DUVAC Alternator and Suitable Replacements

[Guest Potholepicker]

Only of the isolator, charger, and big boy. My bad.

Does the website have any schematics of older Monaco's?

[jacwjames]

8 minutes ago, Potholepicker said:

Only of the isolator, charger, and big boy. My bad.

Does the website have any schematics of older Monaco's?

Hard lesson I learned long ago, I take pictures before I start and also have a label maker and mark everything with as much detail as possible.   I have a separate folder on my laptop that has photos of RV stuff. 

I looked and not for a 2002 Executive.  Also checked IRV2, no joy. 

Trying to download a 2003 Dynasty, not sure if it will show what you need. 

 

[Guest Potholepicker]

Here's some pics I took of the components. Don't have a picture of the whole box.

I wonder if an 01 executive or signature would be similar wiring? Thanks for looking.

Jeff

[jacwjames]

I went through the 2003 Dynasty wiring diagram, not sure how close it is to yours but I found one page that shows how the house/chassis battery distribution is.  It should be close to what you have and you might be able to trace wires and figure yours out. 

I printed this one page to a PDF

Look at the House Battery wire routing

2003 Monaco Dynasty Wiring Diagram w TOC battery distribution.pdf

[jacwjames]

I took a closer look at the PDF page I attached and it is very close to what you have.   You will have to trace wires and figure out which one is not in the right place.  Start with the wires going to the MLACR, one side should be 12 volt house and the other 12 volt chassis. 

As the previous poster said you need to have a 12 volt wire feeding the bank of circuit breakers at the bottom of your picture and then there should be a large wire going to the inverter. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by jacwjames

[Guest Potholepicker]

So,

You can curse at the Sun, or wear a hat.

Our four fuses and the Buss top and bottom, both Ohm out as being connected to Chassis ground. The bottom of the Big boy was connected to the top of the buss bar with a copper strap.

Without rewiring the buss bar I cannot connect a positive to it. There are sparks and fireworks. I'm at a complete loss as to how to proceed.

The schematic doesnt jive with our box and reality.

???

[jacwjames]

Did everything work before you started the swap!

[Guest Potholepicker]

Good question. 
alternator failure with 8 volt house batteries. 
the batteries went dead while in storage with battery switches off. 
 

Battery boost and maintainer never worked in 4 years we have owned Coach. 
 

might the cutoff switch have welded internally? To ground?

[jacwjames]

Something going on as you shouldn't be seeing that bank of circuit breakers showing ground. 

You should be able to check the battery disconnect to see if it is opening/closing but not sure it it could fail to ground.

Check you battery connections and make sure the (+) & (-) are correct.  Negative should be going to a grounding stud on the chassis. 

My only suggestion would be to start over following the wiring diagram.  Disconnect everything and make sure you don't have crossed wires.   I believe the wiring diagram I provided can give you the info you need based on the pictures your provided. 

[Guest Potholepicker]

Already verified the grounding on cables and battery polarity.

I'll have to verify the remainder of connections at the buss bar.

Let you know how it goes.

[jimc99999]

5 hours ago, Potholepicker said:

Here's some pics I took of the components. Don't have a picture of the whole box.

This picture shows +12V from the bottom side of the battery boost solenoid to the house battery fuses. One of those fuses should feed the salesman switch solenoid on the right side. 

It will spark if there's any switches on causing a power draw. It might show continuity to ground if a light switch is on. You should not be connecting the power to that fuse bus unless the battery cutoff switch is off anyway. 

On your 4-fuse bus, the 2 fuses on the right feed the inverter. The one on the left appears to feed the salesman cutoff solenoid, and from there to the 12V systems like water pump, lights, furnace, etc. I'm not sure about second from left, it feeds that bottom solenoid and something else (according to the wiring diagram posted, maybe hydraulic pump?). 

If your house batteries went to 8 volts under suspicious circumstances (like very quickly while you were traveling, since it sounds like that killed your alternator), maybe something shorted somewhere else in the coach to cause that. You could try disconnecting the cables from the 2 left fuses, connect the house battery cable to the fuse bar, and then turn on the battery cutoff to see if you can power up the inverter alone.

 

[jacwjames]

Here is a post that I remembered had a lot of good info on a Bluesea ML-ACR install.  It was started by VanWill, who is very knowledgable in a lot of things and explains in detail the install.  The first post has a before and after picture of his electrical bay, not exactly like yours but close and it is very easy to see what he removed and how he routed his wiring. 

This is a long post that was active for +1 year as others asked questions, there is good info further into the post so I's suggest going through it.

 

[Guest Potholepicker]

Howdy

got the house power working—mostly. 
 

our bedroom slide won’t operate. No power to switch. All fuses ok. 
 

first time for everything in four years. 

[jimc99999]

1 hour ago, Potholepicker said:

got the house power working—mostly. 
our bedroom slide won’t operate. No power to switch. All fuses ok. 

The wiring diagram posted above shows that second solenoid in line for power to a hydraulic pump and a big box that says something like "coach-specific stuff". So a good first thing to check is if you have power across that solenoid. If you don't, you'll have to figure out what used to cause it to connect. Sounds like you're making good progress though.

[Guest Potholepicker]

Slide is 12v motor. With geared system. 

[jacwjames]

14 minutes ago, Potholepicker said:

Slide is 12v motor. With geared system. 

Can you tell use what you did to get it to work, I like to close out a post with as much knowledge as possible so next time the problem can get fixed easier/quicker.

 

Which slide is it. 

I have 2 slides, bedroom and a larger living room slide.  There is one control module for both slides and the module has a ~5 am fuse that sometimes blows and won't let my front slide operate.  There are also inhibitor switches mounted with the doors under the slide and sometimes one will not close properly, I have to slam the door shut. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by jacwjames

[Guest Potholepicker]

Bedroom roadside rear. Tried safety switches but main slide roadside operates. 

[jacwjames]

2 hours ago, Potholepicker said:

Bedroom roadside rear. Tried safety switches but main slide roadside operates. 

Did you find the control board?

[vanwill52]

I've not followed this thread carefully, but I'll add that the fact that Monaco often supplied continuous POSITIVE 12VDC to many devices and turned them on or off by supplying a GROUND connection and that can be very confusing sometimes...you think a device has been "switched on" because +12VDC appears on its terminals.  But it is not activated until a GROUND is supplied to the device.

Additionally, the ML-ACR is nothing other than a high-capacity relay that either CONNECTS or DISCONNECTS the two large posts on it to one another.  It has sensing circuitry that causes it to make that CONNECT/DISCONNECT appropriately.  Even without a remote switch at the driver's console, it will still do its intended function.  The remote switch only allows you to OVERIDE the automatic functions of the ML-ACR.

Connecting the ML-ACR is as simple as removing the Big Boy, SS Isolator, and Lambert battery maintainer, then connecting the charging cable from your alternator AND the cable going to your chassis batteries TOGETHER on ONE post of the ML-ACR, and connecting the cable going to your house batteries on the OTHER post of the ML-ACR.  Unless you choose to add the remote switch, you are DONE--Your alternator will ALWAYS be charging your CHASSIS batteries (because the alternator cables and chassis battery cables are connected to the same post), and when a charging source is detected, the ML-ACR will connect both bottom posts together, charging BOTH chassis and house batteries.

[Guest Potholepicker]

Hi

yep. It is done. 
Secondary issue of bedroom mechanical slide not operating. That is new. 
all fuses I can find are good. Motor is good. 
 

Jim,

unable to locate control board. Fuses I could find are ok. Motor is ok. 

[jacwjames]

No idea where it might be,

I went through the 2003 Dynasty wiring diagrams and found the page that has the slideout controls.  I do not know if this is similar to your Executive but better then nothing.  The drawings list Dynasty, Executive and Signature on a lot of pages and years 2002-2004 so it might be worth for you to down load the file.  It is very detailed, a lot more then my Windsors.

The drawing has a note saying the relays (that reverse the stroke) are located next to slide out motor for all 3 slides on the drawing so there may not be a signal control module. 

My control module is located in the rear passenger side electrical bay and like this. https://pdxrvwholesale.com/products/kib-electronics-slide-room-controller-dual-slide-16615700

 

On this drawing it shows there is one 30 amp minibreaker providing power to all the slides so if one is working the breaker must be OK.

 

Back in 2012 my front slide quite working, I tried everything and finally decided it was the motor so ordered one but had it delivered one of my wifes friends since I was headed out of country, her husband installed and that fixed the problem but I later I tore the old motor down, cleaned and it works so I have a spare, no idea what was wrong with it.

Last year I had trouble with both rear & front slides, I kept blowing a fuse on the module. 

I checked everything and even took a small 6 amp battery charger and used it to test each motor, both worked.  >>> you can confirm the motor is good doing this.

Ultimately I found one of the inhibitor switches had come apart and was going to ground.  Replaced it and that fixed the problem. 

2003 Monaco Dynasty slide out wiring.pdf

Edited April 27, 2023 by jacwjames

[Guest Potholepicker]

Checked motor on battery and it works both directions. 
suspect disabled relay. 
Any idea where to buy those relays?

jeff

[Just Jim]

On 4/27/2023 at 4:33 PM, vanwill52 said:

I've not followed this thread carefully, but I'll add that the fact that Monaco often supplied continuous POSITIVE 12VDC to many devices and turned them on or off by supplying a GROUND connection and that can be very confusing sometimes...you think a device has been "switched on" because +12VDC appears on its terminals.  But it is not activated until a GROUND is supplied to the device.

Additionally, the ML-ACR is nothing other than a high-capacity relay that either CONNECTS or DISCONNECTS the two large posts on it to one another.  It has sensing circuitry that causes it to make that CONNECT/DISCONNECT appropriately.  Even without a remote switch at the driver's console, it will still do its intended function.  The remote switch only allows you to OVERIDE the automatic functions of the ML-ACR.

Connecting the ML-ACR is as simple as removing the Big Boy, SS Isolator, and Lambert battery maintainer, then connecting the charging cable from your alternator AND the cable going to your chassis batteries TOGETHER on ONE post of the ML-ACR, and connecting the cable going to your house batteries on the OTHER post of the ML-ACR.  Unless you choose to add the remote switch, you are DONE--Your alternator will ALWAYS be charging your CHASSIS batteries (because the alternator cables and chassis battery cables are connected to the same post), and when a charging source is detected, the ML-ACR will connect both bottom posts together, charging BOTH chassis and house batteries.

Hey Van,  I am investigating the installation of the ML ACR and I want to just get it installed and tested.  Then later I will run the wires to install the switch on the dash.  If all I want is just the ML ACR install with no switch I only hook up the black and red wires to neg and positive respectively?  The other wires only go to the switch?   Someone mentioned that you had a "white paper" on this, but I did not see anything like that in the files, etc.  Perhaps it is called something else?  Thanks in advance.  Jim

 

Edit:  Added pictures of my existing.  The top wire going to the isolator is from the chassis battery.  I assume the bottom is from the house batteries.  The middle one is the alternator?  I've read that I need to attach one large wire to the lower copper bar to feed the house but which one?  The smaller wires on the big solenoid go where?  The wires on the battery maintainer (green box) go where?   Thanks in advance for any help. 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Just Jim

[Just Jim]

Still working through this install and I think I have a few things figured out from various searches on here.  The lead in wires from the chassis, alternator and house are all really short and just make it into the box.  So, I'm going to add a bus bar or two to connect those wires then make jumpers to go to the ACR and another jumper from the house batteries down to the bottom row of wires.  I've seen recommendations for fuses between the wires and the ACR....any recommendation what type and size?

[jacwjames]

1 hour ago, Just Jim said:

Still working through this install and I think I have a few things figured out from various searches on here.  The lead in wires from the chassis, alternator and house are all really short and just make it into the box.  So, I'm going to add a bus bar or two to connect those wires then make jumpers to go to the ACR and another jumper from the house batteries down to the bottom row of wires.  I've seen recommendations for fuses between the wires and the ACR....any recommendation what type and size?

They do recommend using fuses on the small switch, I think do to time I just went to Lowes and bought these  https://www.lowes.com/pd/Cooper-Bussmann-30-Amp-Fast-Acting-Fuse/3138837

Any auto parts store should have something that would work. 

I removed the original Auxillary Start "boost" switch on my dash and installed the switch there.  It is lighted and will actually provide blink type code if there is a problem.  When I first installed I didn't wire it right and it was blinking. 

FWI, the blue gauge is my fuel pressure gauge from the FASS install