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No Start
Hello all,
Newbie to the forum with a problem. I recently purchased a Marathon 45XLV and drove it 1K miles home without any problems. After sitting in the garage for a week it would not start. Used the jump start feature and started right up. I had failed to disconnect the 12 & 24 volt disconnect switches and assumed I had left something on draining the batteries. After letting the bus run for an hour charging at 26 volts I put it back in the garage. Next day no start. Checked the batteries which are new. One set is at 13 volts,the other set was at 9 volts.Using the jump start feature, the bus would turn over just fine but still not start. Charged the set that was low and bus starts right up. With the bus running, the first set shows 14.7 volts and the set that was low reads 12 volts,same as when the bus was not running after I recharged them.
Assumptions: The engine ECM and fuel solenoid run off the two batteries that were low and would not let the engine start.The altenator charges the batteries thru the equalizer? One of the battery equalizers is bad? How do you test a battery equalizer?
I really don’t want to buy a bunch of expensive gizmo’s if I don’t need them. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Michael
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34 Replies
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I haven’t seen an American in a while however don’t they have individual switches inside the coach for the gen? It isn’t going through the invertors for gen start is it?
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Gee jeff dont you ever get a day off ? LOL Actually I dont have a clue. I know everything was working fine last time out. I do have switches in the coach but none of them work. The only one that works is the one on the electronics box on the gen. the one on the front of the gen doesnt even work and Im electronically challenged. Jeez i can barely work this computer.
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ck the fuse inside of generator electrical panel
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OK where would that be? There is an electronics box right on the gen. that has breakers on it but I dont think it opens up.
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What kind of generator do you have? Maybe you could post a picture and that might help us onlookers.
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Red,
Coach specific information is hard to come by because there are so many variations, not only different converters, but there are differences in systems from the same converter.
I think in your case Panterra would be the place to start with your question. I think they might have the documentation or access to it, and may even have an ability to contact the folks that built the coach.
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Red,
When you had your inverter work done, did they set up the inverters to “auto start” when the batteries got low?
If so that may overide the switches in the coach. Or is there a built in “auto start” with a switch somewhere on the dash that might need to be turned off to allow manual control. Also check for switches next to the bed. My coach has generator start and stop switches in the night stand.
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Ditto what Andre said, may be set to autostart that could disable the manual start.
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Hey thanks for the ideas gang but so far no good. I checked the inverter setup and its set to off, i have checked every fuse I could find and still no luck and to make matters worse we went over to the casino last night and made my usual donation to the poor casino owners association LOL. Oh did I mention that we are at the hollywood casino in bay st louis and the campground here is really nice. the water here is just as hard as it is at home so Im spending part of fathers day with the vinegar and water bottle. Oh well, such is life. After taking the boss out for a nice meal i will go make another donation and pray to the casino gods. Iwill keep y’all posted on the genny progress and the donations .
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the picture is of a panel in the bedroom .Im guessing these are relays but dont have any wiring diagrams to explain them. Anyway ,i have looked everywhere for a bad fuse or breaker blown with no luck but i noticed a red light on on the right side of the top row of relays. Wondering if this could have something to do with the gen no start problem. as I said the genny does start from the electronics box on the genny but none of the remote switches seem to work. sorry to bother everyone on fathers day. so happy fathers day. Im gonna go gamble away some money . It may make me feel better about this.
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not there that looks like all dimmer cards for lighting….if you keep enough fuel money when you leave there you can come here and park for free.
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Thanks Jeff I appreciate that but my problems seem to be escalating big time now. when we got back from making our regular donations the coach smelled of cooking batteries . I talked to my dear dear friend Tom and we think one or more batteries is toast . they are marked 2010 but tom says they are much much older. Somebody fibbed to me Im not sure what we can do now. I took off one negative cable and let the batteries cool down but other than putting the inverters down as low as possible on the charge setting Im stumped. Tom can get me the batteries but I dont think my back would hold out doing that and I think Ive got more problems with the electrical stuff. gonna keep checking the batteries tonight and see where we are in the morning. Gee arent fathers days fun ?
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While replacing the batteries is likely to be required I would strongly urge you to completely check the charging voltages.
I know from experience that while our inverters are great devices with a lot of safety built into them, it is possible for them to overcharge our batteries. They are sensistive to their connections and if they have a bad ground for example they can put excess voltage into the batteries. The problem may not be the inverter or its output but don’t rule that out.
The problem in fact could be a bad battery which by itself can screw up an entire bank of batteries so when removing the batteries test each one. You really do want to know why you had the problem.
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absolutely Jon . I really hate electrical problems,especially as Im a dummy when it comes to anything electrical. Thanks for the headsup, i will hopefully get everything fixed and get back to enjoying the trip.
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I had a gen-start problem last winter. I traced it to a $50 toggle switch on the front panel of the gen. They can go bad/wear out.
I could not start coach from inside or on front panel. Took the front panel off and pulled old toggle off. Swithed it out with a new and have had no issues since.
It was the on/off toggle.
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