My wife and I have been living in our 3150 Bighorn 5th wheel since we left Michigan on January 4, 2017. We spent the first few nights in Walmart parking lots just trying to get away from the cold weather. Long days of driving and short nights of sleeping. Charging system seemed to work fine.
Once we got to Texas we spent about a week in a campground and had shore power and the batteries seemed to charge OK. Same for the next couple of week long stays.
When we got to our property in Arizona I started to notice funny things happening with the charging system (converter). We are totally off grid here. One thing that I noticed was the Honda 2000 watt inverter generator seemed to surge a lot. Come to think of it the generator was surging a little bit in the Wally world parking lots too. I just figured it was from not running the generator much in the last year.
I decided to find the converter and check the voltage at the 12 volt output. It was OK at about 13.6 volts. As I was checking the voltage I had it hooked up to the running generator. The generator was only drawing about 300 watts according to my killawatt meter. The batteries were fairly low and it should have been pulling a much heavier load.
Next step was to check the connections to the converter. I thought it probably had square drive clamp screws and went in with a driver to tighten them. First was the negative side. As I was trying to get the square drive to seat into the hex set screw I accidentally bumped the converter case with the screwdriver. It sparked and the generator sped way up. Bingo, I had a bad ground. When I checked the killawatt meter it had gone from 300 watts to somewhat over 1,000 watts. The connector looked odd but I tightened it up a little bit anyway. It charged fine for the next day or so, then reverted back to low draw on the generator and surging again. I pulled the converter down from it's mounting place and here is what I found:
The connector was broken but i was able to use the other negative connector and tighten it up good.
That made things better but the gen. was still surging some and not drawing a consistent wattage.
Next I called the converter mfg. The technician was very helpful and had me check some voltages at the batteries and at the back of the converter. There was over 1 volt difference and he said that was way too much. He said I should check for a loose connection somewhere in the 12 volt system. I had already checked all of the connections on the battery and converter so I decided to follow the heavy wires from the battery to wherever they went. In this case they went to the compartment where the pump is for the slides.
There is a strip of circuit breakers with rubber covers over the connections. The first few covers that I pulled off were a little loose, maybe a half turn. When I got the the next one it was real loose so I grabbed it with my finger and thumb to tighten it finger tight. That was a mistake as it was hot and I slightly burned myself. THE NUT WAS ABOUT 6 TURNS LOOSE. I tightened it up and the generator hasn't surged one bit since and the batteries charge like they are supposed to.
Incidentally, the inside of the rubber on that connection was black from the heat of the loose connection. When I told my wife about it she told me that she had been telling me she smelled something hot. I couldn't smell anything.
Next I pulled the cover off of the breaker panel and tightened ALL of the connections in there. Most of them went another half turn or more.
I guess it should be expected that when a rig is bouncing down the road things can come loose. I just wasn't expecting most everything to be loose. If you are experiencing similar problems get your drivers out and start tightening things. I hope this can help someone else.
Once we got to Texas we spent about a week in a campground and had shore power and the batteries seemed to charge OK. Same for the next couple of week long stays.
When we got to our property in Arizona I started to notice funny things happening with the charging system (converter). We are totally off grid here. One thing that I noticed was the Honda 2000 watt inverter generator seemed to surge a lot. Come to think of it the generator was surging a little bit in the Wally world parking lots too. I just figured it was from not running the generator much in the last year.
I decided to find the converter and check the voltage at the 12 volt output. It was OK at about 13.6 volts. As I was checking the voltage I had it hooked up to the running generator. The generator was only drawing about 300 watts according to my killawatt meter. The batteries were fairly low and it should have been pulling a much heavier load.
Next step was to check the connections to the converter. I thought it probably had square drive clamp screws and went in with a driver to tighten them. First was the negative side. As I was trying to get the square drive to seat into the hex set screw I accidentally bumped the converter case with the screwdriver. It sparked and the generator sped way up. Bingo, I had a bad ground. When I checked the killawatt meter it had gone from 300 watts to somewhat over 1,000 watts. The connector looked odd but I tightened it up a little bit anyway. It charged fine for the next day or so, then reverted back to low draw on the generator and surging again. I pulled the converter down from it's mounting place and here is what I found:
The connector was broken but i was able to use the other negative connector and tighten it up good.
That made things better but the gen. was still surging some and not drawing a consistent wattage.
Next I called the converter mfg. The technician was very helpful and had me check some voltages at the batteries and at the back of the converter. There was over 1 volt difference and he said that was way too much. He said I should check for a loose connection somewhere in the 12 volt system. I had already checked all of the connections on the battery and converter so I decided to follow the heavy wires from the battery to wherever they went. In this case they went to the compartment where the pump is for the slides.
There is a strip of circuit breakers with rubber covers over the connections. The first few covers that I pulled off were a little loose, maybe a half turn. When I got the the next one it was real loose so I grabbed it with my finger and thumb to tighten it finger tight. That was a mistake as it was hot and I slightly burned myself. THE NUT WAS ABOUT 6 TURNS LOOSE. I tightened it up and the generator hasn't surged one bit since and the batteries charge like they are supposed to.
Incidentally, the inside of the rubber on that connection was black from the heat of the loose connection. When I told my wife about it she told me that she had been telling me she smelled something hot. I couldn't smell anything.
Next I pulled the cover off of the breaker panel and tightened ALL of the connections in there. Most of them went another half turn or more.
I guess it should be expected that when a rig is bouncing down the road things can come loose. I just wasn't expecting most everything to be loose. If you are experiencing similar problems get your drivers out and start tightening things. I hope this can help someone else.
