Erratic House Battery Charging - Luxury Coach Lifestyles
Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
 
Old 03-14-2009, 11:32 PM   #1
Richard and Rhonda
Senior Member
 
Richard and Rhonda's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Huntington WV
Posts: 1,041
Default Erratic House Battery Charging

I have been working with a gentlemen here in Fort Worth who has an 88 Newell. He was having problems with his house batteries charging or not charging and he needed some help. I'll tell the the saga, and you can laugh at my expense, but there were a few watchouts that I learned about today that are worth passing on.

He was also complaining of hard starting, even with the merge switch on.

He had already replaced the converter. He had already put brand new batteries in it. I installed the converter and confirmed that it charged the batteries a couple of weeks ago.

The diagnostics I had him do over the last two weeks just didn't add up for me, so we started with the basics today. I'll spare you all the details but here is what we found.

First, the 120VAC circuit that provided power to the converter had an intermittent connection in the 120 panel. The breaker was not bad but it make or break the circuit if you wiggled it. Removal and examination showed minor corrosion and arcing where the breaker made electrical contact with the hot leg in the breaker box. One problem fixed.

Now, the converter is putting out a steady 13.5 volts but the house batteries are still down. Hmmmm. I checked the on off switch by the batteries with no change. So I started looking for a blown fuse. I was looking for one of those monster fuses that you find on the ground loops of the house and chassis battery loops. I had to remove all the batteries to get inside the battery bay. A ha !!!! The ground was loose on both the house and chassis side. OK, fix that.

Still no juice from the converter at the house batteries. Here's where you get to laugh. The switch by the house batteries in this coach was for the chassis batteries. The switch for the house batteries is in the ENGINE bay. Go figure.

All is well now.

Except I checked his old converter. It works. Now he has a spare :-)

The big learning was how the circuit breakers can loosen in the box with time and vibration. Just something to be aware of when you are trouble shooting.
__________________

__________________
Richard Rhonda Ty and Alex Entrekin
1995 Newell # 390 DD Series 60, Allison World Trans
Subaru Outback toad
CoMotion Tandem
Often wrong, but seldom in doubt
Rhonda's chronicle https://wersquared.wordpress.com/
Richard and Rhonda is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-15-2009, 12:32 AM   #2
fulltiming
Senior Member
 
fulltiming's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Texas
Posts: 1,558
Default

Grounds and wiring are often the source of electrical problems. Sorry we didn't talk about that in our previous discussions. For most of us, the obvious problems are the ones that we look to first and only after eliminating them to we start checking what are frequently, the most time consuming but, if you are doing the work yourself, the least expensive problems to solve.

Switch location can be confusing, especially if unlabeled or if someone has rewired things so that the label are no longer correct.
__________________
Michael and Georgia Day
1992 Newell 43.5' #281
8V92 DDEC-2, HT740
PT Cruiser GT with Remco Transmission Pump
https://newellowner.com/newell-photos/
fulltiming is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3
Disclaimer:

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by Newell Coach Corporation or any of its affiliates. This is an independent, unofficial site.


All times are GMT. The time now is 06:24 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
×