No 12 volt in 2003 Jayco Kiwi

[MnStar]

My wife and I just bought this, and I think it's going to be a perfect camper for us. I've been going through the whole thing fixing minor issues.

The battery that came with it was toast. I bought a new one, and while hooking it up I noticed quite a spark while touching the hot to the post with the negative hooked up. I didn't think too much of it, but when I finally did attached the hot there was no spark at all. Sure enough, no 12 volt power.

I checked all the fuses in the panel by the converter, but they were all good. I think those are for 120 volts anyway, right? There is a 30 amp fuse coming off the negative side of the battery, which I though was unusual. In the past, any fuse has been on the hot side of the battery, not the ground. I did check that fuse and it looks good but I am going to get a replacement and try it anyway.

Any other ideas?

TIA

[MnStar]

Thanks for the help, fellas!

[RoyB]

I always look for the word NEG or the symbol "-" on the battery case and make sure this is the terminal that is connected to the trailer FRAME GROUND.

The RV Trailers use the house hold wiring schemes which is WHITE is GROUND and BLACK is HOT. However the Automotive world uses RED as hot and BLACK as frame ground. Since a battery is used in both situations you cannot be sure what is what unless you look for the battery terminal case markings...

It certainly sounds like you have reversed the connections.

You also have an older trailer and who knows what the previous owner has wired up for you haha...

There is no rules that one must follow code. Its all on the HONOR SYSTEM hehe...

My 12VDC wiring in my 2008 was all white wires but the 12VDC + POSITIVE wires all had a color stripe on them and the solid white ones were 12VDC - NEGATIVE wires.

The RV and Marine Boat world also has batteries with the same physical connectors being used for both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE cables at the battery side using the Ring Terminals...

The Automotive world has a large hole and smaller hole in the two battery posts terminal connectors on the battery to give you a clue haha...

I guess it is all this way to keep us on our toes all the time...

You will need to locate the REVERSE POLARITY fuses and the In-line fuse close to the battery positive terminal and get all of those replaced and make sure you hook up the cables in the correct polarity otherwise it will just blow them again. That is what all of those initial sparing was doing in your opening remarks.

When you get it all back to working again then if I was you I would use some red finger nail polish and mark all of the cable ends that are suppose to go to the positive terminal of the battery...

some folks like to take photos with their cell phone camera and save the photos on their cell phone to keep a good record how they are suppose to be hooked up...

I blew up my fuses one time with replacing on of my 12VDC batteries with a new one that was a couple years newer and the manufacturer had reversed the terminals around on the top for the same battery type. Without looking at them I hooked them like the other like batteries in parallel and one little spark killed all those fuses discussed here. They went POP... Then I knew right away what I had done hehe...

Thats when I started always looking for the battery case markings first thing...

Roy Ken

[bikendan]

MnStar wrote:
I checked all the fuses in the panel by the converter, but they were all good. I think those are for 120 volts anyway, right?

there are no 120v fuses. that's what the breakers in the panel are for.

by reversing the battery wires you either blew a fuse or tripped the resettable circuit breaker that's usually tucked up along the A-frame.
it has a tiny black button you push to reset it.

[Old-Biscuit]

MnStar wrote:

mobilefleet wrote:
that fuse is on the pos side. You reversed cables

That thought entered my mind, but one cable is green and the other is white with a red end on it.

Trace the cables
NEG goes to frame
POS goes inside to converter

Green is normally NEG
But White is normally NEG also........RED tape could mean POS

Trace the cables.

[MnStar]

mobilefleet wrote:
that fuse is on the pos side. You reversed cables

That thought entered my mind, but one cable is green and the other is white with a red end on it.

[mobilefleet]

that fuse is on the pos side. You reversed cables

[Old-Biscuit]

30A fuse on negative???

Are you sure that is the NEG Cable..........it goes to frame for ground

Color means almost nothing for trailer battery cables
Black can be POS, White can be NEG
Red can be POS, Green can be NEG

Best to always trace cables and mark them

If connected backwards then 'reverse polarity' fuses on converter (large fuses 30a or 40A) blow to protect converter electronics.

Also check that 30A in-line fuse (it should be on cable going inside trailer to converter which has individual fuses for RV DC system)