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Stupid is as Stupid Does!!!!
OK…Got home from a short trip a few days ago…backed in the barn and plugged in. Went down tonight (three days later) and found the whole motorhome (house side) dead as a brick. Cause: I failed to throw the switch in the tank bay that allows the power to go into the house….thus…no power and totally…TOTALLY…dead house batteries. Freezers (frig and basement) thawing…everything dead as a door knob.
After getting everything out of the freezers to take up to the house, I made sure the breaker in the tank bay is on, and left, hoping the chargers, etc will kick back in and charge the batteries (which, btw, are new) back to normal.
Is there something else I can do to help resolve the problem?
It amazes me that I keep doing stupid stuff even after four years…I don’t necessarily do the stupid stuff over again, but there’s so much new stupid stuff I can do…so I keep doing those thngs. This is one lulu of a stunt here.
Y’all got any thoughts? ty
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21 Replies
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If they are Lifelines, I’ve seen them come back to life after a dead condition as well as not. You’ll have to see how it goes once you get them back up to float. Six 4D’s, like I have will easily go 12 hrs on inverters with just minimal loads, such as lights, fridge, fan etc. You probably know your bus well enough to know how they hold up compared to before.
Jeff and Lindsay
91 Marathon XL -
If you’ve been in these Buses for any amount of time, I think we can all echo, at some point, “Stupid is that Stupid Does”!
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I went down to the barn a few minutes ago…now about two/three hours after I discovered my screw-up. The little lights are on in the switch box in the wet-bay…the one where the switch is I DIDN’T turn on three days ago. That switch is there to allow a check of polarity, etc. Normally the drill is to plug in the shore-line…check the little lights on the switch box, and if all is good, throw the breaker to allow the electricity into the house. But I didn’t throw the switch. Thus a totally dead house battery situation!
So a few minutes ago…the little polarity lights are on…means the power is up to there…but no lights of any kind on the inverter control panel in the bedroom, etc. I will let it stay connected overnight and see what’s up in the morning. I appreciate any thoughts about what’s going on here….just hoping for better battery conditions in the morning….ty
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Tom please don’t read this … I did that once (maybe twice) every early on in the life of being a Prevost owner. I have the Magnum 2500 inverters (I think). The inverter/chargers wouldn’t charge the house batteries when I discovered my errant ways. I tried to charge from both shore power and the generator, inverter/charters wouldn’t kick in. Jeff Rowe was patiently walking me through various things to try to diagnose the problem long distance.
As I recall, Jeff finally concluded that the Lifetime batteries were drawn down so far that the inverter/chargers wouldn’t charge the house batteries because apparently the batteries have to have at least a little charge for the inverter/chargers to recognize the batteries and charge them. He walked me though hooking my Sears 12 volt car battery charger to the 12 volt house battery master switch that Liberty has as part of its house electrical system. I ran that overnight. Removed it. Turned on the shore power, turned on the inverter/chargers, and they both clicked on and we were off and running with the Lifelines being charged.
You have a different coach converter, maybe your coach is wired differently than mine. Maybe you have a different problem than I did. So please be fore warned that what worked (safely) for me and my coach might not work (safely) for you and your coach.
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Dick, Would the bus alternator work to get enough of a charge in the house to get them going and then let the inverters take over? Just wondering… Jeff
1999 XLV X-6872, liberty #440 -
Just got back from checking the MH. Still dead. Just as someone suggested, I’m going to crank the thing and let it charge things up from that direction. Seems like I had a Cessna one time that did the same thing…the battery had to have just a bit of charge in them before the charging system would even recognize the situation to begin a charge.
I appreciate everyone’s thoughts on this.
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Tom,
I had a similar situation a while back and had to run the DD until the big alternator could get some life back into the house batts. Once they came up a little the inverters took over.
Good luck!
Doug
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Jeff good question. I see that Doug ran the DD which apparently charged the house batteries enough that inverters/chargers would kick.
I can’t remember exactly, but I had Jeff Rowe on the phone for quite a while regarding this and I’d think that if Jeff thought running the DD might get things going, we probably did that and it didn’t work.
I think I might have done that to the batteries a second time, went through bringing the house batteries back from the dead a second time using the 12 volt car charger (I just hope Tom doesn’t read this).
Its not that difficult to do. Return home from a long trip, its late, its raining, it might be sleeting, there might be some snow, you’re in a hurry, you plug the coach into shore power, you neglect to flip the shore power breaker on, for some reason you’d turned off the WatchDog and didn’t turn it back to AutoStart, and you get preoccupied with something else.
Not that I’m not in my first year or 18 months of coach ownership I’ve pretty much trained myself to go to the coach “the morning after” and check everything to make sure the coach is “set” for long term sitting … plugged into shore power, SP breaker on, WatchDog set to “AutoStart”, water pump off, water heater on or off depending on expected outside air temps, aux compressor off, keys out of the ignition, etc.
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If your bus barn and house are reasonable close as mine is. use a 110v receptacle or build one into the shore power in the coach. something not thru the inverters. then I ran a electrical wire from barn to the house garage that lights up a small monitor light, this way it is visable in the house that power is into the coach. saved me many times either a forget or a tripped breaker.
Just an idea
Glenn
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That sounds like good practice Dick. I think I will make a point to do that as well. Thanks. Jeff
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Many times if the alternator of the engine, is only charging the house batteries and they are dead, the alternator needs to see some kind of voltage to charge….Therefore if you start the coach and add a outside source of charger or hit the boost charge button it will be able to see voltage and thus excite the charger to charge…Once that happens it is a matter of running the engine and invertors for a period of time together to get the system going…
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I see no reason to turn off the switch you mentioned in the original post, I have never turned mine off in all the years I’ve owned my coach.
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Glad to report that yesterday I cranked the coach and let it idle for a couple of hours. It’s reasonable that I found the inverters were OFF. Turned them back on and it immediately went to bulk charge. The engine charging was the ticket.
I love the idea about a light mounted where I can see it. My barn is about 250′ from the house, so a light would easily visible and would be a terrific indicator the power is on.
‘Course if the dufus operator doesn’t turn on the shore line breaker switch–all is for naught!!!
Just like when I was flying–I kept a list of stupid things I’m never going to do again! I’m beginning to get up a pretty good list for the MH……ty
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I never turn off my shore power breaker. Don’t know why you would.
I never remove my “ignition” key. Seems hot wiring would be easy if someone broke in.
I always leave water heater off in storage. I don’t concern myself with freezing temps much but, if that’s your concern, I’d want bay heat on for the tanks and water heater.
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Marathon’s procedure is clear, when disconnecting from shore power, turn off the main breaker before unplugging. When connecting to shore power, turn the breaker back on once you see the correct power and there are no faults. On my vintage, I have 4 small LED’s that light green whenever everything is correct.
If I recall, my 01 Liberty had similar instructions about using the breaker when plugging and unplugging.
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