Daily Archives: June 22, 2015
A World of Difference . . .
Well, the Reflectix foil sheets made a lot of difference on the windshield today. It went up to 106 degrees, but it never got over 79 in the coach. Still very comfortable.
I spent a good bit of time over the weekend reading the two different manuals I have on my Cummins Onan 7500 Quiet Diesel Generator, trying to get a handle on my recent problem. This was about all I could do over the weekend until I could make some phone calls today. But I woke up about 4:30am this morning with an epiphany, and it didn’t hurt as much as you might think. Something had been nagging me, but it took a while to register.
Somewhere during the last 8 years, I had gotten the idea that my genset had a separate !2v DC circuit that would charge the rig’s battery sets. But a footnote that came back to me made me rethink the whole problem.
My generator only has 120VAC output. Any battery charging comes from the generator AC powering the power converter just like it does on shore power. So now my focus was back on the transfer switch.
As I said the other day, the genset/transfer switch et. all. was working at the time of the blowout. In fact the only reason I turned it off was that I discovered diesel running out on the ground from the torn off filler pipe. So I was looking for something relating to the blowout to be causing the problem.
I called American Coach about noon and was told that there was nothing in the shredded wheel well wire harness concerning the genset, so that was off the table for now.
I now decided that around 5pm, when things were cooler, I would shut off shore power, crank up the genset, and then do some more checks. To prepare ahead of time I removed the AC connection access cover on the genset to let me check the voltage output right at the unit. Next I lifted up the bed, removed the cover on the transfer switch, and carefully checked all the wiring.
At 5pm I shut everything down in the coach, i.e. AC’s, TV, DirecTV receiver, computer, etc. and shut off the shore power at the breaker. Coming back inside I used a screwdriver to cycle the two big contactors in the transfer switch. Neither one seemed to be stuck or have a problem in any way.
So then it was back outside to crank up the genset. When it was running smoothly, I used my voltmeter to check the voltage output.
And I had 120 VAC.
And coming into the coach, I now had 120 VAC inside too.
Checking out the transfer switch, I now also had the Green LED that says the transfer switch is in Generator mode, just as it should.
With no AC’s running it was starting to heat up inside the rig, so I shut everything down and put us back on shore power.
And the transfer switch worked just fine.
So why did it work now, but not the 6 or 7 times I tried it last Friday, both at the tire shop and on the way here? The only thing I really did was to toggle the two contactors in the transfer switch. Neither one acted like they were stuck or hung up in any way.
I’ll wait a couple of days and try it again, just by shutting off shore power and cranking up the genset, and see what happens.
I hate it when a problem like this fixes itself without me understanding the cause.
A problem that can fix itself, can also unfix itself, usually at the most inconvenient time.
Words to live by.
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Thought for the Day:
Don’t be stupid. We have politicians for that.
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