This is embarrassing: Magnatek failure?

jefe 4x4 wrote:
O.K., the plot thickens. After reading all your responses, I checked all the 110v breakers in line with my circuits, I used my non-contact voltage tester and worked my way back from the TC to the GFCI plug. No circuit. Tried to reset the reset button and it won't stay in. So, I hooked up another 80 feet of extension cord and ran it to our attached garage. This should work, right? Wrong. THAT GFCI was also non-responsive. Two in a row? I found a closer plug inside my train room and tested that plug. Works fine. Ran 50' of cord out the 12' rollup to the camper and plugged in the 30amp cord. Bingo! The soft, telltale hum of my old Magnatec was detected. I then worked my way thru the Box testing every single circuit. All work fine and my 110v night light was glowing nicely. All the new upscale bulbs were good.
The battery is at 12.6 volts now and it's clear that the 2amp charger had no juice and the charge was slowly going down due to the parasitic drag from safety appliances.. So, the question is: shouldn't the 12v circuits work with 12.6 v.even when not being plugged into the 30amp 110vAC?
Thanks ever so much for your kind attention. There is not an RV forum on the planet that has as much knowledge as youse guys possess.
I think Lawrence Welk, the king of malaprops, talking to his band summed up the day as well as anyone:
"My poys, der are good days and der are bad days, and dis is one of dem."

Yes the 12vdc circuits should work.

Measure at the magnetek like I pointed out.


The following is in reference to your shore/gfi issue only, nothing to do with 12vdc for now.

Your camper has a ground fault somewhere in the 110 circuit that is tripping those GFI's.... Not good. Plugging into a non GFI protected could provide a shock in the camper or touching the outside while standing on the ground, so be careful.

Is you fridge a 3 way by any chance?


Even if it is not unplug the shore power inside the outside compartment and retry the GFI shore power outlet.

Jim

jefe 4x4 wrote:
........
The battery is at 12.6 volts now and it's clear that the 2amp charger had no juice and the charge was slowly going down due to the parasitic drag from safety appliances.. So, the question is: shouldn't the 12v circuits work with 12.6 v.even when not being plugged into the 30amp 110vAC?.....

Yes they should but in your case the battery may have been run down from the loss of AC power. Let the battery charge overnight then disconnect AC power and check the 12 volt items for proper operation.

You struck a nerve - power from a Train room! What scale, I'm into N-Scale. Reply in a private post.

Jefe:

Somehow, you and bigfootford should get on the phone together; you could probably work out what components may or may not be working. I def. don,t like the sound of that ground fault not being able to reset! This is not a safe situation.

I PM'd Jim today with this info:

I'm going to get an electrician out here to fix my 3, non-working GFCI's. I checked all the breakers involved. All good. The circuit the original extension cord was plugged into has no circuit power. It also has 2 GFCI's for about 5 wall plugs, one of which is outside.

I did the Magnatec tests and had these findings:
With only the battery connected, none of the 12v appliances would work. The battery is now charged up to 13.72v, which should be enough to run the TC 12v. systems. It does not. When I finally got a good cord with power to the camper's 30A plug, all systems were a go inside the camper.
1. There is a Magnatec reset button on the ceiling near the center bulkhead but there is no reset click or sound associated with it. It makes no difference. I cycled the breakers as you recommended and put my meter on all the fuses to no avail. All have continuity.
2. With my multi meter I tested the charger part and the results show the charger PCB is defective. The voltage slowly rose from 3v. to about 8v.
3. The voltage between C and D did not rise and actually dropped so it looks as if the SRC is also defective.
Jeanie reminds me that when we plug into the truck plug when the camper is on, everything works fine. I'm thinking we've been just running with the two truck batteries all along since the TC battery has no apparent connection to the camper right now, but does have heavy leads going to the truck batteries via the camper plug in the bed.
It looks like it's time to get a Progressive Dynamics PD9140, or whatever will fit the space and replace the old Magnatec. What say ye, oh wise one.
Jim responded with:
You do have something going on... 2 gfi's bad, or acting up... Did you hook a drill or heater etc up to those outlets to see if they were actually defective?
(jefe: yes, I put a 4watt night light into each plug. No circuit)

I understand about the magnetek not being used over the years... Strange but oh well.

So were you always running the camper off the truck batteries?
(jefe: yes, maybe in retrospect by default)

I would do the conversion to the 9145 or 9245...

9245 with the Pendant/wizard... As a note, if you were to do the talked about upgrade neither of the 9sx45's will fit in the magnetek box... Either have to do a 9260 or a boondocker from Randy. 9x60 works great with 2 batteries.
(jefe: I only have one big TC battery)
Without knowing how your camper is wired and stuff I can not recommend how to install the converter to maximize operation.... Ideally you need any converter as close to the batteries as possible...

Will wait for the smoke to clear... Get the GFI topic cleared up... Charge your batteries manually...

Let me know if I can be of help... Might be out of touch a bit for the next few days...

In the mean time I'll play in B flat.


Jimbo
regards, as always, jefe

The battery power has nothing to do with charger itself, but depends on the design you might have transfer switch, or disconnect switch/relay.
Something 12V probe should find pretty easy.
With my years of RVing I have seen all kind of bad electrical connections.
Coming to one on generator that took me several hours of troubleshooting.
Perfectly clean connection would pass static voltage when I was testing it, but would die under the starter load.
Good luck.

This past week, I installed a Powermax Boondocker Series deck mount 4-stage converter/charger (60 amp) and two AGM UB121000 100 AH Batteries from Best Converter (Randy). The install was in my daughter's Fifth Wheel. I also installed a Trimetric 2030RV Battery System Monitor.

I have only had time to run two test, bringing the batteries by about 20 to 30 AHs. When I turned the Boondocker (charger) on, it instantly started the charge at 58.6 amps. I did not have a clock, but can say it was at that amperage for several minutes before it started dropping down. With the brief test, I think the Boondocker will be a nice charger.

If it is of any value, I was on a 100 foot 12-gauge extension cord and a 30 amp adapter. I was also running two fans. The extension cord is plugged into an outside GFCI receptacle. I had no problems with tripping the breakers or GFCI.

Wayne

When my Magnetek gave it up, I traced the problem to the open ceramic power resistor. I replaced the resistor and got it working, but I had never been happy with this thing and turned around and bought an upgrade kit from bestconverter.com. Three stage charging, all circuits filtered, and much better efficiency without that hot power resistor.

waiting for pictures of train room. ;)

ajcal225 wrote:
waiting for pictures of train room. ;)

ME TOO!!!!!!