can someone please tell me where the "imaginary" manual reset breaker is for dc power.
on shore power everything works .. power converter puts out 1.5 v. all fuses ok but when unplugged 2 new 12v batteries that read 12.5 volts supply nothing to the circuits, solenoid in battery box under has 12v on 1 terminal . fuses are good ( tested with multimeter. battery disconnect witch is good per meter for continuity, im 68 and spent a week under this rig on a gravel driveway try ro locate a breaker. all wires intact? i have exhausted all logical steps and in despair, (some post said its under the bed? which would have to be disassembled to see.. doubt it.
Well the good news is that your solenoid test confirmed that the solenoid is working as designed and not the problem. Bad news is you still don't have an answer but you're getting close.
My guess is that the rocker switch is faulty as it is switching back off when you remove your finger from the switch. Try turning on an interior light that you can see when standing at the battery switch. If the light comes when you hold the disconnect switch on then you know what the problem is. If the RV has a stereo system in the house (not the dash mounted stereo) you can turn it on and see if it comes to life when you hold down the disconnect.
Last thing is as you say you really don't know if the solenoid is for the emergency start button. To test things like that I bought some small speakers off of Amazon. You can buy the speakers and use some wire (another use for the alligator clip test leads I linked above). Always test you equipment and hookup. For example clip the red wire on the speaker to the Battery power of the solenoid. Connect the black wire on the speaker to a ground point. If the speaker sounds off you verified you have a good test hookup. Now just move the red speaker wire over to the other large post on the solenoid. Go test the emergency start button and or the battery disconnect. One of the two buttons should make the speaker sound off and you'll now now which it is.
Many RV's have the bed on hinges so you can lift it up. Since yours appears to be bolted down the disconnect is probably not located there.
Did you drop a number in typing in the power converter reading? The converter should be putting out at least 13.5 volts. I'm assuming you just dropped the 3 since the systems work under shore power.
Definitely pay attention to the voltage readings as they might clue you in to something being wrong. Start with a reading at the battery and write it down. You already said 12.5v, so you have at least that much info. So now when looking for voltages you are looking for battery voltage (whatever number that you just wrote down) and not just 12v. If something reads lower you have high resistance possibly from a corroded terminal.
I would definitely focus my troubleshooting to the solenoid that you mentioned. You mentioned you have a multimeter which is good. For the following tests you need a short piece of wire to function as a jumper wire. I typically use a small wire with alligator clips on each end. It doesn't need to be large gauge if you turn off large power hungry appliances first. Something like in the link below should be more than sufficient.
Are you saying there is only 12 volts on one of the three terminals? Assuming the one terminal that has voltage is one of the large wires coming from the battery you should be seeing battery voltage there. Try using the jumper wire and jump between the terminal with voltage and the smallest terminal on the solenoid. If the solenoid is good you should see battery voltage appear on the second large terminal. If the solenoid is bad you will still have a lack of battery voltage on the second large terminal. If you now have power on both large terminals do you have power in the RV? If the solenoid tests good then you have a problem with the disconnect or some other switch is supposed to turn on the power.
Assuming you have a good solenoid and a suspect disconnect do you have battery voltage on one of the two wires on the disconnect switch? If so try dong the same thing as above and use a jumper wire to jump between the terminals and see if the RV now has interior power? If so replace the disconnect switch.
As an aside a battery at full charge is about 12.65 volts. 12.5v is 90 percent charged. It's not a huge deal at 90% charge but if you can't get things working I would put a standalone charger on the batteries to get them charged up. Lead acid batteries sitting partially discharged are getting slowly damaged.
thanks so much for the help all.. i read in many(ill informed posts elsewhere) the battery disconnect solenoid was just used to add the batteries to the motor battery with the emergency start button on the drivers console, crawling underneath the beast for 3 days i saw the solenoid output heavy guage red wire disappeared up under the bed where i cant follow it .. i bet thats the 12v power to the coach? i did the suugest jumper from 12v input side to supply 12v to small terminals on solenoid and there is power output to the side that feeds out to the rear somewhere . its 2007 and doesnt seem to have a part number .. are most continuous generic? reasonable cost?..
with that the freelander battery switch is a rocker switch that is sring loaded and doesnt stay in place, under shore power it has an led light lit. on batteries its dead. i removed and tested the switch and once depressed it contact is made it ,, how can this work if it doesnt stay engaged?
