Solved: Inverter E05 error & Autolevel Low Voltage error

[Silverbeau]

I thought I would share this, since the solution I found on the forum seemed a little outdated. My rig is a 2018 Heartland Big Country 3650RL that we've owned for about a month.

My symptoms were:
- Residential Refrigerator turned off after a short drive. Magnum Dimensions inverter in front compartment was powered off.
- Turning the inverter on resulted in a beep and error code E05 on the display. (Low DC Voltage detected. Unit will power off.)
- Arriving at our campsite, the autolevel would not work. The panel displayed a "Low Voltage" error.
- The panel in the camper showed 100% battery the whole time.

Diagnostics:
- With a volt-ohm meter we checked the terminals on the battery showed 11.37 volts. This is consistent with a dead battery.
- All breakers and fuses in the camper appeared to be fine.
- After locating the converter, we determined that it was functioning and the exit cables showed 13.0 volts. This is correct for charging.
(Note: The converter is behind a gray cloth panel in the main cargo bay, directly under the kitchen floor.)
- A forum posting indicated there may be a small circuit breaker on the red side of the battery cable. None was found.

Solution:
- After looking around, we found two "hidden" fuses on wires in the battery compartment, near the hydraulic system. These looked like an standard wire connectors and were not attached to any wall. The connectors are red plastic about 1" by 2" x 1/8" in size. Wires enter and leave on the sides, with the fuses inserted below. One contains a 20 amp fuse and the other a 15 amp. In our case, both fuses were okay, but apparently loose in the socket. Removing them, checking them, and reinserting them fixed the problem. Battery terminals began reading 13.0 volts and the inverter stayed on without errors. Autolevel worked when we moved sites later in the week.

Additional Tip: The night of the problem, we ran jumper cables from the truck's battery to the battery terminals in the front compartment. This allowed us to level the camper, put out the slides, and complete our setup for the night. We worked out the actual problem later in the week.

 

[wdk450]

Silverbeau:
Congrats on your new Big Country and your professional level troubleshooting to find the problem. You might want to edit the year of your Big Country on your post to take it out of the "Dark Ages".

Although you evidently found the problem, I am concerned that the fuse that allows current from the converter to charge the battery is only 30 amps, and is not an easily resettable circuit breaker. My converter can output 60 amps maximum. The current limiting device between the converter and battery is the one most reported to blow on this forum over the years. If this is truly a fuse, you need to keep a few spares on hand. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN MY 8 YEARS ON THIS HEARTLAND FORUM HEARING OF THIS INTERCONNECTION BEING FUSED AND NOT PROTECTED BY A CIRCUIT BREAKER.

You might want to check in with Heartland service on this. It sounds to me like your rig is miswired. The fuses you worked on sound like fuses for the landing gear or something similar, NOT the main converter to battery fuse/breaker. Have your VIN # ready, as this is the way they store the files on your rig.

 

[danemayer]

I agree with Bill. You may have found a problem, but perhaps not the only problem.

The connection between Power Converter and battery goes through a manual reset 12V DC mini-circuit breaker on every Heartland rig I've ever seen (except perhaps some very recent builds which may use a different arrangement, but not a fuse).

Please see the pictures I've attached. Your breakers may be arranged differently, but one with a thick wire attached will have the tiny reset button. Perhaps while investigating you reset it without realizing.

But, it's also possible your battery was recharged with the jumper cables and/or tow vehicle connection.

When everything is working correctly, on shore power, the battery voltage reading should be between 13.2 and 13.6VDC. 13.0V is an indication something may still be wrong.

 

[farside291]

I had the exact same symptoms on mine a couple of weeks ago. Dan you were correct then on my problem. Reset the small resettable circuit breaker and 13 volts showed up at the battery. As I was reading I thought that is what was going to be the problem. Didn't expect fuses.