Atwood water heater won't light

[Cautrell05]

G6A-8E-SP model number. It was brand new last March. Worked fine last year and this spring. The last outing with it, it wouldn't fire up. What I've covered so far. Turn the switch on inside, the red light on the panel comes on right away but goes off as it goes through it's lighting process. Gas valve clicks and there's gas flow- I can smell it. But no ignitor. After about 5 seconds it clicks again and shirts the gas off. Repeats two more times with the same results. When the gas is on I can light it with a lighter and it fires right up with a good flame but then it shuts the gas off. Tried a new ignitor with no change. Connections are all clean and even ran an additional ground wire from the top of the housing where the factory ground wire hooks up down to the bracket for the ignitor. Still no change. The control box looks like there is two LED lights on it. Are they supposed to light up? What am I missing? Any help would be great. Thanks
Nick

[dougrainer]

WA4HTZ wrote:
Thanks for the info, Doug. Even though the Fuse is more than a year old, it was never sold until we bought it in early September. It's my understanding all the warranty start the first time the RV is sold to a retail customer. Is that correct?

I suspect this unit was on part of the show circuit and it looks like the water heater has never been used on LP. Guess I'll just run it on LP and see if it breaks 🙂

Thanks again.

Ken

Warranty starts at YOUR date of delivery. Doug

PS, the DUAL boards(120 and LP) do not seem to fail as often as the LP only boards.

[Ralph_Cramden]

dougrainer wrote:

Ralph Cramden wrote:

dougrainer wrote:
1. There is no problem with Suburban boards. Just because you had a problem does not mean out of millions of boards there is a problem
2. Yes, there is a problem with Atwood Water Heater boards. As of 9/1/2018, most distributors should have the updated boards. The problem is, Atwood has/had no way of determining which boards are defective. Originally, back in July, we were instructed by Atwood to get ALL replacement boards from the Manufacturing facility in Greenbriar, Tenn. Atwood knew that those boards were the new updated. ALL the distributors until 9/1/2018 would have the suspect bad boards. THAT is why there are multiple failures on the same water heater. It took a few months last spring for Atwood to realize they had a problem. Once they realized it during the summer they let Service centers know and instructed for boards to come from Greenbriar. Even the boards the OEM RV makers had in their parts dept were bad. Doug

Of course there are no problems with Suburban igniter boards.

I cannot remember the last time I replaced a Suburban Water heater board. There is no common failure of Suburban Boards. They do fail but it is extremely rare. Doug

I have personally replaced at least 6 Suburban boards for others in the last year to year and a half, and its just a hobby for me. Now my own crapped the bed on our 2017 built April of 16. One thing I know is if you replace it with a Dinosaur youll probably never replace it again. The Suburban boards I have replaced all hot spotted in the exact same printed circuit.

If you go on some othet RV boards (pun intended) like FRF, you can find plenty of posts about failing Suburban boards.

[WA4HTZ]

Thanks for the info, Doug. Even though the Fuse is more than a year old, it was never sold until we bought it in early September. It's my understanding all the warranty start the first time the RV is sold to a retail customer. Is that correct?

I suspect this unit was on part of the show circuit and it looks like the water heater has never been used on LP. Guess I'll just run it on LP and see if it breaks 🙂

Thanks again.

Ken

[dougrainer]

WA4HTZ wrote:
Doug, do you know when this problem actually started. We have a 2018 Winnebago Fuse built in July 2017 with an Attwood GCH6A-10E water heater made in Greenbriar, Tn. There is no date of manufacture I can find but the electronics module has a label with "Zhongding" and a bar code. Any information would be greatly appreciated and may help others out also. Thanks for your time.

Ken

Yours would probably be in the time frame. The good news is, they fail within a few months or almost immediately when in service. The Water Heaters have a 2 year warranty. So, if you have had the unit for 6 months and it has not failed your board is probably NOT one of the suspect boards. As I stated, even Atwood has no way to verify when and what boards are suspect. They have told all distributors and suppliers to return the boards they had in stock. One thing, I have a friend that is very "particular" when it comes to his RV. He asked about buying one on Amazon or E bay to have a back up after his new unit Atwood failed and we replaced it under warranty. What happens when dishonest people get ahold of the suspect/bad boards somehow and then start selling them on Amazon or E Bay????? There are thousands of these suspect boards out there and I doubt ALL would be returned to Atwood. Doug

[dougrainer]

Ralph Cramden wrote:

dougrainer wrote:
1. There is no problem with Suburban boards. Just because you had a problem does not mean out of millions of boards there is a problem
2. Yes, there is a problem with Atwood Water Heater boards. As of 9/1/2018, most distributors should have the updated boards. The problem is, Atwood has/had no way of determining which boards are defective. Originally, back in July, we were instructed by Atwood to get ALL replacement boards from the Manufacturing facility in Greenbriar, Tenn. Atwood knew that those boards were the new updated. ALL the distributors until 9/1/2018 would have the suspect bad boards. THAT is why there are multiple failures on the same water heater. It took a few months last spring for Atwood to realize they had a problem. Once they realized it during the summer they let Service centers know and instructed for boards to come from Greenbriar. Even the boards the OEM RV makers had in their parts dept were bad. Doug

Of course there are no problems with Suburban igniter boards.

I cannot remember the last time I replaced a Suburban Water heater board. There is no common failure of Suburban Boards. They do fail but it is extremely rare. Doug

[WA4HTZ]

Doug, do you know when this problem actually started. We have a 2018 Winnebago Fuse built in July 2017 with an Attwood GCH6A-10E water heater made in Greenbriar, Tn. There is no date of manufacture I can find but the electronics module has a label with "Zhongding" and a bar code. Any information would be greatly appreciated and may help others out also. Thanks for your time.

Ken

[Ralph_Cramden]

dougrainer wrote:
1. There is no problem with Suburban boards. Just because you had a problem does not mean out of millions of boards there is a problem
2. Yes, there is a problem with Atwood Water Heater boards. As of 9/1/2018, most distributors should have the updated boards. The problem is, Atwood has/had no way of determining which boards are defective. Originally, back in July, we were instructed by Atwood to get ALL replacement boards from the Manufacturing facility in Greenbriar, Tenn. Atwood knew that those boards were the new updated. ALL the distributors until 9/1/2018 would have the suspect bad boards. THAT is why there are multiple failures on the same water heater. It took a few months last spring for Atwood to realize they had a problem. Once they realized it during the summer they let Service centers know and instructed for boards to come from Greenbriar. Even the boards the OEM RV makers had in their parts dept were bad. Doug

Of course there are no problems with Suburban igniter boards.

[dougrainer]

1. There is no problem with Suburban boards. Just because you had a problem does not mean out of millions of boards there is a problem
2. Yes, there is a problem with Atwood Water Heater boards. As of 9/1/2018, most distributors should have the updated boards. The problem is, Atwood has/had no way of determining which boards are defective. Originally, back in July, we were instructed by Atwood to get ALL replacement boards from the Manufacturing facility in Greenbriar, Tenn. Atwood knew that those boards were the new updated. ALL the distributors until 9/1/2018 would have the suspect bad boards. THAT is why there are multiple failures on the same water heater. It took a few months last spring for Atwood to realize they had a problem. Once they realized it during the summer they let Service centers know and instructed for boards to come from Greenbriar. Even the boards the OEM RV makers had in their parts dept were bad. Doug

[SidecarFlip]

Ralph Cramden wrote:

A1RVTraveler wrote:
Old Biscuit is correct.

Atwood has some board issues. Gas valve opening but no spark is the complaint. Have the board changed under warranty.

As does Suburban. On our previous Keystone we went through two boards in 1 year on its Atwood heater. Replaced the 2nd with a Dinosaur U1 ignitor board. Our 2017 Rockwood (Suburban )on its 3rd season started intermittently lighting a few months ago, now the same symptoms as your Atwood. Its getting a Dinosaur board next week. Sure you can go warranty, get the same weak board, and do it again later, or just buy a Dinosaur board and be done with it.

Bet the OEM board is Chinese.

[Ralph_Cramden]

A1RVTraveler wrote:
Old Biscuit is correct.

Atwood has some board issues. Gas valve opening but no spark is the complaint. Have the board changed under warranty.

As does Suburban. On our previous Keystone we went through two boards in 1 year on its Atwood heater. Replaced the 2nd with a Dinosaur U1 ignitor board. Our 2017 Rockwood (Suburban )on its 3rd season started intermittently lighting a few months ago, now the same symptoms as your Atwood. Its getting a Dinosaur board next week. Sure you can go warranty, get the same weak board, and do it again later, or just buy a Dinosaur board and be done with it.

[A1RVTraveler]

Old Biscuit is correct.

Atwood has some board issues. Gas valve opening but no spark is the complaint. Have the board changed under warranty.

[Old-Biscuit]

Atwood has had bad circuit boards ......WH new last March it should still be covered by their 2 year warranty

Gas Valve opening but NO Spark...bad board (as you have already changed spark electrode)

Atwood Warranty Policy...