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JK_Coney's avatar
JK_Coney
Explorer
Aug 07, 2014

Itasca buggy power and charging weirdness

I'm starting a new post as things have been narrowed down. Here's the symptoms. In house batteries were dead after only a few days with nothing on. I plugged in overnight, but the next morning, no charge taken at all. Engine on, batteries are charging. Engine off, I replugged outside and now there was no power inside at all? I replugged again and now there was power. I unplugged an hour later to see, and sure enough the batteries are taking a charge. So sometimes I'm getting no power. Then I get power but no charging. Then I get power and charging. When I have no power and start the engine it may take a few minutes before the panel lights up and the power comes on . How to diagnose this mess? Thanks!

2000 Itasca Spirit class C
  • I like the battery cutoff relay idea. When things are dead, and I start the engine, things get restored back to life.
  • First place I would look: your power cord goes into a junction box in the storage bay where the cord is kept. There, each of the three wires is tied to the wires that feed the AC panel is connected to the power cord with a wire nut. One or more of these connections may be partially loose after 10 or more years of handling the cord.

    Second place: the plug on the end of the power cord can get damage enough that it intermittently carries now power, depending on the quality of the connections in the socket where you plug it in. Symptoms include a hot plug, scarring and blackening of the blades. At ten years, I'm on my third plug, and now carry a spare.

    Third place: inside the AC panel the neutral connections come into a bus bar where each circuit his held down by a screw. These loosen. If you have AC circuits working yet the 12V power is intermittent, check these connections, the one for the 12V converter may be loose. A loose connection on the hot side is less likely, as the breakers clamp in. I'm assuming you know how to check whether a breaker has tripped.

    Fourth place: loose connections on the output side of the converter, either hot or ground. Or possibly a connection at an in-line fuse on the feed to the batteries.

    After checking connections, then look into intermittent failures of components like the battery cutoff relay, and the converter itself. On my 2004 Itasca Spirit, that cutoff relay is energized from the house batteries, so if they go down too low with the relay latched in "off" position, it cannot be flipped to "on" without charging the batteries or supplying an alternate 12V source.

    If you would say whether or not you have power on the 120V side, we might be able to skip checking the first two trouble spots.
  • Intermittant problems are the hardest to diagnose. Have you checked all electrical connections to be sure they are tight?

    Link to your earlier thread: LINK