12v Power Access in 192RBS

Last Train wrote:
Saturday I called our dealer's service dept to speak to a tech who has knowledge of the wiring harness in the 192RBS, but only a skeleton crew was on duty. Hopefully I can get a good answer from someone tomorrow. And yep, just might have to settle for some decorative conduit to grab power, but finding a source is still the issue.

If the light fixture(s) nearest to the vent are controlled by the paddle switch then your next best source of +/- 12 vdc is probably the television wall plate. As I already said, access through the ceiling itself I think would be difficult, especially getting past roof joists, but if you're willing to use wiremold to hide the wiring on the ceiling then that would be your easiest solution as running down the inside of that cabinet wall on which the wall plate is located would be quite easy. I effectively did the same thing years ago when I installed A/C in our Fleetwood popup and couldn't run wiring through the solid ABS roof.

RSD559 wrote:
In my two previous trailers, the lights were turned on at the light fixture. No wall switch. My new one has wall switches. If your light is turned on at the light and not on a switch, you will have both + and - 12v. If that's not the case, is there a smoke or other detector there in the ceiling that uses trailer power? Maybe you could tap into that. Worst case, use decorative conduit to get 12v to the fan.

Thanks. Our rig does have a main interior light switch at the entry door - although each individual LED does have its own toggle switch. However, the circuit would not be closed and power available at an LED until that switch was thrown, as I understand it. Great idea for the smoke detector, because there is one located closer to our vent than an LED light fixture. But it is battery powered, unfortunately. I'm busted on that one!

Saturday I called our dealer's service dept to speak to a tech who has knowledge of the wiring harness in the 192RBS, but only a skeleton crew was on duty. Hopefully I can get a good answer from someone tomorrow. And yep, just might have to settle for some decorative conduit to grab power, but finding a source is still the issue.

Appreciate your feedback.

RSD559 wrote:
In my two previous trailers, the lights were turned on at the light fixture. No wall switch. My new one has wall switches.

My own 2014 192RBS has 3 double light ceiling fixtures - one nearest the entry door and one in the middle of the cabin area can be individually switched on/off but are master controlled as a pair by a paddle switch next to the entry door on the underside of the upper galley cabinet. The third light fixture over the foot end of the bed is controlled only by it's own on/off switch, which in turn means that there is +/- 12 vdc available right at that light fixture. The OP's later version 192RBS has a vent that mine doesn't and his light fixture arrangement is different but if those nearest the vent are controlled by the paddle switch then he'd probably would want to pull power from another source. The cabinet wall on which the television wall plate is mounted is hollow and already does have wires running through it up to the ceiling area but easy access would require pulling that panel free in order to fish wires up into the ceiling. That wouldn't be difficult but I'd imagine that then fishing those wires across the interior of the ceiling to the vent area would be.

In my two previous trailers, the lights were turned on at the light fixture. No wall switch. My new one has wall switches. If your light is turned on at the light and not on a switch, you will have both + and - 12v. If that's not the case, is there a smoke or other detector there in the ceiling that uses trailer power? Maybe you could tap into that. Worst case, use decorative conduit to get 12v to the fan.

SoundGuy wrote:
If Coachmen didn't already provide +/- 12 vdc at the vent location (I can't say because my 2014 version 192RBS doesn't have a vent as does yours) then just pull it from the adjacent ceiling light.

Correct, no power is provided at the vent by Coachmen. My thoughts as well, about the power source being from a nearby ceiling light fixture. But in doing so, I wondered if we would need to toggle the main light switch for all the main ceiling lights in order to provide power to the prospective fan. True, or not?

Seems like I read somewhere in another forum last year that someone had tapped that TV booster switch power source for a similar purpose as mine. Just can't find the reference anywhere . . .

If Coachmen didn't already provide +/- 12 vdc at the vent location (I can't say because my 2014 version 192RBS doesn't have a vent as does yours) then just pull it from the adjacent ceiling light.

Be careful taping into a switch. Quite likely only the positive side there and no ground.