusted 😉 And you're right on about the 20A power--I'm pretty sure the owner's manual actually says never run on less than 30A shore power. Which of course I interpret as "be very careful not to draw too much when you're running on a 20A circuit." I also do religiously dial back the Shore Max to the source's rating or below, but I don't really trust that, nor the circuit breakers in the source, nor of course the dogbones, so I try to limit low-current hookups to emergency-ish situations. Or in this case, when I'm doing diagnostics. On battery settings..yep, AGM2. I've had the capacity set to 1000Ah though, sounds like I need to dial that back. Thanks! On load, again, sorry I didn't supply all the details right off, but I had cut off the 12V and turned off breakers until the Magnum meter read solid 0A. It's interesting, btw, that the minimum the Magnum will display is 11A. I would've thought they came with a better shunt from the factory. The house batteries have a good meter that's sent to the Aladdin. It's not available in "zero load" mode, but that's ok--it's close enough to zero to say the Magnum isn't disabling itself. (at any rate, we now know this almost certainly isn't the case because I found the faulty transfer switch) Hmm, the paragraph about BIRD and the BIG BOY solenoid is very helpful, but it brings up another question I've had.. The first couple months, I had been seeing significant charge loss on the chassis batteries while boondocking/genny off (presumably running on house battery power only). I had chalked it up to a bad battery (that's why I replaced them), but perhaps something else is failing and causing the battery sets to be permanently connected at some level. I don't have a lot of data with the new batteries yet, but enough to say it isn't critical. If this does continue (or come back), I'll do some more searching then start a new post about it in the future. Love the humor, btw..my kids were hooked on Dora back in the day and I was riffing on her "swiper, no swipey!" line. Good times, lol. Ok, that was quite a day. Now it's beer-30. Thanks again all!

The 240 comes from the solar panels ON THE HOUSE, not the coach (which are the old bad ones)--which, it's apparent now that I should have been more clear about that haha. The good panels and the pickoff are pretty much directly tied to the utility power (in parallel), and I have since verified it is all working great. Sorry for the confusion...

Wow, thanks for the great replies everyone! It has a Surge Guard (model 40250-RVC) that acts as the physical side of the transfer switch and offers protection. I think I've been able to track it down to a bad module in there. It has two switches, for the shore and genset, which are magnetically closed. The genset side does close automatically, but the one on the shore side does not. However, the shore side does work when I close the switch manually. (standard disclaimer: it's not recommended that anyone else tries that without HV training and wearing VERY heavy gloves) I'm guessing it got zapped during the tornado in Michigan, and it worked off and on for a while before finally completely dying. I unplugged the shore power as soon as I noticed the storm, but there were definitely lightening strikes in the area and likely trees dropping before I did. The Surge Guard does mention CAN communication, so it's possible that there is another component that sends it a signal to activate the Shore side, and that's what failed. That's just brainstorming though--I still haven't found any additional documentation that would suggest that other unit exists. It's just as likely that it only uses CAN to send diagnostics to the main brain. I haven't decided yet if it's worth further testing, to try and find parts, or just replace the whole durn thing...but at least I'm a lot closer! There were some interesting questions which could help other down the road, so I'll add some more replies later. Thanks again!

Mine doesn't have a button, but it does have a "Max Shore" setting in the menu. Sounds to me like they do the same thing. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi all, I've had the rig for about 4 months now, and I'm a first-time poster. I can't get my charger to work on house power. I say house power because it does charge when the genny is running, and it also did charge the last time I was hooked up to 50A service at a resort. The charger just won't turn on, e.g. the 'charger' LED on the remote never lights up, and the remote display says 'inverting.' I'm parked for a while and I need to quit running the genny because A) diesel is too expensive and B) while the neighbors haven't complained yet, I imagine it's a bit annoying. I'm savvy with electricity and electronics in general, but pretty new to RV stuff, particularly fancy inverter/chargers like this. I've read a few posts and done a bit of debugging, but first the basics: Magnum S2812 Inverter version 5.9 Remote version 1.2 (2) 12V AGM chassis batteries, replaced 2 weeks ago (4) 12V AGM house batteries, age uncertain but seem to hold up pretty well The coach is equipped with "battery boost" which allows the house batteries to charge up and deliver cranking amps to the chassis batteries. It's operated by a switch on the driver console. I would guess the switch just engages a relay, but it may be more complex than that. Residential refer, old one without any "economy mode." The base constant draw is 300-400W. I do have solar panels but they're original/ancient/useless. The best supply I've seen is about 100W. I have two power sources at the house: 1) good-ole 20A (non-GFCI). I've probed my adapter with a meter and verified that both hot legs have >120V. I tried many charger settings, including all shore max settings (as low as 5A), all charge rate settings (as low as 10%). I can see these affect the charging amps with the genny running, but the charger never turns on. 2) solar panel array. We don't have batteries, so they're only active on sunny days. It basically feeds the house and has a 220 RV pick-off. The pick-off says 23A max, and I've seen close to that going to the house, so the system seems to be working well. I won't be running ACs etc--just keeping the batteries up. I measure 122V at each hot leg and 244V hot-to-hot, but I don't have a way to measure the current. The controller was for the previous owner's Tesla charger..we don't own a Tesla. We're waiting to hear from him to see if anything else needs to be done for RV hookup. Now for testing: I've done a couple factory resets on the inverter with no change. Checked every fuse (that I can find) and toggled every breaker multiple times. I've seen people mention a 250A fuse in the battery cable. I've looked about everywhere and can't find that, but it can't be that because it does charge on other sources...right? Pored through the manuals and studied schematics on multiple occasions, once until I literally fell asleep haha. I had a pretty good electrical storm a couple months ago so it's possible something got zapped...but I'm pretty sure I have seen it charge on shore power since then. It just seems like there's a setting or a switch that got flipped that I can't find. It's funny, but I'm really hoping for the "idiot user" result here, lol. Any ideas? Thanks y'all!