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Half the 120volt system is out?
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I think if the picture of the panel showed the inverter remote panels as well as the circuit breaker switches we would have the answer.
Or at least know where to look.
I took a closer look at the photo and on the LH remote no Ac input is shown. If we could see the battery #1 and 2 switches both in the on position as well as all 4 air conditioner switches in the on position I think the answer might be within reach.
1984 96" with 8V92TA
(remodeled Liberty Coach)
Greenwood, MO -
Dicks original pic shows only the top half of his electrical cabinet. Here are pics of my 96 Liberty Classic electrical cabinet which is similar to Dicks. My electrical cabinet wasn’t very well marked/labeled as it came from Liberty. I drew more border lines and made various labels to help me know what is what
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When one of my old Freedom 25 went tango uniform(died) I lost only the stuff that is on it. Everything else worked fine.Dick your “Inverter Disconnects” are in the inverter bay, above the shelf you referenced, in the back up high labelled Inverter 1 & 2(see pic).
In my bus, inverter #1 is the outer most one, #2 inner most. The shelf should be removable.
I had old Freedom 25 inverter/chargers until about a yr ago. When one failed I bit the bullet and installed new pure sine wave Magnums.
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Don:
This is very helpful, very helpful. As I’m coming to understand how Liberty wired all this stuff, I can see where additional placarding, labeling, and outlining would be helpful.
This question might be thread creap and might be a good topic for a separate thread (feel free to start one if you’re so inclined) … do you recall what the cost was to upgrade to the pure sine wave Magnums? What the install pretty straight forward? Did you loose any functionality? Gain any? If one of my current inverters is tango uniform, now might be the time to move into the 21st century. Or … repair of the old inverter might not be a big deal.
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The old Freedom 25 is not being supported by the factory anymore, but used parts and units are available. Ask ETLC?
After trading in my old inverters, my out of pocket was $3500. Ask Rocky what it cost him.
I installed them myself. I’m no rocket scientist so it can’t be too tough. If you install the inner most one east/west, and the outer most one north/south, you’ll be able to leave you gen battery below in its original position(if yours is like mine and Rockys.
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Dick,
You did not mention disconnecting Your shore power and starting You generator. Try it and see if everything is normal. If all is good with gen , then You have a connection problem with shore. Do You have a meter to verify incoming voltage on both legs ? That little green shore power light might just light up with one leg coming in hot ? I might be way off base here , But verify the basics first. Flipping the breakers will not tell You if You have a burned out connection in Your shore cord or power pedestal. Were there any lightning storms in Your area after You got home ? Do You have a surge protector ? There are Several screw down clamp connections in a coach. Gil J says they need to be re-torqued yearly. I hope You get it figured out soon. I sure know how frustrating it can be.
Don , Strange to Me that You would have the chandelier wired into that line one inverter. Do You have a 110V Chandelier ? Mine is wired in with the Tivoli lights. -
Rocky … great ideas. Those are easy for me to do without creating a light show. Thanks!
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Dick, You started a post on 8/31, provided some information, got a lot of responses and questions and now you have us all hanging. Are you going to answer the various questions which might lead to more accurate suggestions? Are you going to provide us with the outcome?
I’m kind of singling you out to make a point. We often get serious questions from people who have an issue or who are in trouble, sometimes we get adequate information in the first post, sometimes it is like pulling teeth to get information, and sometimes we can provide good answers or suggestions. But sometimes we are left hanging and after a while we don’t know if we should try to answer questions because we don’t get feedback to let us know if we are on the right track or if we don’t know what we are talking about.
Can you go down the thread and respond to each question and suggestion and let us know what is going on? We really want to hekp.
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Well Dick, what’s up?
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Jon: Point very well taken. I got somewhat side tracked with other projects, but I should have responded to everyone who tried to help.
Tom: Thanks for pinging me.
I’ll try my best to respond to everyone’s suggestions and comments, although I’m still struggling to grasp some of the technology and the implications of how certain things were done by Liberty.
First, I don’t see any evidence or have any inclination that anyone has futzed with the electrical system as installed by Liberty Coach. I’m presuming at this point, its all the same way it left North Chicago in 1999.
On 8/31/2107@7:51:30pm Dan Darst suggested that I try to “reset” the Leg 1 Inverter and provide I seven step process for that. I tried his suggestion, it didn’t work, no change. Good suggestion and layout of the steps..
On 9/1/2017@3:57:53pm Jon wrote: I forgot which circuits share the inverter that powers the refrigerator but if the inverter is the issue those circuits will not have power when non-inverter circuits have power. This appears to be the case. As you can see from the new picture below, only a small number of circuits apparently do not have power; and those circuits include, but are not limited to the all important “refrigerator circuit”.
Jon continued: On a Liberty incoming power from shore or generator is not inverted, but passes through the inverter via an internal relay. If you determine all except the circuits on that inverter have power trying to recycle the inverter seems like the next logical step. I did that using the steps outlined by Dan Darst above, and there was NO change.
Jon continued again: If all circuits on that leg are dead the fault is with the power supply. This is where I’m a little confused. What does Jon mean by the “power supply”? There is no power getting to the inverter? There is a problem with the “internal relay” and Jon references in his statement above? If the problem is in the relay, I wonder if that is something that can be fixed in the 1999 vintage Freedom 25 inverter and we could be good to go.
Jon goes on: Anyone with a Liberty with the inverter set up shown has no way to get power to by-pass the inverter which is why I created a by-pass provision in my 97 coach so as long as I had shore or generator power I could get power to the circuits. As set up now you have to repair or replace the inverter. I pretty much concluded that and Jon confirms my conclusion. Since the “Forward Outlets” circuit appears to be working (see picture below), if the “Refrigerator” and “Foward Outlets” circuits were wired into an A/B switch that powered the outlet for the refrigerator, then I’d think that in the event the Inverter that powers the “Refrigerator” circuit has a problem (fails), then by simply flipping the that switch the refrigerator can continue to run. I suspect that the wiring for the “Forward Outlets” circuit might be behind the refrigerator and wiring this functionality might not be a huge job. But keep in mind the Inverter apparently has been working for 18 years without fail.
On 9/1/2017@6:05:13am Jeff Rowe asked that I call him upon observing that he doesn’t see the inverter inverting. I did call Jeff who returned my call. Walked him through was I was seeing. Had me flip some switches and listen for changes in the lights or look for the sounds of relays clicking. Then he asked me to remove the shelf in the electrical bay as well as the large Plexiglass sheet in front of all the electrical connections against the front bulkhead wall. I wanted me to check the voltage on the large studs that are wired into the two Inverters. Both read 28.58volts as I recall. Based on this Jeff declared that voltage is getting to the Inverter, but apparently Inverter 1 is not passing power through it. This reinforced that the inverter has somehow failed (TU) and is the problem.
Question now. Shouldn’t I be looking for 120volts coming to the inverter as well? The 120volt shore power that should pass through the Inverter and go up to the panel to power the Refrigerator circuit? Or do I have this all convoluted up?
On 9/1/2017 @ 8:30:58am Don (aka “lonestar”) posted a link to the Old Liberty Inverter Setup. I find this very help in that it discusses a conversion from the original Liberty installed inverters to Xantrex SW 3012’S by Joe (aka “bobjones”). In the thread it was confirms again by Jon that the inverters only power a limited number of circuits in the coach. I lost what was on Inverter 1 (including the refrigerator) while Don lost Inverter 2 which powered the front shades in his coach. Jon revealed in this thread that he had installed some kind of “cutover” switch in his circa 1997 Liberty so he could apparently switch 120volt AC loads from one inverter to the other in the event of an inverter failure. It would be interesting to see something posted about he did that, what kind of hardware he used, etc. Even if I go down the route of (gulp) new inverters, it would still be nice to have that option available when I’m in say on the Alcan Highway or deep in Alaska.
On 9/1/2017@9:17:33am Jon posted a question to Jeff Rowe which I think outlines another diagnostic proceduere to confirm the “bad inverter” is really bad.
On 9/1/2017@1:54:18pm Patrick Collins (aka Catdir8100) posted that when his 2001 Liberty Lady Classis (12 volt coach, I have a 24 volt Liberty … might not make a difference or it might) is plugged into shore power, the green light is on indicating shore power along with another green light above the word inverter. I see yours is not on. Prior to this current situation, I believe mine was on too and I suspect this indicates the inverter is not inverting.
Patrick continues (asking a good question) … Probably doesnt help you but I would be curious to see what Jon is asking. Will it still charge your batteries, bypass AC power, or do nothing? I’m wondering the same thing. Is the Inverter doing anything? Are some of the functions functioning? Or are non of them functioning?
On 9/1/2017@3:08:41pm Jon made a very nice post describing how he blieves Liberty wired this era of coach and the expected impact on the availability of power to circuits that receive 120volt AC from each of the inverters.
On 9/1/2017@10:09:53 Dan Darst made a very informative post for me (at least it as for me): Dick’s control panel probably has 32 circuit breakers arranged in 4 quadrants of 8 beakers each. Only the lower left quadrant are the 8 inverted circuits. Of those, the top four breakers are powered by leg 1 and the bottom four breakers are powered by leg two. At least that is how it started life. This is apparently how my coach is wired. Playing around with it a little (albeit absent one Inverter) I believe our coach is wired like Dan’s.
On 9/2/2017@8:59:53am Tom posted As Jeff pointed out, the inverter is not inverting, that should point to a D C issue. Dick – is there D C power at the inverter disconnect? Good, succinct question. Presuming Tom and I are taking about the same thing, checking the voltage across the two large studs in the back corner of the electrical bay as directed by Jeff, I had DC power.
On 9/2/2017@9:44:16 Rocky asked, Is it Magnum time? That is my preliminary conclusion, unless an inverter expert says that its an easy and reliable fix that should last for years.
On 9/2//2017@11:16:30am Jon posted a discussion of what “inverting” is. He ended with the following quesiton: The problem could be in the inverter control boards or it could be as simple as a non-functioning relay. Are those circuits “hot” when there is no incoming 120VAC power? If so it is functioning as an inverter, but is not allowing a pass through when there is power. I’m wondering too if the inverter is actually charging the batteries, but not allowing pass through of 120volt power, but it appearntly isn’t taking DC power from teh battery set its wired to and converting that to 120volt power either. I don’t know how to “check” what’s going on to answer Jon’s question.
On 9/2/2017@3:25:59pm Jon suggested that I post larger pictures showing the entire panel. Two more pictures are attached immediately below; which are unfortunately turned sideways. I’ve turned on all the breaker so everyone could see which circuits were powered:
As you can see, apparently the first four (12volt AC) circuits of the lower left quadrant are not powered. Apparently those are powered by the problem inverter.
On 9/2/2017@3:27:10pm Don provided clarifying information and pictures (great pictures! Thanks!) as to where to look for the Inverter disconnects and stated: when one of my old Freedom 25 went tango uniform(died) I lost only the stuff that is on it. Everything else worked fine. This is exactly what I’m experiencing.
On 9/2/2017@9:45:34pm Rocky asked: You did not mention disconnecting Your shore power and starting You generator. Try it and see if everything is normal. I did try shore power only, and NO improvement.
Rocky went on to ask: Don , Strange to Me that You would have the chandelier wired into that line one inverter. Do You have a 110V Chandelier ? Mine is wired in with the Tivoli lights. My chandelier is wired to a dedicated 120volt AC circuit too, which I wondered about. That would be another great candidate circuit to power the refrigerator in case of an inverter failure or for load shedding. Anytime you have the refrigerator pulled or replaced, think about doing that.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO … this is where I’m at. I’ve concluded the following possibilities:
1. Inverter 1 is failed and needs to be replaced.
2. The 120 volt pass through cabiliites of Inverter 1 have failed, it might be able to fixed and made servicable.
I doubt its #2. Even if its #2, the invertor is 18 years old. How long should Inverters be expected to last? Its a modified sine wave invertor. I have a two year old refrigerator with a touch panel on it. Maybe the refrigerator didn’t like the modified sine wave, got P/O’d that during the last over two years I didn’t provide it with clean burning pure sine wave power and back fed something into Inverter 1 and toasted it.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO … do I replace one inverter with a new one? or replace both of them. How do I get the replacement accomplished and done right. If I was an hour or two from ETLC our coach would be sitting at Jeff’s plugged in waiting for the inverter replacement. Its a day and half down, day and a half back.
I’m giving serious consideration to doing it myself. I reached out to a longtime friend who has had and maintained a number of yachts, the most recent a 48′ Ocean Alexander (yup, the same guy) who told me that he has replaced Inverters and said I should have the ability to do it. I just don’t want to screw things up and set the coach on fire. Maybe its easier than I think. My only reason for doing the remove and install myself is to save the time on the road to get to Jeff’s and get home. I’m in no way trying to beat Jeff out of the shop time and ability to provide me the units and associated parts.
I’m thinking once I’ve turned off all the large Cole-Hersey disconnect switches you can see in Don’s pictures (my configuration is exactly the same) that all power to the studs has been killed. What I’m not sure of is how to pull or snake the wiring for the remotes up to the panel in the coach, but once I get things opened up that might not be so daunting. Then its a matter of reading the directions on the units (which I’ll download and read before I make a final decision as to what to do).
How many of you guys and gals out there have swapped out their own inverters? Reasonable for someone with a little above average mechnical skills?
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Yes Dick, I swapped in new Magnums in August 2016 myself. Shut down everything as I described in steps 1-5 above. Label every wire before disconnecting. Be methodical. It was not difficult.
I will describe the only procedure I initially was not careful enough about:
The new magnum remotes will of course come with their own wire. I did not want to run the new wire from electrical bay up to control panel. So I cut the ends off the old wire. I believe there were ten uniquely colored wires in that bundle. And you will only need four for the Magnums. So write down the four colors you wish to use. Then snip the connectors with a foot or two of wire off both ends of the new wire. Now this is where I did not pay attention: keep track of which two ends came off the same new wire and solder them to the same old wire.I think you will be glad you made the change with all the new information and settings flexibility the remotes provide.
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Dan: So you left the same wires for the remotes in and just repurposed them.
Can you send me a picture or two of how you mounted the new remotes in the electrical cabinet?
Thanks!
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Yes use the old remote wires and just solder the new ends you will get onto them. Shrink wrap.
Right now the bus is over at American Fleet Inc. with the engine out for the obligatory “tune up”. Ironically my sister lives three miles away so that’s where we are staying.
I made the new remotes fit into the same position as the old. Had to use a hacksaw blade to open up the particle board cabinet a bit and cut down the edges of the remote. They just sit in there, no hardware was used. The picture above is exactly how mine look.
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Dick, Superb job of responding and to me the answer now depends on if you want to play around with your inverters. By playing around I mean pulling the cover off the failed inverter and taking a quick check to see if you want to replace a couple of parts or just trash it.
I’m going by memory but those inverters may not be the latest and greatest but they do work for the application and there are a couple of boards and relays that could be the issue. If you want to tackle the replacement you probably will be back in business. It is not a difficult job, but will require some new parts.
An alternative is to move to a pair of new sine wave Magnum because those are the easiest ones to use for replacement. If you intend to keep the coach for the long term I vote for new Magnums, if you plan to trade in the furture I vote for repairing or having it repaired.
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I apologize if I missed where you did this, but have you verified 120 VAC coming into the inverter? Start at both hot legs of your shore power plug, and if it’s good there, check at the invertor.
Do those 4 circuits power when unplugged from shore power and running off of the house batteries? If they do and you have shore power to the inverter, I would strongly suspect the relay that Jon mentioned (or the controls that trigger it). If the inverter circuits do not power on house batteries (unplugged from shore power), then I would remove and inspect the inverter. We found several blown (literally) small components on our Heart Interface inverter. Transistors visibly blown in half. After replacing the first one, the second one followed two years later.
https://prevostcommunity.com/forum/threaddetails.asp?Category=Electrical&ThreadID=5592
You can find Magnums online for ~$1500/ea. They are used on boats and for solar panels on houses. The remote is sold seperately, I believe. I think the remote was ~$300. They require a little fabrication due to the footprint and vent locations being different. The remotes were connected with telephone wires that just plugged in on both ends. We didnt have to do anything special on ours.
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Dick,
Don’t be afraid to dig into this yourself. All the inputs to the inverters are marked so you know where they are from and the ouput is also marked.
The question above was a good one and your remote should have triggered an answer from me initially.
The green light on the panel next to the circuit breakers for battery charger #1 and 2 shows power through the CB, but the lack of a red ight on the remote shows no power in. My first reaction would be to get at the inverter and verify the incoming wires have 120V power.If you are nt comfortable playing with live 120V wires please get someone to help you because those inputs I think have wire nuts. (I think, been too long since i opened one up)
As a wild thought is it possible the on-off switch on the front panel of the inverter has been switched “on”? When used with remotes those switches should be “off” I believe.
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