Newbie battry help on older rig

[RCand_MoonPie]

Bought our 1996 Jayco Designer 3120fk this summer. It had been sitting most of it's life as a permanent parked camper at the lake. We finally got it home a couple weeks ago after quite a few purchases one of which was a deep cell battery...the last owner never use a battery since it was plugged in all the time.

Here's my problem, we are now trying to winterize the pipes and we hooked the battery up to the tt and nothing....no lights...nothing. We know the battery has juice it works the electric jack. We have the white wires to the + and black to the -. Hubby is out there now about to have a major meltdown...We have christened this tt "the money pit" and it is living up to its name nicely.

[RCand_MoonPie]

So long story short, still having problems with this campers power, I haven't messed with the converter/inverter yet because when it was plugged into our truck all the lights work, so I thought "ok so it's not working off this battery but it's fine" The ventahood even works attached to truck and it never worked before. But then we take her on a test run to a local campground and nada, nothing...well not exactly, the fridge runs and some of the interior lights will glow slightly....argh. Power jack is working fine now, but nothing else.

[dougrainer]

BLACK is Positive and WHITE is ground. Doug (Jayco Dealer tech and a Jayco dealer for 24 years)

[lanerd]

As far as the battery cables go...to determine which is which, follow both and see where they go. One (positive) should go into a harness that will disappear into the TT. It will also have a inline fuse on it....check it before going any further. The other cable (negative) will be bolted to the frame of the TT.

You said the electric jack works.... does it work in accordance with the switch position (up and down)?

On some rv's, the fuses and circuit breakers are not located in the same place and also you might have more than one location for each. With that year of tt, it probably is not equipped with a three stage converter to keep the battery fully charged without over charging it. Be careful about leaving shore power hooked up too long until you can determine if you have a 3-stage converter or not. Over charging will destroy the battery (don't ask me how I know).

Good luck

Ron

[BFL13]

Those Jaycos had a Todd Engineering converter (now out of business)

Look for where the shore power cord (not the tow vehicle cord) comes into the rig where you should find a 120v circuit breaker panel and a 12v fuse panel. The converter is likely a part of that collection.

Converter is about the size of a shoebox. It or the DC fuse panel will have a pair of (usually) 30a fuses that are the reverse polarity protection fuses for the converter. Replace both even if only one is blown.

[RCand_MoonPie]

funny thing...I called myself looking up how to hook this thing up and not sure where I saw it (since it wasn't mentioned in the Jayco Manual)...pretty sure the website said the opposite, I'll have to figure out where I saw that and no longer use that site for info, as far as converters go I had no idea about that either cause...it's also not mentioned in the manual.

So I can't tell you the brand or model of a converter I didn't know existed or even know where to locate...so any ideas? it's a 1996 Jayco Designer 3120FK I know there is a 12v fuse box in the kitchen cabinet with the hot water heater and there is a fuse box back in the bedroom where the power cable comes out...the guy who owned I before cut the cable and hard wired it to the power box with wing nuts.... but that's for another day...:)

[beemerphile1]

BFL13 wrote:
On an RV DC wiring, white usually goes to the neg battery post. Positive is usually red, but sometimes black. On a Jayco ISTR some even have green wires for positive too.

Anyway, now your converter has probably blown its reverse polarity fuses, so now you won't get any 12v with no battery on shore power until that gets fixed....

What he said. Black is normally hot and white is normally negative/ground.

Your converter may have reverse polarity fuses installed to protect the system. If so - you blew them.

Tell us the brand and model of converter.

[josten367]

Yes, check the fuse on the battery, just off the terminal. I found that my battery was low and kept blowing the fuse when I plugged it in. Put a charger on the battery for a few hours and then try it again. Make sure there isn't any thing on the wires like spider webs or dirt dobbers nests.

[BFL13]

On an RV DC wiring, white usually goes to the neg battery post. Positive is usually red, but sometimes black. On a Jayco ISTR some even have green wires for positive too.

Anyway, now your converter has probably blown its reverse polarity fuses, so now you won't get any 12v with no battery on shore power until that gets fixed.

Be patient. Lots to learn. Help easy to get on this forum.