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Batteries not charging?
hello Tom ….this is peters wife Trina…peters driving down the road and asked me to post for some help…house batteries don’t seem to be charging…. Inverters say inverting…but no charge light, generator came on driving down the road I think at 12.5…do the house batteries not charge off the engine when driving down the road? Thanks in advance for any insight!
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11 Replies
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Check Vanner or Regulator in back. ?????
Words from Ed. Written by Sandy
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Look at the gauge above your head in the cluster while driving, house
voltage should be around 14v. With the bus running, pull the cover in
the 2nd bay to access the batteries and check the voltage to be sure
it’s getting charge voltage. The house battery voltage regulator and
relay are new. Check the connections at the big alternator and I assume the serpentine belt is still there. You can check the alternator by apply 12v to one of the regulator wires, but I don’t remember the procedure and don’t want to tell you the wrong method.
The Vanner Ed mentioned is for the chassis batteries.
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This presumes the coach has a dedicated house 12V alternator.
As Tom says check voltage at the batteries with the engine running. It should be close to 14V. If the alternator has an external voltage regulator it is easy to isolate the problem to the alternator or regulator if the voltage shows the alternator is not charging. If the batteries are not being charged by the engine driven alternator the only other way to maintain a house battery charge is to start the generator and allow the inverters to maintain the charge.
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270 amp for the house 12v and 145 for the chassis 24v.
Talked to Peter, broken wire at the alternator.
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thanks Tom and Jon broken wire fixed
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Can’t help but wonder, how do you think the wire became brooken?
JIM
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Just replaced the alt on mine and the instructions with the new one were EMPHATIC relative to rigidly supporting the wire as it related to the alt. Engine vibration will cause a failure at the wire connector if the wire is not adequately supported. Guess what a hot wire bouncing around in the engine bay/against the alt can do? Good thing to check periodically.
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The big wire from my alternator broke at the connector last fall. I could not see it at all but it was evident something was wrong because the voltage was wacky. You would not think a wire bigger than my thumb could break like that but that engine vibration must be a powerful thing.
Three weeks later a friend called me with problems on their church bus full of people a long way from home. He told me what the voltage was and I told him to reach up and grab the big wire on the alternator and it would be broken at the connection. Sure enough, I was right. He thought I was brilliant. You all know better.
Glad you found it and got it going.
DKO
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I learned through developing shipping skids that given the right frequency vibrations can literally disassemble an engine.
We had a customer who shipped their diesel engines on returnable skids and before supplying the skids our design had to pass impact tests and vibration tests. Vibrations will break welds, loosen fasteners and crack steel. Given the right circumstances anything can break.
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You are right Jon vibration will break a lot of thinks it gets hot in engine comp and things get hard and break
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