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3 minutes ago, jacwjames said:

Go buy a lottery ticket, you may win!!

My nickname isn't "hard luck Chuck" for nothing......

Just now, Dr4Film said:

New box and all new breakers is what I would do. That way you start fresh with with all new electrical supply panel and contents.

I did.....I just finished. The only breaker I didn't replace was the 50amp single....I couldn't find one. I will just leave it off for now. 

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17 hours ago, Flyinhy said:

The only breaker I didn't replace was the 50amp single....I couldn't find one. I will just leave it off for now. 

If you find your shore power is acting up, it could be that 50a being off.  I thought it would make sense to turn off my washer/dryer breaker since I don't have one and found out it messes up the whole intellitec system that way.  May check w a local lighting/hardware store for the breaker. 

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1 hour ago, Steven P said:

If you find your shore power is acting up, it could be that 50a being off.  I thought it would make sense to turn off my washer/dryer breaker since I don't have one and found out it messes up the whole intellitec system that way.  May check w a local lighting/hardware store for the breaker. 

Spot on. Ace hardware had it. 25 bucks but hey, it's fixed now. 

I hope other people with older coaches read this post and look at the pictures .....I got lucky. I could have easily had a huge fire. 240v aching inside a fiberglass and wood motorhome is a rolling bomb. If I was rolling down the road and had everything turned on and she caught fire.....I wouldn't know it until it was too late. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Well, the saga continues. After losing the rear heat pump I got busy working on the aqua hot system and getting all the heat exchangers working. Everyone of them came to life after bleeding out a the air and getting the check valves working except for the bathroom. I noticed water in the floor in the bathroom during that process and found a leak coming from behind the closet. Needless to say , I found the washing machine hook-ups....lol. A plastic end cap had sprung a leak and I replaced both with shutoff valves because eventually I want to add a washer and dryer. Now, I've lost hot water......I'm guessing from the schematics it's encapsuled inside the aqua hot system. The water is warm but it's definitely not as hot as it was. Just taking it one day at a time......

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I haven't noticed a change in the expansion tank level. I felt the circulation pumps earlier and they are hot to the touch but the copper water line (hot side) coming out of the A/H on the bottom is cold and that line is usually hot as fire. I will let it run for the night ....mark the tank where the level is now and recheck it again tomorrow.  Unfortunately,  I have to work tonight. 

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Your expansion tank level needs to rise when the Webasto is heating up the boiler fluid. Then it will lower when the boiler fluid cools off. If it is not moving at all then the tube is most likely broken at the filler neck or no longer connected. You also need to check the boiler tank level to make sure it is COMPLETELY full.

Also, there is a mixing valve that controls how much cold water is mixed with the extremely hot water coming from the Aqua-Hot.

Sounds like your Aqua-Hot needs a thorough going through to make sure everything is working as it supposed to.

Edited by Dr4Film
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12 minutes ago, Dr4Film said:

Your expansion tank level needs to rise when the Webasto is heating up the boiler fluid. Then it will lower when the boiler fluid cools off. If it is not moving at all then the tube is most likely broken at the filler neck or no longer connected. You also need to check the boiler tank level to make sure it is COMPLETELY full.

Also, there is a mixing valve that controls how much cold water is mixed with the extremely hot water coming from the Aqua-Hot.

Sounds like your Aqua-Hot needs a thorough going through to make sure everything is working as it supposed 

I will double check the level of the boiler tank before I leave and mark the expansion  tank. After I bled the heat exchangers the other day I made sure to fill the tank but that doesn't mean it is still full. It's just funny how everything is working fine then all of a sudden something else happens right after I work on it......Luke warm showers are still technically cold in my book. 

One question is .....why do I have hot water coming out of the lines for the heat exchangers but not for the hot water,  is it not heating the same thing? 

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If your heater units are working in the house but not the hot water I would check the "mixer" on the back of the unit. Ours got so corroded from the bad water in Arizona over a couple of 3 month stays that it was stuck. So bad you couldn't even turn the knob on top of it. When I pulled it off it was full of calcium deposits. Just replaced it. Also you need to go on Aqua-Hot's website and download the manual for your unit. Lots of trouble shooting info there.

 

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On 11/29/2021 at 11:38 AM, Dr4Film said:

Sounds like your Aqua-Hot needs a thorough going through to make sure everything is working as it supposed to.

Okay, so .......I made sure I did everything you said.  I read the manual,  I went through the schematics and checked all electrical connections. Checked the level three times in the tank itself. The heat exchanger pumps were still working....and the coach stayed warm all night. But it hasn't been blowing "hot" air since this happened. I finally got frustrated enough to shutdown the whole system. Unhook from shore power......cutting off batteries and reboot the whole system.  Apparently, the system recognized 30amp service and reduced power on its own. I now have hot water .......Is this what happened? 

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If you run the heater on electric only, it will not keep up in cold weather or with significant hot water usage since you likely have a single heating element like I do and it does the same on 30Amp as it would on 50. If you run it in diesel burning mode, it does not even use AC power. 

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33 minutes ago, Flyinhy said:

Okay, so .......I made sure I did everything you said.  I read the manual,  I went through the schematics and checked all electrical connections. Checked the level three times in the tank itself. The heat exchanger pumps were still working....and the coach stayed warm all night. But it hasn't been blowing "hot" air since this happened. I finally got frustrated enough to shutdown the whole system. Unhook from shore power......cutting off batteries and reboot the whole system.  Apparently, the system recognized 30amp service and reduced power on its own. I now have hot water .......Is this what happened? 

The only portion of the Aqua-Hot that will be shut down when using 30 amp power is the 120 VAC Electric Assist. It will NOT shut down the Webasto Diesel Burner. Are you sure that the diesel burner switch is on? I leave both of my switches on ALL the time. I never touch them unless the Aqua-Hot is in for service. Never could figure out why people mess around with their Aqua-Hot switches when it's a no brainer to just leave them both on. It states right in the manual that the Webasto Diesel Burner is the PRIMARY source to keep the boiler fluid at temperature whereas the 120 VAC Electric Assist is the SECONDARY source that will ONLY help in maintaining the boiler fluid at temperature.

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2 hours ago, Dr4Film said:

Are you sure that the diesel burner switch is on? I leave both of my switches on ALL the time

Yes.....I was afraid leaving the hot water switch on might burn up the heating element but I made sure to leave both switches on at all times. So.....with the diesel being the primary source of keeping the temp up its not supposed to run solely on electrical? 

I can't explain what happened. You have to remember I'm really new to this and I honestly don't know what happened. The only thing that changed between yesterday and today was,  me killing the power to everything this morning. I thought maybe I had a bad switch. I am also only running on electrical at the moment because I've had hot water and I was waiting on a warm day to take the combustion chamber apart and change the nozzle because it will not fire on diesel. The temps here have been down to the 20s at night. I see where someone said it won't work on electrical at those temps but she hasn't missed a beat until I moved to this new parking spot. 

Edited by Flyinhy
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There's no problem with running it solely on electrical if you accept the limitation of it not being able to keep up at cold temperatures , especially since your burner does not work anyway. The element, in principle, is no different from what's in your typical household electric water heater. You have hot water until you don't...  Normally the electric thermostat kicks in before the burner's low limit thermostat. If that's not enough to keep the temp up, eventually the burner thermostat would trigger if the tank temp keeps dropping. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finally had enough time to get a little deeper into the Aqua-Hot burner today. I took the burner out and checked for the electrode to fire. Bright blue spark across the electrodes for roughly 10 seconds. The next thing I checked was fuel flow and I got nothing. Not even a drip. I'll have to take it back apart and check the gear and the coupler to see if they're spinning.......but that's about as far as I could get before i had to get ready for work. I looked up the price of the fuel pump and apparently it's gold plated......$442.17 .....Hopefully that's not the problem. I've had several other trivial issues with this old girl in the last week but I'm still having fun trying to figure out all of this stuff. 

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On 12/9/2021 at 3:05 PM, Flyinhy said:

I finally had enough time to get a little deeper into the Aqua-Hot burner today. I took the burner out and checked for the electrode to fire. Bright blue spark across the electrodes for roughly 10 seconds. The next thing I checked was fuel flow and I got nothing. Not even a drip. I'll have to take it back apart and check the gear and the coupler to see if they're spinning.......but that's about as far as I could get before i had to get ready for work. I looked up the price of the fuel pump and apparently it's gold plated......$442.17 .....Hopefully that's not the problem. I've had several other trivial issues with this old girl in the last week but I'm still having fun trying to figure out all of this stuff. 

For "No fuel flow", it could be the hi temp cut off not allowing the fuel solenoid to open up, or the solenoid itself.  You might put the fuel lines into a clean container of diesel and see it it pumps, but my first bet would be the temp cut off if you just checked for fuel flow out the nozzle.  Just guessing...

Btw, I believe the electric and diesel hi temp cut offs are identical but independent.

Edited by amphi_sc
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11 hours ago, amphi_sc said:

I believe the electric and diesel hi temp cut offs are identical but independent.

I've looked for those but with work and weather getting in the way I haven't had much time to find them. I resealed the roof during this past week because I knew bad weather was coming. The temps are not getting much below 35° so the floor heater keeps the interior nice and toasty. If it gets too low I have a space heater. I should have nice enough weather tomorrow to be able to tear this sucker back down. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Merry Christmas everyone! I made it home last week after reconfiguring my 16 sierra for my toad vehicle. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and she  towed along just fine. Long story short , I've been waiting on parts for my aquahot system and I received them yesterday afternoon. I installed everything rechecked my fuel pressure, my spark gap and all my electrical readings.....she fired right up without missing a beat. I have let it run all day and it's working as it should. I just went outside to the coach and heat up some BBQ I had in the fridge and put it in the microwave for  a minute ......I opened the door to get my food out and added a little bit of sauce and the lights flickered. The microwave readout lost power, the outlet below the microwave lost power. I went back to the main breaker box and checked the breakers......nothing tripped. I checked the readout on my xantrex .....no ac in at all. I went outside and checked my transfer switch and both green lights are on. I went back inside and shutdown everything. I shut the batteries off and the salesman switch....everything. I will let it sit for a few hours and recheck but if it's not back on by then I'll have to take everything out of my fridge and freezer. I don't know why this happened......it's all been running so good and it's been a long time since this happened. 

I had a lot of things turned on at the time. A small fan in the bedroom, the furnace , aquahot, water heater, TV, and a few lights in the living room. I don't think I had it overloaded but I didn't look at the readout before I turned on the microwave. It usually draws about 13amps. I can hear power come through the main breaker when I flick it on but it's not showing up on my readout. It's just a little frustrating after everything was running so well......20211224_112510.thumb.jpg.bac4c597fa01d57b56be2cddebd70ac2.jpg

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1 hour ago, Flyinhy said:

Merry Christmas everyone! I made it home last week after reconfiguring my 16 sierra for my toad vehicle. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and she  towed along just fine. Long story short , I've been waiting on parts for my aquahot system and I received them yesterday afternoon. I installed everything rechecked my fuel pressure, my spark gap and all my electrical readings.....she fired right up without missing a beat. I have let it run all day and it's working as it should. I just went outside to the coach and heat up some BBQ I had in the fridge and put it in the microwave for  a minute ......I opened the door to get my food out and added a little bit of sauce and the lights flickered. The microwave readout lost power, the outlet below the microwave lost power. I went back to the main breaker box and checked the breakers......nothing tripped. I checked the readout on my xantrex .....no ac in at all. I went outside and checked my transfer switch and both green lights are on. I went back inside and shutdown everything. I shut the batteries off and the salesman switch....everything. I will let it sit for a few hours and recheck but if it's not back on by then I'll have to take everything out of my fridge and freezer. I don't know why this happened......it's all been running so good and it's been a long time since this happened. 

I had a lot of things turned on at the time. A small fan in the bedroom, the furnace , aquahot, water heater, TV, and a few lights in the living room. I don't think I had it overloaded but I didn't look at the readout before I turned on the microwave. It usually draws about 13amps. I can hear power come through the main breaker when I flick it on but it's not showing up on my readout. It's just a little frustrating after everything was running so well......20211224_112510.thumb.jpg.bac4c597fa01d57b56be2cddebd70ac2.jpg

I just went through as much as I knew to do. I checked for power on all legs of the transfer switch , generator on and off, power in and out.....120v to all breakers in the main. The xantrex invertor tries to come on and shuts off immediately. I've tried to reset it and it still does the same thing.....I unhooked the negative cable and let it sit for a few minutes while I pushed all reset buttons......still cuts off after a few seconds. 12.9v to all connections in rear switch/relay box. I think I'm pretty much done for the night. 

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