My neighbor has a Class C, and 80% of the time, when on an outing, it is a pedestal queen. I do not recall the brand of RV but it is a 2010 Ford chassis.
Yesterday he asks me about his house batteries which "don't take a charge'
I have a quick gander, and they are 5+ year old paralleled group 27s marine batteries. All the battery connections are crusty green and white, Open ended ring terminals with the nylon insulation.
Not having any tools on me, I recommended he just get new batteries, as it was unlikely they had much usable capacity left, and he has an upcoming trip very soon, where he will not have a pedestal.
I recommended he take photos of the wires, Zip tie them together before removing the batteries, label them, and make sure to reconnect them in the same manner, as he wanted to replace them himself. Also to wire brush all the corrosion off, and smear them with grease after reattaching the cables
Anyway he still screwed it up, sparks flew, and now the new WW DC-27s were not charging, and none of the 12v devices are working unless the rig is plugged in. SO I get called. I find the new batteries at 12.56v.
We start the engine, and they are accepting 32 amps at Idle.
We plug in the RV, and 0 amps are making it from Wfco to battery, however the Wfco was powering 12v loads, well the 3.5 amps of lighting I was using as a load.
Disconnect AC power to RV, and no 12v accessories work.
From 12v distribution panel 8 awg cable goes to a small thermal self resetting circuit breaker, and from the same tab on the CB (current not going through the CB itself), the 8awg then goes to a Square Relay which I believe is the battery disconnect whose rocker switch is by the main door.
13.7V is getting to the relay when plugged in, but nothing coming out. No voltage on the other side of the relay.
So I place a jumper across the big terminals on the relay. Nada, but then the remote switch by the door does cause the relay to clunk when moved with jumper in place, but still no connection to house batteries.
So I follow the cable from this black box to where it disappears into a wiring loom and goes through the floor and there is a bunch of expando foam.
Underneath these looms reappear, and I probe here and do get battery voltage, all the way upto the floor/ foam.
I figure when he reverse polarity'd it, a fuse blew somewhere, but damned if I could find it. It was likely somewhere in the foam inside some split loom tubing, and invisible..
Anyway I had some 8awg tinned marine wire, and an 8 awg maxi fuse holder on hand. I fuse at the batteries, punch a hole through the expando foam and force the new 8awg upto the circuit breaker, basically using it as a junction. Now all the 12v loads work, and the Wfco is putting 10 amps into the batteries, and I start buttoning everything up.
Then the Wfco fan starts pulsing on and off, then just stops, and No more current to the batteries. It was getting 118Vac on the circuit board. No Voltage on the output.
So I got him to order an iota dls-45 but it will not arrive in time for his outing. I hooked up his transformer based manual Schumacher 2/10 amp charger to the batteries as they were obviously not fully charged. The Schumacher is a POS. 13.17v and 3.12 amps on the 10 amp setting. 0.43 amps on the 2 amp setting.
Anyway, The battery cabling was horrible. I can't believe they just crush open ended nylon crimps over the battery cables. No grease/ spray, protection of any kind. The Crimps looked like they were just crushed flat in a vice, and the nylon/plastic insulation was split and growing green fuzz like a Chia pet.
I can't believe the fuse for the distribution panel would be obscured deep within the foam inside the split loom tubing, several feet from the batteries, but the circuit was open somewhere in this region.
There is obviously an issue with the battery disconnect switch, and It is basically bypassed right now, So I told him he will have to remove the 50 AMP maxifuse I installed at the battery when he comes back.
He also had no Idea that batteries should be kept fully charged. In the past he just plugged in the Rv 24 hours before leaving, was one of those who thought the alternator is the instant magical battery charger and any undercharged battery could just be recharged at any time without ill effect .
Kind of amazing what is allowed to go out the doors. Cheapest parts joined together as cheaply as possible.
Rant over.
