Hydraulic landing gear, hydraulic slides, Furnace and switches not working

This is a real head scratcher for me, and I am new to this BH so please take it easy on a newbie;

So I need to get my BH ready for a trip next weekend. I got the 2 6 volt batteries charged up and the rig is plugged into shore power beside my house.

All of the lights work (Battery switch is in the "ON" position, but when I went to check my battery levels inside the coach,..nothing. I then went to turn the furnace on and nothing, I then checked the front bedroom electric slide and it works, and my rear electric landing gear works as well.

The issue is that nothing in the hydraulic system is working (both opposing slides won't work, the front hydraulic landing gear won't work, the lights for the yeti system won't come on and the thermostat for the furnace won't come on).

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,..Kris

Kris, Sounds like you left a cable off when installing the batteries or maybe a manual breaker has tripped on the 12 v buss bar.

I'll second the possibility of one of the 12v bus breakers. These are manual reset, and the reset pushbuttons are difficult to see.

Here's a link to the manuals section of the forum. The first item is a guide to the 12V wiring and will explain a bit about how it functions and where the likely problems are. Also includes a picture of the manual reset circuit breaker and diagnostic flowcharts.

If you're plugged into shore power, the power converter will supply power to your 12V fuse box, even when the battery is dead. That will keep the lights running. The power for the hydraulics doesn't go through the fuse box; it's powered from the battery, through an auto-reset 12V circuit breaker. So if the battery has run down, or is wired wrong, or has another problem, the hydraulic motor won't run.

So I would agree that you may have a 12V circuit breaker that's tripped, leading to a depleted battery. But I don't understand why that would affect the thermostat, which by the way has to work for the furnace to work. You might try turning off the battery cutoff. If the thermostat starts working, I'd suspect a problem with the batteries or battery wiring.

I am having issues with the server being to busy today (I have tried to reply about 3 or 4 times now)

Anyway,..All the 110v plugs work, and I have an electric space heater working on the kitchen island plug in right now,..the microwave has power to it, and I have since noticed that the fridge is also affected by the gremlins. The one thing I cannot access is the breaker panel because the kitchen slide is in and it is blocking access to the breaker panel. Is there a way to manually operate the hydraulic slides?

The refrigerator problem is another indication that this is a 12V issue. The control board needs 12V to operate. There is a manual procedure to operate the hydraulic slides. You need a drill and a hex bit to put in the back of the pump. If your pump is in the front compartment, there will be a removable panel in the storage area. The back of the pump has a label covering the receptacle for the hex bit. You need to manual open the valve for the slide, and run the drill in one direction to push the slide out, and reverse it to pull the slide in. Page 12 on this manual illustrates.

But you probably don't need to look in the 110V circuit breaker panel at this point. You want to first look at the 12V automotive style circuit breakers that are usually located near the battery.

danemayer said:

Here's a link to the manuals section of the forum. The first item is a guide to the 12V wiring and will explain a bit about how it functions and where the likely problems are. Also includes a picture of the manual reset circuit breaker and diagnostic flowcharts.

If you're plugged into shore power, the power converter will supply power to your 12V fuse box, even when the battery is dead. That will keep the lights running. The power for the hydraulics doesn't go through the fuse box; it's powered from the battery, through an auto-reset 12V circuit breaker. So if the battery has run down, or is wired wrong, or has another problem, the hydraulic motor won't run.

So I would agree that you may have a 12V circuit breaker that's tripped, leading to a depleted battery. But I don't understand why that would affect the thermostat, which by the way has to work for the furnace to work. You might try turning off the battery cutoff. If the thermostat starts working, I'd suspect a problem with the batteries or battery wiring.

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I have eliminated the bus bar reset. It hadn't been tripped

Get the batteries out of the loop and see if anything changes.

danemayer said:

Get the batteries out of the loop and see if anything changes.

Click to expand...

I'll give that a go,..Be back in a few minutes

danemayer said:

Get the batteries out of the loop and see if anything changes.

Click to expand...

Batteries are disconnected. There is still power to the microwave and the plug ins,..but non of the lights work now.

You could use jumper cables and connect to the hydraulic pump trombetta, the thing with the heavy cables connected to screw terminals, and operate the pump.

If the microwave is working, you have internal 110V. If the 12V lighting went out with the batteries disconnected, that indicates there's no 12V coming out of the power converter. It may have failed, or it may have blown fuses (on the converter), or its power cord may have vibrated out of the the outlet, or its 110V circuit breaker may have tripped.

The converter is usually in the basement, near the water pump. You'll have to take down the basement wall next to the UDC to gain access and check it out.

When the converter is off, or broken, it no longer supplies 12V to the fusebox, and also stops charging the batteries. The batteries will continue to supply 12V to everything for a while, but at they run down, you'll start losing 12V systems. Since the hydraulic motor takes more power than most things, it's usually the first thing to go.

If you can get to a Walmart tonight, for $50 you can get a battery charger. Plug it into a working outlet and connect to the batteries to recharge them. By tomorrow morning, you'll probably have everything working again and can open the slide to check the circuit breaker before taking down the basement wall.

Kris, since the one big change has been the addition of the six volt batteries, are you absolutely certain they are hooked up correctly?
All indications are that there is a 12 volt problem.
One other thing to consider is that if somewhere along the line you have reversed the polarity you will blow the three fuses on the converter.
You will need to access the converter to check the fuses.

Peace
Dave

I hooked the batteries up in series and charged them up to 100% with my battery charger before I installed them. I am 100% positive that they are hooked up in series (Positive to negitive connecting the 2 batteries). What I don't get is that everything worked 100% before I took the batteries out after the last use. I will take the wall down and check out the converter.

Thanks for all your feedback guys,..I will keep you posted

Sounds like you blew the 3-30 amp mini fuses on the converter - With shore power unhooked, take out the three fuses on the converter and replace them.

Brian

Please check your main battery cables... you said 6 volt pos to neg, between the two 6 volts... that is correct to make 12volts... but did you hook up the positive to the correct cable and negative to ground. Just got to ask. Even just a split second touch of the wrong cable to terminal will cause the fuses to blow and hopefully protect the rest of the system.

Jim M

jimtoo said:

Please check your main battery cables... you said 6 volt pos to neg, between the two 6 volts... that is correct to make 12volts... but did you hook up the positive to the correct cable and negative to ground. Just got to ask. Even just a split second touch of the wrong cable to terminal will cause the fuses to blow and hopefully protect the rest of the system.

Jim M

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HI Jim,..I hooked the battery up the correct way when I re-installed them,..however I don't remember if I turned the master switch to the off position before I took them out a couple of months ago. I have checked everything else that has been suggested, except the fuses in the converter which I will have to take the basement wall down to do,..and if they are blown I am hoping the problem is solved. If not,..well then I will have to try and figure out just exactly how to extend my kitchen slide to access the breaker panel.

One thing is for sure,..this is forcing me to learn a lot about the new rig which is a good thing as long as there isn't any damage to the coach.

Cheers,..Kris

Hi Kris - a quick picture showing the PD9280 converter - I think this is what is in your 2013 Bighorn - the 3 mini fuses are located right beside the main 12V cable connections.

Brian

You can check the outlet supplying the power converter while the basement wall is down, without having to open the slide to get to the circuit breakers. If you have a voltmeter or a known good lamp or other appliance, plug it in where the converter is plugged in to check that there's power to the converter.

Thanks for all your help folk! And a special thank you to BrianHarrison who took time out of his day to help me over the phone.

I pulled a rookie mistake and mistook the red wire coming from the coach as the positive connection and the white one as the negative. I switched them around and all systems now work. It didn't even blow any fuses on the converter or trip any breakers.

Thanks again to a very helpful community!!

Hats off to you all

Kris