Walk od Shame. Long!
Confession is good for the soul and I am confessing, I am taking that dreaded “Walk of Shame”.
When we bought our Adventurer I was surprised that the batteries were not holding a charge well, they were less than a year old and were clean and no sign of corrosion on the terminals. The problem was getting worse after we had to leave it in the storage yard for a couple of weeks. I thought that there must be an unwarranted number of parasitic drains and downloaded the schematics from Winnebago and tried to figure out what was going on.
When I would flip the disconnect switch, I noticed that the propane leak detector was not going off. I looked at the schematic and it showed the detector did receive it’s power downstream from the disconnect. Darn I thought, someone has messed with the factory wiring and I’ll have to figure out what was done and how much things had been modified. When I started looking at things I noticed that the radios (not OEM) never went off without pushing the on/off switch. I can understand the memory circuit staying hot and that is really a very slight draw and shouldn’t draw a fully charged set of GC2s down in 10 to 14 days.
Now I am frustrated and decide to do a search for other parasites. The disconnect solenoid is behind the entry steps, the battery box and a panel of 12VDC breakers. I finally get access to the solenoids and check the wiring, which looks okay and for whatever reason, I jumpered the solenoid coil to the hot side of the batteries. Nothing, no click, nothing. I did it two or three more times and suddenly, the armature and contacts started clicking and the power to the house was off and then on. I started turning the disconnect on and off using the toggle switch on the wall down by the steps and power was on and off as it should be.
A new 200amp solenoid and problem solved. But I couldn’t stop there, I had to upgrade the battery hold downs, check the water and clean the battery terminals and spray them with that red gunk and reroute a couple of cables to make checking the water levels easier. No big deal, eh!
Well here is where making “The Walk Of Shame” comes in”.
Always, always double check every bolt, screw and clamp you can see in the work area. Yep, you guessed it, a loose nut on the negative battery terminal there the series jumper was connected. High resistance connection, failure of the charging system that is putting out 13.4 to 13.8 volts to charge the batteries, flickering lights, having to run the aux generator in order to watch a moving and have the heater run all night. Not to mention about $175.00 worth of batteries I would need to buy.
At least when I started to remove the batteries and go get new ones, the loose nut was the second one I tried to take off. I didn’t know if I should cry with joy or blush with shame when I found it only finger tight. I did the later as I reconnect the cable. I gave the batteries a good charge for 24 hours, turned off shore power, took voltage reading, 13.7 volts. I took several more reading and in 24 hours, with the batteries disconnected, they dropped to 12.6 volts. Got the load tester out, checked the batteries, totally in the green.
Moral of the story, as my German Engineer Father said, Always, Always check all those nuts, bolts, clamps and other fasteners in your immediate work area, always David, always check twice.
When we bought our Adventurer I was surprised that the batteries were not holding a charge well, they were less than a year old and were clean and no sign of corrosion on the terminals. The problem was getting worse after we had to leave it in the storage yard for a couple of weeks. I thought that there must be an unwarranted number of parasitic drains and downloaded the schematics from Winnebago and tried to figure out what was going on.
When I would flip the disconnect switch, I noticed that the propane leak detector was not going off. I looked at the schematic and it showed the detector did receive it’s power downstream from the disconnect. Darn I thought, someone has messed with the factory wiring and I’ll have to figure out what was done and how much things had been modified. When I started looking at things I noticed that the radios (not OEM) never went off without pushing the on/off switch. I can understand the memory circuit staying hot and that is really a very slight draw and shouldn’t draw a fully charged set of GC2s down in 10 to 14 days.
Now I am frustrated and decide to do a search for other parasites. The disconnect solenoid is behind the entry steps, the battery box and a panel of 12VDC breakers. I finally get access to the solenoids and check the wiring, which looks okay and for whatever reason, I jumpered the solenoid coil to the hot side of the batteries. Nothing, no click, nothing. I did it two or three more times and suddenly, the armature and contacts started clicking and the power to the house was off and then on. I started turning the disconnect on and off using the toggle switch on the wall down by the steps and power was on and off as it should be.
A new 200amp solenoid and problem solved. But I couldn’t stop there, I had to upgrade the battery hold downs, check the water and clean the battery terminals and spray them with that red gunk and reroute a couple of cables to make checking the water levels easier. No big deal, eh!
Well here is where making “The Walk Of Shame” comes in”.
Always, always double check every bolt, screw and clamp you can see in the work area. Yep, you guessed it, a loose nut on the negative battery terminal there the series jumper was connected. High resistance connection, failure of the charging system that is putting out 13.4 to 13.8 volts to charge the batteries, flickering lights, having to run the aux generator in order to watch a moving and have the heater run all night. Not to mention about $175.00 worth of batteries I would need to buy.
At least when I started to remove the batteries and go get new ones, the loose nut was the second one I tried to take off. I didn’t know if I should cry with joy or blush with shame when I found it only finger tight. I did the later as I reconnect the cable. I gave the batteries a good charge for 24 hours, turned off shore power, took voltage reading, 13.7 volts. I took several more reading and in 24 hours, with the batteries disconnected, they dropped to 12.6 volts. Got the load tester out, checked the batteries, totally in the green.
Moral of the story, as my German Engineer Father said, Always, Always check all those nuts, bolts, clamps and other fasteners in your immediate work area, always David, always check twice.
