North Trail - No 12V DC afer installing new battery

[ridinpreacher]

I purchased a new battery for 2010 32QBSS this winter. Just hooked it up. No 12v power. Do have shore power. Battery new purchased from Advance, assumed it was fully charged when purchased at Christmas. Has been sitting in battery box, covered but have not had cables hooked to it. It reads 12v across its terminals. Have 12V reading on the positive cable where it bolts to a small box which is screwed to the front trailer frame. There are 4 of these little boxes screwed to the trailer frame. Don't know what they are. but I do know that they have 2 terminals. the top terminals are connected across the 4 boxes with a metal bar. There is no 12 v at the next box in line after the box which has the pos battery terminal. No 12 v dc to anything .. no lights, no power to slides nothing. Everything works on shore power.

 

[caokgafamily]

Re: No 12 V DC power with new battery.

Did you check all your 12 volt fuses?

 

[cookie]

Re: No 12 V DC power with new battery.

I do not own a 32WBSS so I am not sure what you mean by small boxes, but I think you may be refering to circuit breakers. If you have 12 volts to the first one and nothing after that, check on the side of that breaker for a button. That would be the reset button. Press it.
Please come back and let us know what you find.

Peace
Dave

 

[rebootsemi]

Re: No 12 V DC power with new battery.

I purchased a new battery for 2010 32QBSS this winter. Just hooked it up. No 12v power. Do have shore power. Battery new purchased from Advance, assumed it was fully charged when purchased at Christmas. Has been sitting in battery box, covered but have not had cables hooked to it. It reads 12v across its terminals. Have 12V reading on the positive cable where it bolts to a small box which is screwed to the front trailer frame. There are 4 of these little boxes screwed to the trailer frame. Don't know what they are. but I do know that they have 2 terminals. the top terminals are connected across the 4 boxes with a metal bar. There is no 12 v at the next box in line after the box which has the pos battery terminal. No 12 v dc to anything .. no lights, no power to slides nothing. Everything works on shore power.

The boxes you speak of are circuit breakers the positive sides are all bussed together and all 12 VDC come off the bottom of each circuit breaker. Kind of sounds like you have a ground problem. You say you have 12 v at the first circuit breaker, how tested, circuit breaker pos post to ????? The neg side of the battery is connected to a terminal block screwed to the frame. If you have 12v across the battery and 12v from the pos post of the circuit breaker to neg of the battery but not to the trailer frame you have a open ground.
Hope this helps a little.

 

[Bob&Patty]

Re: No 12 V DC power with new battery.

I agree with Lee. Is it possible that the battery is connected backwards??? Just asking. Check the negitive side cable for corrosion where it connects to the frame and make sure the bolt is tight.

 

[TedS]

Re: No 12 V DC power with new battery.

I would guess that the first circuit breaker (little box) is open and needs to be reset.
Why are you installing a new battery? Could something have shorted and caused the first circuit breaker to open when the old battery was in service?

 

[ridinpreacher]

Re: ATF: North Trail - No 12V DC afer installing new battery

I purchased this battery in Feb and it sat disconnected in the covered battery box on the tongue of the Northtrail. My meter showed 11.9 to 12.09 across the terminals. Still this morning, before digging into things any deeper, I took the battery to the Advance where I bought it. There test showed it was good but needed to be charged. I thought to myself out loud, I would have thought a new battery would have been fully charged, I should have asked that question when I bought it. On the other hand, perhaps a deep cell looses that much voltage that quickly from just sitting even if not connected. Regardless, they are giving the battery a slow overnight charge and I shall know tomorrow if that was my problem or if I must dig deeper into the 12 v system on our Northtrail 32QBSS.

 

[pegmikef]

Re: ATF: North Trail - No 12V DC afer installing new battery

Seems to me, that if you have had shore power hooked up for a few days and the battery connected, that the battery should have been charging.

 

[rebootsemi]

Now here is a prime example of why HL should supply a wiring schematic with all of the trailers. From the circuit breakers which are all bussed together does the main wire (red #4 or 6) go. Does it feed through converter/inverter or go straight to the fuse panel, what happens if you blow the fuses in the inverter, does it matter if you have the trailer connected to shore power without a batter in the unit. Don't know.

 

[branson4020]

Now here is a prime example of why HL should supply a wiring schematic with all of the trailers. From the circuit breakers which are all bussed together does the main wire (red #4 or 6) go. Does it feed through converter/inverter or go straight to the fuse panel, what happens if you blow the fuses in the inverter, does it matter if you have the trailer connected to shore power without a batter in the unit. Don't know.

It's hooked up like this.

View attachment 13037

 

[rebootsemi]

It's hooked up like this.

View attachment 13037

Makes perfect sense, I saw somewhere in here a post where the battery + was connected to the non buss bar side, don't know if this one is that way, but if the circuit breaker was open you would not have 12v to anything, just guessing here.

 

[Bob&Patty]

Here is "maybe" your answer. But answer my question 1st. Has it been very cold in SC?? OK...if it has..then that is your answer as to why you battery has a LOW charge. Batteries DO NOT like the cold or extreme heat and they will not stay charged on their own. Just because the battery has a 12V reading doesn't mean it has a good charge. It's the battery "amperage" that runs things. You can have 12V readings and 0 amperage. The only way to find out if the battery is good is to do a "load" test. Say it is a 900 amp battery....you should be able to load that battery to 900 amps and it should hold that for at least 30 seconds and then start to drop. If the battery drops to, lets say, 200 amps on a load test...the battery is junk. Next year when you park for the winter. Take the battery out and put it your garage on a "trickle" charger set on the lowest setting. If you do this....you won't be buying a battery every year. JMHO

 

[TeJay]

Hi,
Old cranky has is correct. Any wet cell begins to loose it's charge just as soon as you buy it or when you put into service. Depending on conditions if not charged a battery may be dead within 4-6 months. When you buy a 60-month battery it will be good for no more than 60 months if used correctly and less if it's not. Technically speaking a battery not being used monthly should be trickle charged every month for a few days. If that is done the service life of the B+ (battery) will usually live it's expected life (60-months, 72-months) if it's not charged monthly it will become sulfated which will reduce it's ability to take a charge when it is again put on a charger. A trickle charge is a 2-amp (slow charge) applied for 2-3 days. Slow charging is always the best. Charging a battery is a molecular event and it works best when done slowly. As Cranky said voltage will not give you a good indication of the batteries charge. A battery must deliver amperage as needed and at 12 volts of pressure. Example, A small light may need 2-amps of current while another light may need 15-amps of current but always at 12-volts. The amount of current is diredectly related to the amount of work you want done. An engine starter motor may need 150 amps and a radio may only need 2-amps. Voltage can be used to indicate relative battery charge. 12.8-full charge, usually less than 11.8 volts very low charge. Search and you can find a chart which will indicate relative charge based on voltage.

 

[ridinpreacher]

Hi all, thanks for all the replies. Just read them this morning. I was thinking that I'd get an email from the forum that I had replies.

I bought a new battery because I took it to Advance they did the load test, then tried to recharge using their 'best' method as they call it -- overnight. In fact they did it twice. No good. I did learn the hard way, pull the battery.

I bought one of their RV / Marine batteries because I'm a UM clergy who may be appointed "any town," SC and my experience with Advance has been they are always near and very good on warranty. In fact my truck battery died early and I couldn't find receipt but they covered it (an Advance in a small town, friendly folks).

What I did do though, since the battery sat (not hooked up), in the covered box on the tongue from mid Feb to this point is I took it back to the Advance in town and it did need charging ... in only 2 months time sitting. Lesson learned.

That did not solve the problem.

I emailed heartland and was helped immensely by a tech named Ian he was wonderful. He did inform me that the 4 little boxes are breakers and one should be resettable. But, the truth is the first one in line on mine was not (no little reset button) and as far as my eyes and fingers can find none of them are.

The battery was and is hooked correctly and the ground good.

Knowing now these are breakers I simply tested across each one -- risked using a test light powered by house current, which I am thinking might be a real risk. What I did was take my shop lamp and cut one of the wires on the cord, plugged the lamp and touched open ends of the wire I cut to the terminals on each breaker long enough just a touch to see if lamp lighted. All did except the first breaker. And like I say it has no reset and none of the others do either.

I searched all over in the small town I am in and also in Florence which is a good sized city searched Ag South, Harbor Freight, the biggest and best Hardware/Mobile Home/Rv supply store, Advance, AutoZone none has this breaker.

I did one last check at the WM in our little town -- it is not a WM With great stock of anything. BUT IN THIS CASE in the boating section they had more than 6 of the exact breaker used on our heartland and these have the reset button and they are 7.95. Took it home, hooked it up and voila! 12 v dc everywhere!

I will look into a trickle charger.

I have seen some that are a bit more expensive but are designed to offset chemical reactions. Does anyone have experience with these.

Would love to start a new thread on slide out leaking through the bottom sweep when slide closed and driving through rain storm. Mine was never adjusted right from the factory and did not discover this problem until over a year after purchase because we didn't tow in the rain until then! Soaked carpets inside. Heartland acknowledged problem but said adjustments are covered for a 90 day period after purchase. I suggested one might not find this problem for years -- not until they towed in the rain. Any one else have this problem. Basically the lower sweep does not touch does not sweep or seal the bottom of the slide out!

 

[jbeletti]

Hi all, thanks for all the replies. Just read them this morning. I was thinking that I'd get an email from the forum that I had replies...

When you create a thread, after you submit it, click on Thread Tool at the top of the thread and select "Subscribe to this thread". When done, you will receive notifications based on the type and frequency of notifications you select.

Glad you got this figured out. Not sure if anyone mentioned it here yet, but if you plan to have period of time (days to weeks or longer) where the RV will not be used or plugged into shore power, do yourself a favor and install a battery cut-off switch. Easy mod to do and not very expensive. By switching the battery out of the circuit when not in use, all parasitic load with be removed and that battery will sit for weeks, pretty well.

Jim

 

[Bob&Patty]

Riding, as to your slide leak issue. The slides are not hard to adjust. You can go to Lipperts website and download the instructions.

 

[ridinpreacher]

Do you have that website link?

 

[cookie]

Lipperts web site is lci1.com. The manual is found there under "Support", "Owners Manuals", "Hydraulic Slides" or can be found RIGHT HERE. This is assuming you have hydraulic slides. If not, other instructions are there as well.

Peace
Dave