Trouble shooting Trail Runner 27RKS 12v System

We’ve lost 12v to our refrigerator and water heater. The refrigerator worked fine on shore power at home but the control panel is dead here at our campsite. Nothing on shore or gas now. The water heater is out too, both gas and electric are out. All other 12v seem to work fine. All breakers and fuses in the electrical panel are fine and I reset the micro breaker at the 12v bus. The a/c works fine, slide-out, lights tv, tv booster and all outlets all work. Is there another fuse or breaker I’ve missed?
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Try the holding tank test panel to see what battery level is shown. If on shore power, and if your Power Converter is working, you should see 4 lights.

It's possible your Converter is not working and the battery has just enough juice to keep the LED lights on.
 
Try the holding tank test panel to see what battery level is shown. If on shore power, and if your Power Converter is working, you should see 4 lights.

It's possible your Converter is not working and the battery has just enough juice to keep the LED lights on.

The battery status panel shows 4 bars. The battery is 3 years old so I thought that might be it. I’ll test it today I was just wondering if it might be something else.
 

danemayer

Well-known member
4 lights means your Power Converter is supplying DC power at a good voltage level. So now it's a question of whether there's anything in the fuses or wiring that would account for failure to get 12V DC to both water heater and refrigerator. Btw, I'm assuming you have an Atwood Water Heater because on those, 12V DC is necessary for either propane or 120V AC operation.

When checking the fuses, did you check with an ohm meter? While a blown fuse is usually obvious, occasionally it's not.

Another possibility is loose wires in the Power Center where fuses and breakers are located. Don't overlook the ground wires. Usually a good idea to disconnect shore power and battery power before taking the cover off the Power Center.
 
I’ve checked the circuit breakers at the 12v bus, pulled the panel off the back of the refrigerator and checked the 12v terminal block there, checked the 12v fuses and everything checks out good. I’m at a loss of what to check now. On a side note the water heater is working on electric but not gas but the vent fan above the stove is out. What now?
 

danemayer

Well-known member
When checking the fuses, did you check with an ohm meter? While a blown fuse is usually obvious, occasionally it's not.

Another possibility is loose wires in the Power Center where fuses and breakers are located. Don't overlook the ground wires. Usually a good idea to disconnect shore power and battery power before taking the cover off the Power Center.
 

Flick

Well-known member
We’ve lost 12v to our refrigerator and water heater. The refrigerator worked fine on shore power at home but the control panel is dead here at our campsite. Nothing on shore or gas now. The water heater is out too, both gas and electric are out. All other 12v seem to work fine. All breakers and fuses in the electrical panel are fine and I reset the micro breaker at the 12v bus. The a/c works fine, slide-out, lights tv, tv booster and all outlets all work. Is there another fuse or breaker I’ve missed?

I had a similar problem where my refrigerator and light in that slide had no 12v. Turned out it was a wire spliced on the opposite side of the coach had worked loose. Look for a place where 12v wires may be spliced, say behind the water heater or along the frame under the coach. It may be a ground or hot wire.
 
Well after many trial and error investigations I broke down and called an rv repair service. After trouble shooting my rig they determined the refrigerator's thermocouple had tripped. Luckily it has a reset button so that was an easy fix. The 12 V control board for the water heater was burned up so it needs to be replaced and the stove's 12 V exhaust fan motor was also burned up and needs to be replaced. I will replace both the water heater and fan motor as both are available on Amazon for about $150 total.

So I commented that my $300 surge protector EMS didn't do its job when there was a surge at the campground and the repair many said actually it saved my butt. He said since it tripped it saved all my 120 V appliances; the air conditioner, TV, electric operation of the refrigerator and water heater and the microwave. The problem was with the 12 V system which the EMS doesn't protect. So thank you to Progressive Industries for my EMS!
 

danemayer

Well-known member
If there was a close lightning strike, the static discharge is so powerful that it can fry circuit boards without a direct hit to the power line.
 
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