Help! Lance 850 isn’t getting power from truck battery

[Seminoe_Joe]

Just installed a new camper side plug because the old one was damaged. Connecting everything right, camper was drawing power from the truck yesterday when I left home. Last night and today, no dice. The driving lights all work, so the plug’s not the problem. A voltmeter tells me that the wire in the camper is getting 14.6 volts when the truck is running. Looking around for any fuses or breakers that might be bad, but all is good. So…what the heck is going on here?! Anyone experience this before? Any suggestions for what to try?

[Seminoe_Joe]

Also, I forgot to mention that I noticed when the battery voltages go below 12 V on the campers batteries, the Seperator shuts them off from the truck pigtail. I wasn’t accounting for that when I was expecting the batteries to charge off the truck no matter what. Live and learn!

[Seminoe_Joe]

All sorts of personal events got in the way of me providing an update, but all is well now so here it is:
I replaced the 40 amp mini breaker that the pigtail connects to when it first enters the camper. Then I futzed around with the Separator unit to check connections and the fuses. It’s a BlueSea Systems unit under the dinette bench.
Presto, everything works as it should again!
So, all is well and I am currently out boondocking in Utah.
Thanks to all who ventured opinions and hypotheses!

[opnspaces]

Awesome that you might have found the suspect. Definitely keep us updated.

[Seminoe_Joe]

An update for anyone who might still be curious about this. I disconnected both camper batteries and ran the truck to test voltage into the camper. It’s registering 14 point something volts so no problem there. I noticed the black wire connects to a post in the battery compartment and has another black wire coming off of it, so I tested the voltage at both of them and it’s OK. I also noticed from there, it goes under the floor of the camper to I don’t know where, then a different (?) black wire comes out of the floor and connects to a different post, before connecting to the fuse box. That wire at the post has zero voltage. So my best guess is something got disconnected under the floor and when I get home, I will take it apart and stick my head under to take a look. Appreciate all the thoughts and suggestions and when I’m home in a week or so, I’ll report back on whatever it is I find or don’t.

[notsobigjoe]

Hey Joe, I had the exact same thing happen. The wires were switched from the reserve Batt to the camper charger. I ran the fridge down twice on 12 volt before I realized something was wrong. Everything else worked just like you say. On the truck side Black to positive post and white to frame. Should be fine on the camper side. I looked and looked but couldn't find it but then I found it going through the truck floor. By sight it was perfect, running my fingers to the wires they were switched.
Good luck!
Joe

Edit, It made my alternator make a high pitch sound. Almost undetectable but after I fixed it it stopped.

[Seminoe_Joe]

EricCO wrote:
Just double checking on this...

Are you checking all this with the truck engine running and the truck camper battery disconnected at the battery posts?

Truck running, camper batteries still connected but kill switch flipped. I’ll disconnect the batteries and check again.

[EricCO]

Just double checking on this...

Are you checking all this with the truck engine running and the truck camper battery disconnected at the battery posts?

[Seminoe_Joe]

opnspaces wrote:
It's too early in the morning for me to process and give an idea what's happening. But my suspicion is somehow you are miswired and have intermittently 12v positive on the ground wire. So you can read 12v in the camper but that 12v can't get out of the camper because there is 12v positive on on the ground.

The white wire is the ground and I wired it to the ground. Black is positive and I wired it as such. As I mentioned before, everything was working for the first few hours of the trip, then somewhere along the line, it stopped working. Is the battery seperator in a 2012 Lance susceptible to failure? I was thinking it was somehow shutting off the charge coming in from the truck battery.

[CA_Traveler]

Check for reverse polarity. Connect a long wire to the truck frame and measure the voltage in the camper. Ground should be 0V and positive 12V.

Then using the same ground connection turn on lights and track down the 12V disconnect. l'd double check the ground again. A voltmeter will read OK with a high resistance connecton without a load because the voltmeter draws virtually no load.

[mkirsch]

Flipped the switch, it worked. Flipped the switch again, and it didn't work...

I would suspect the switch.

[opnspaces]

It's too early in the morning for me to process and give an idea what's happening. But my suspicion is somehow you are miswired and have intermittently 12v positive on the ground wire. So you can read 12v in the camper but that 12v can't get out of the camper because there is 12v positive on on the ground.

[CA_Traveler]

Volt meter tests can be misleading because they virtually draw no amps. Test with a load.

[Seminoe_Joe]

Just to clarify: the camper interior lights and tv, etc were working off the truck battery (truck running) when I switched off the house battery switch in the camper. Now, when I run the truck and switch off the house batteries, nothing is working from the truck battery. But a voltmeter applied to the connector wire indicates plenty of juice. So the repair worked. Electricity is coming in from the pigtail. It’s just not making it to anything else. I’ll keep probing with the voltmeter and see what I can find I suppose.

[CA_Traveler]

And a failure after a repair suggests to check the repair, don't assume the new connector is still OK. ie In particular the lights working is not the 12V charge line.