This is embarrassing: Magnatek failure?

[jefe_4x4]

I dismounted the camper from the truck at the end of Spring and lowered it onto my storage jacks for the summer. We had a round of friends visiting, 7 in all, so Jeanie and I slept in the camper a few nights when every bed was taken in the house.
I usually keep a minder on the battery but this time I put a 2amp tapering charger on the battery. The battery showed 12.8 v.
To the question: Does the TC to truck pigtail need to be plugged in to make the TC systems work?
I've never stayed in the camper, off-truck, so have no experience.
The problem is I have no circuits. No juice is getting to the panel. I plugged in the 30amp plug into house current: Nothing. No electrical appliances work inside or outside the camper. I checked the 2 breakers on the panel: all in on position. I checked each individual fuse: all good. I usually hear a hum when I plug in the AC 30amp umbilical. No hum.
I suspect it's the Magnatek 6325 that came with the Lance in 1998. I"ve never had a problem with it, and we have minimal electrical needs on board, but i read that they are a cheap item prone to overheating.
I did a search and found there are some amazing electrical geniuses on the TC forum. I am not one of them. If you are one of them, I could use a little help here.
regards, as always, jefe

[jefe_4x4]

Oh, and for the uninitiated, Rick is our local TC,
McGiver

[jefe_4x4]

Rick, me lad,
U write real good. I needed a good laugh just now. It's the operator that's out of conformance.
jefe

[RickW]

jefe 4x4 wrote:
.... I was thinking of taking my telescoping limb saw bracketed under one side or the other as a quick and dirty solution to passage on overgrown routes. I've been many places where just a small limb extraction or two would have made all the difference.
jefe

Jefe,

First, recycled bumper sensors should be mounted on the top front edge of the TC to detect out of conformance obstacles. Then the limb saw should be mounted on a remote control articulating arm and coupled with a repurposed back up camera so you can blaze your trail without leaving the comfort of the air conditioned cab. 😉

...couldn't resist.

[bigfootford]

Looks like you have got things sorted out and on your way to recovery.

Jim

[bigfootford]

Fixie linkie for Jeffe:

Jeffe's trainzeee's


Jim

[ajcal225]

jefe 4x4 wrote:
aj and others:this will get you to hundreds of choo-choo photos:
http://s194.photobucket.com/user/jefe4x4/library/Mears%20Madness%20and%20the%20Rio%20Grande%20Southern%20RR?sort=3&page=1

I can tell I'm going to spend the next three days sipping Chivas and reading descriptions of your photos.

You know I had things to get done right? 😕

[jefe_4x4]

aj and others:this will get you to hundreds of choo-choo photos:
http://s194.photobucket.com/user/jefe4x4/library/Mears%20Madness%20and%20the%20Rio%20Grande%20Southern%20RR?sort=3&page=1

As an update, I had an electrician come over and replace several GFCI's as they were all kaput. Jim gave me some good advice, and I talked to Thom, my local RV fixit guy who has the converter/wizard I want and will fit, in stock, and will come to my place and install it. Good thing since it is on the ground at the moment. He says it looks as if the charge feature has been bad for a long time. The old stuff is all going. I'm even now thinking (horror of horrors) going with a large solar panel on the roof. You take the good with the bad, however, as low hanging trees will now have a 'tooth' to drag against on the roof.
This brings me to another issue. For years I've slithered through trails too narrow to pass without the flora dragging along side and above. A lot of things have been ripped off as a consequence. I was thinking of taking my telescoping limb saw bracketed under one side or the other as a quick and dirty solution to passage on overgrown routes. I've been many places where just a small limb extraction or two would have made all the difference.
jefe

[Grit_dog]

If yourhoise breakers are good, not tripped then more than likely just the gfci itself gone bad. I've replaced tons of bad gfci outlets and I'm not an electrician, they seem to some only be good for 10-15 years.
Check if you have power to the outlet to confirm the gfci is bad.

[pjay9]

ajcal225 wrote:
waiting for pictures of train room. 😉

ME TOO!!!!!!

[ajcal225]

waiting for pictures of train room. 😉

[stevenal]

When my Magnetek gave it up, I traced the problem to the open ceramic power resistor. I replaced the resistor and got it working, but I had never been happy with this thing and turned around and bought an upgrade kit from bestconverter.com. Three stage charging, all circuits filtered, and much better efficiency without that hot power resistor.

[Reddog1]

This past week, I installed a Powermax Boondocker Series deck mount 4-stage converter/charger (60 amp) and two AGM UB121000 100 AH Batteries from Best Converter (Randy). The install was in my daughter's Fifth Wheel. I also installed a Trimetric 2030RV Battery System Monitor.

I have only had time to run two test, bringing the batteries by about 20 to 30 AHs. When I turned the Boondocker (charger) on, it instantly started the charge at 58.6 amps. I did not have a clock, but can say it was at that amperage for several minutes before it started dropping down. With the brief test, I think the Boondocker will be a nice charger.

If it is of any value, I was on a 100 foot 12-gauge extension cord and a 30 amp adapter. I was also running two fans. The extension cord is plugged into an outside GFCI receptacle. I had no problems with tripping the breakers or GFCI.

Wayne

[Kayteg1]

The battery power has nothing to do with charger itself, but depends on the design you might have transfer switch, or disconnect switch/relay.
Something 12V probe should find pretty easy.
With my years of RVing I have seen all kind of bad electrical connections.
Coming to one on generator that took me several hours of troubleshooting.
Perfectly clean connection would pass static voltage when I was testing it, but would die under the starter load.
Good luck.

[jefe_4x4]

I PM'd Jim today with this info:

I'm going to get an electrician out here to fix my 3, non-working GFCI's. I checked all the breakers involved. All good. The circuit the original extension cord was plugged into has no circuit power. It also has 2 GFCI's for about 5 wall plugs, one of which is outside.

I did the Magnatec tests and had these findings:
With only the battery connected, none of the 12v appliances would work. The battery is now charged up to 13.72v, which should be enough to run the TC 12v. systems. It does not. When I finally got a good cord with power to the camper's 30A plug, all systems were a go inside the camper.
1. There is a Magnatec reset button on the ceiling near the center bulkhead but there is no reset click or sound associated with it. It makes no difference. I cycled the breakers as you recommended and put my meter on all the fuses to no avail. All have continuity.
2. With my multi meter I tested the charger part and the results show the charger PCB is defective. The voltage slowly rose from 3v. to about 8v.
3. The voltage between C and D did not rise and actually dropped so it looks as if the SRC is also defective.
Jeanie reminds me that when we plug into the truck plug when the camper is on, everything works fine. I'm thinking we've been just running with the two truck batteries all along since the TC battery has no apparent connection to the camper right now, but does have heavy leads going to the truck batteries via the camper plug in the bed.
It looks like it's time to get a Progressive Dynamics PD9140, or whatever will fit the space and replace the old Magnatec. What say ye, oh wise one.
Jim responded with:
You do have something going on... 2 gfi's bad, or acting up... Did you hook a drill or heater etc up to those outlets to see if they were actually defective?
(jefe: yes, I put a 4watt night light into each plug. No circuit)

I understand about the magnetek not being used over the years... Strange but oh well.

So were you always running the camper off the truck batteries?
(jefe: yes, maybe in retrospect by default)

I would do the conversion to the 9145 or 9245...

9245 with the Pendant/wizard... As a note, if you were to do the talked about upgrade neither of the 9sx45's will fit in the magnetek box... Either have to do a 9260 or a boondocker from Randy. 9x60 works great with 2 batteries.
(jefe: I only have one big TC battery)
Without knowing how your camper is wired and stuff I can not recommend how to install the converter to maximize operation.... Ideally you need any converter as close to the batteries as possible...

Will wait for the smoke to clear... Get the GFI topic cleared up... Charge your batteries manually...

Let me know if I can be of help... Might be out of touch a bit for the next few days...

In the mean time I'll play in B flat.


Jimbo
regards, as always, jefe