Monthly Archives: July 2011
I’ve got Good News and Bad News . . .
The operation was a success but the patient died.
I related yesterday about my electrical problem. Everything was still pointing to my Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS).
Power in an RV can come from 3 different places: Shore Power, the onboard diesel generator, or the battery/inverter system.
The ATS is the unit that decides where the power is coming from, and then switches to that source to power things in the coach. The generator takes precedence. Even if we’re plugged into shore power, if the generator starts, the ATS will switch to it.
Research last night said the goto guy on these units is Kevin Mallory with CruisingAmericaRV in Celina, OH. As it turns out, I know Kevin. We met at Nick Russell’s Gypsy Journal Rally in Celina two years ago.
Called him and he answered on a 4th of July weekend Saturday. Great!
He led me thru taking the unit apart and checking the 5 fuses down at the bottom of the unit.
Here’s the rats nest I was working in. The panel with all the relays is hinged on the left side and lifts up. The 5 fuses are underneath there.
But as I was threading my hand down thru the cables, I noticed that one of the two 2" x 2" transformers on the circuit was sitting sideways hanging off the edge of the board.
I picked it up and it was loose. It was a fairly heavy transformer only held on the board by the 4 small leads soldered to the board.
Bad design. Something this heavy should have been ziptied to the board.
At this point I didn’t bother checking the fuses.
Here’s the culprit.
Kevin had already told me that the only way to bypass the transfer switch to get power to the coach was to undo the shore power coming and the transfer switch output to the breaker panel and splice them together.
And that worked!
Now that we have power again, I’m probably going to rewire things using plugs and receptacles so that I can manually switch between shore power and generator when I need to just unplugging one cable and plugging in another.
So instead of having an ATS, I will have an MTS (Manual Transfer Switch).
Me!
That’s the Good News! We have power back.
The bad news is that now my Inverter has died. Since it’s part of the same unit as the ATS, I don’t know if it’s part of the same problem or what.
As I said yesterday, It’s always something.
Once again, kudos to Kevin Mallory of CruisingAmericaRV for helping me out on a Holiday Weekend.
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Thought for the Day:
Better to keep your enemy in your sights than in your camp expecting him to guard your back.
gdfg
It’s Always Something! . . .
It’s going to be a short blog today because I’m fighting an electrical problem.
We left Long Beach, WA about 9 am after taking on about 125 gallons of diesel. With Nick and Terry leading the way, the 150 mile trip took us about 4 hours, which means we averaged about 37.5 mph, mostly because the curvy, hilly roads kept our speed down.
And also gave us one case of cat barf.
We got parked at the Elk’s Lodge in Bremerton, which has 30 amp and water with no problems. But the problem started when I hooked up my electric and tried to turn things on.
No power was getting to the coach, although my Progressive EMS (Electrical Management System) said the power coming in was good.
Next I tried disconnecting shore power and starting up my generator. Still no power in the coach.
But the inverter running off the batteries worked fine. This leads me to think it’s the Automatic Transfer Switch that’s having trouble. But so far, I’ve found no documentation on the switch in my manual, and of course this all occurred after everyone had left for the long 4th of July weekend, so there’s no one to call.
But we can use the inverter, and Nick loaned me his heavy duty battery charger to keep the batteries charged, so we can muddle thru the weekend OK.
More Tomorrow . . .
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Thought for the Day:
It’s not that they know so little, but that what they know is so wrong.
sdfgadsf
