Potted circuit board issue

I have an Atwood hot water heater and I'll be on my 3rd potted circuit board when I get around to buying another one. I've had two of them go bad at the relay, you can see in the picture where the relay has bubbled up in two places I'm assuming from a short circuit inside it or something else. I have a progressive 50 amp surge protector, I turn off my water heater before unplugging the camper and my 2nd potted circuit board is the updated model but both have blown in exactly the same way so I'm not too sure if it's me or bad parts. I was wondering if anyone knew what the cause could be so maybe I can avoid having to buy a 4th one?

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GK2018 said:

I have an Atwood hot water heater and I'll be on my 3rd potted circuit board when I get around to buying another one. I've had two of them go bad at the relay, you can see in the picture where the relay has bubbled up in two places I'm assuming from a short circuit inside it or something else. I have a progressive 50 amp surge protector, I turn off my water heater before unplugging the camper and my 2nd potted circuit board is the updated model but both have blown in exactly the same way so I'm not too sure if it's me or bad parts. I was wondering if anyone knew what the cause could be so maybe I can avoid having to buy a 4th one?

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I looked at older versions of the same board. I bet that is the trigger transformer for the ignitor that has gone bad. The small block above with ATE 17 is the relay that turns the Ignitor on/off. Sadly other than discussing with Atwood maybe they have a unknown bad batch of transformers not much can be done but replace. This will be running 12 volt so surges would be limited IMHO. Also the ignition probe might have leakage to ground causing a semi short at high voltage. Hi-Pot test of the probe could see if this is an issue or replace it entirely. My board is mounted inside the trailer on the water heater I have.

CDN said:

I looked at older versions of the same board. I bet that is the trigger transformer for the ignitor that has gone bad. The small block above with ATE 17 is the relay that turns the Ignitor on/off. Sadly other than discussing with Atwood maybe they have a unknown bad batch of transformers not much can be done but replace. This will be running 12 volt so surges would be limited IMHO. Also the ignition probe might have leakage to ground causing a semi short at high voltage. Hi-Pot test of the probe could see if this is an issue or replace it entirely. My board is mounted inside the trailer on the water heater I have.

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That makes sense, do you think it's possible to unplug the bad trigger transformer and replace it with a new one? I was thinking that it was a relay that they had coated in a rubberized liquid black tape that could be taken off and then replaced with a new one from an auto parts store for much cheaper than a whole new unit that nothing else may be wrong with. What do you think the possibility would be of bypassing that whole circuit board assembly somehow and still being able to use the propane portion of the water heater?

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Have you tried Dinosaur Electronics replacement circuit boards? They have a solid reputation among RV owners, and say that they make the circuit boards to higher (NASA) standards. Here is a link to their ignitor board page: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Ignitor_boards.htm

Here is a link to their customer service page if you have questions: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Cust_Service.htm

You can buy these boards directly from Dinosaur Electronics, on E-Bay, or from the RV refrigerator site RVCoolingunit.com

wdk450 said:

Have you tried Dinosaur Electronics replacement circuit boards? They have a solid reputation among RV owners, and say that they make the circuit boards to higher (NASA) standards. Here is a link to their ignitor board page: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Ignitor_boards.htm

Here is a link to their customer service page if you have questions: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Cust_Service.htm

You can buy these boards directly from Dinosaur Electronics, on E-Bay, or from the RV refrigerator site RVCoolingunit.com

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I didn't think about the dinosaur boards, I replaced my old campers water heater with one of those and I never had any issues out of it. I'll take a look and see if they make one that'll fit as a replacement for this one. So far after less than a year and having to buy a 3rd board I'm not super impressed unless it's an issue elsewhere causing the board to go bad but after lots of troubleshooting I can't imagine it being anything else unless I'm just missing something which is definitely plausible

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How old is your unit? We bought our Road Warrior in Oct 2017. So it is out of the 1 year warranty from Heartland, but Atwood is a 2 year warranty.
I just had to replaced the circuit board on our Atwood, because it quit opening the gas valve. I bought a new board from Holman's RV where we bought our unit. Called Atwood and they told me they had to have a tech rep or dealer call them and tell them the board is bad. Once Holman's called Atwood sent them a new replacement for their stock.
Long story once Holman's received the replacement board they refunded me the total cost since it was still under the 2 year warranty. Give Atwood a call and see what they required to help you out, maybe.

Talk to your dealer and see if they will assist you in this issue

wdk450 said:

Have you tried Dinosaur Electronics replacement circuit boards? They have a solid reputation among RV owners, and say that they make the circuit boards to higher (NASA) standards. Here is a link to their ignitor board page: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Ignitor_boards.htm

Here is a link to their customer service page if you have questions: https://www.dinosaurelectronics.com/Cust_Service.htm

You can buy these boards directly from Dinosaur Electronics, on E-Bay, or from the RV refrigerator site RVCoolingunit.com

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Great Idea Bill.

david-steph2018 said:

How old is your unit? We bought our Road Warrior in Oct 2017. So it is out of the 1 year warranty from Heartland, but Atwood is a 2 year warranty.
I just had to replaced the circuit board on our Atwood, because it quit opening the gas valve. I bought a new board from Holman's RV where we bought our unit. Called Atwood and they told me they had to have a tech rep or dealer call them and tell them the board is bad. Once Holman's called Atwood sent them a new replacement for their stock.
Long story once Holman's received the replacement board they refunded me the total cost since it was still under the 2 year warranty. Give Atwood a call and see what they required to help you out, maybe.

Talk to your dealer and see if they will assist you in this issue

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Our unit is 1 year and 1 month old as of yesterday so the warranty just ran out a month ago. I emailed Atwood earlier today to see if they had any suggestions but I haven't heard back from them yet. I'll contact the dealer tomorrow and see if they can offer any assistance as well maybe they can get me a replacement since this one was only about 3 months old. I'm not really sure yet what all that circuit board controls just shy of igniting the burner but if I can figure it out I might see about bypassing it all together. The water heater seems like a simple concept so I'd venture to say it's not out of the realm of possibilities or maybe just put an on demand water heater in its place but that one costs money I cant seem to find growing on any trees around here lol.

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They never answered the e-mail I sent them, they claimed they did not get it. So I gave them a call.
Here is the number I used 1-574-264-2131. They opened after 9 am eastern time.

GK2018 said:

Our unit is 1 year and 1 month old as of yesterday so the warranty just ran out a month ago. I emailed Atwood earlier today to see if they had any suggestions but I haven't heard back from them yet. I'll contact the dealer tomorrow and see if they can offer any assistance as well maybe they can get me a replacement since this one was only about 3 months old. I'm not really sure yet what all that circuit board controls just shy of igniting the burner but if I can figure it out I might see about bypassing it all together. The water heater seems like a simple concept so I'd venture to say it's not out of the realm of possibilities or maybe just put an on demand water heater in its place but that one costs money I cant seem to find growing on any trees around here lol.

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What you are suggesting in the above post is VERY DANGEROUS, and probably very hard to engineer. Did you know that the standard circuit boards for this try to ignite the pilot 3 times before stopping and posting an error condition? That these boards shut off the propane solenoid in an error condition?

I suggest you do a Google search for images and the search term "RV Fires". BTW, the 2nd image to come up looks like a Bighorn.

On Atwood water heaters, the control board senses the output of a single thermostat for both 120V AC, and 12V DC/Propane operation. The control board passes 120V AC to the heating element when on electric, and passes 12V DC to open the gas valve and fire the igniter when running on 12V/Propane.

As Bill mentioned, there are safety features built in. Bypassing anything on the control board is very risky as you don't know how it's designed and what functions you might be compromising.

I knew it would try the auto ignite 3 times before sending a DSI failure and shut off the propane using a solenoid that's why I was thinking in theory it seems as though you could bypass the electronics and go with a manual ignition. If I remember correctly when I was a kid our old propane water heater had a pilot light that would stay lit and when the water temperature would drop the pilot light would ignite the burner to warm the water up and then go back to the pilot light much like an oven does. That's more along the lines of what I was referencing when I mentioned possibly bypassing it all together. Yall might be right and I could be way off base though. I'm not looking to burn down or blow my camper up just to bypass a circuit board. Atwood did say this morning that they would send me one free of charge since this one was less than 3 months old and that the part number I gave them 91346 has been replaced with 91365 so I'm assuming they upgraded this model again. I'll be curious to see if this one lasts longer than the other two. I always appreciate the advice and input especially on an idea thats potentially dangerous.

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