[Jerry]

Charlie,

If you had a Liberty, you would already have the buddy plug!:) I couldn’t resist…

I have a 10KW gen at home that I hook to the house via a manual auxillary lever that was installed by the power company when I built the house. It’s the same setup as the bus, so I can always use the bus gen if power is going to be out for a long time.

[Jerry]

I run my Foretravel cross country 3-5 times a year. That s one real I am looking at getting a bus soon but some lethal issues sidelined me since the beginning of the year. Anyway, I have used various blends B5 B10 andB 15 for years now with no issues. When I first put in a couple tankful s I changed my primary filter once. I am sitting at 145k miles now in this coach and have had no issues re biodiesel. In fact in my part of the country and areas I travel you can nt get anything but bio.

[Jerry]

I just put new tires on my drive. I removed the wheels and tires in my shop, and carried them to the tire dealer for mounting and balancing. When I removed the outer wheel on the curb side, I was shocked to see written on the inner steel wheel with a grease pen……..”Bent Wheel”. So, I figured its got to be bent if someone went to the trouble to write it on there, but why would they put it back on I thought?

So, the tire guy verified the wheel is bent when he put it on a spin balancer. (it had hammer on lead weights before). We were leaving to go on a planned trip, so I tried to find a wheel. I could not find one in a 9″ width. I even calle Prevost Jax, and they didn’t have one. They also suggested that most with complaints of vibrations on the rear, are changing to aluminum on the inside. BUT, I was having NO vibration or bouncing at all, anywhere.

I decided to put the bent wheel back on with Equal installed, went on a 900 mile trip, everything was perfect, I even had my wife ride in the back for a while (since I can’t get her to drive under any circumstances) to see if there was any vibrating, shaking or anything.

Her response was after coming back up front, “It’s so smooth back there, I could put my Eye liner on with no problem, in fact it’s the smoothest ride ever”

So, I’m saying a little runout on a steel wheel is not a problem……………..and I’m trying to decide on replacing inners with aluminum or not?

[Jerry]

I’m really involved in generator repairs right now. And on mine, the
power to the Generator breaker has a jumper that connects both legs
feeding the breaker. On the output side of the breaker, they are
separate going to the Inverters.

If yours has the old brown
plastic box with a bunch of white wires for a regulator, I would look
there first as most have suggested. I had some simular erratic voltage
readings out of mine, but they were from 119v all the way down to 15.4v.

If you change regulators, the new style will be analog, and make sure you talk to someone before wiring up the new regulator, I’m assuming you have a Powertech. If so, call Jeff Jones there, he can direct you. It does not wire up anything like the one that’s in it. (if it’s the brown plastic one)

Also, there are manuals on their website that will give you a sequence of steps to check.

[Jerry]

This may be too far from relevent to be any help. But the max acceptable runout on a car brake rotor is 12 inches. 31 inches is about 1/32nd of an inch, and you may be measuring at the bead of the wheel near the outer circumference. I would guess that 33 inches would be acceptable, but I don’t know for sure.

My understanding for aluminum wheel torque is consistent with Jon’s, 450 ft lbs.

[Jerry]

I can tell you from being a trucker in the past, and I’m talking about back in the 70’s and 80’s, it was a problem them, and still is. The urine smell is because they go on the ground when they stop rather than going to a restroom. Seen it many many times.

Truck stop parking and rest area parking smell the same…………yuk

[Jerry]

Peter and Gil, thank you very much. I am going to see about putting them in my coach. Thanks again!!

[Jerry]

I do and will give you a line-out on that as soon as I get the chance to dig up the info.

Both can be done at the DC relay panel. The Vantare XL units made from 1998 -2001 in Oklahoma under Featherlite all had an On/Off switch next to the tank monitor panel to disable it, especially for those “quiet sleepers” out there lol, but for some reason we could never get the Sanford facility to follow suit.

Sincerely,

Ben Cummings

Parliament Motor Coach

[Jerry]

Wow! When you have the converters themselves responding, you know something great is going on. This site just continues to amaze. Congrats Jon and Tom.

[Jerry]

You can’t get nothing past the bus boys!:)

[Jerry]

Gil,

It is perfectly fine to doubt any statement(s) I say. I do
not claim to be an electrical expert in any way shape or form.

My best answers to your questions/comments are each inverter
can produce up to at least 50 amps for short periods of time. I have the
standard residential Trace SW 4024 manual in front of me and that version can
produce 33 amps continuous and 78 amps intermittent. The only difference between the SW 4024 and the SW 4024
MC2 (The MC2 versions are
installed in our coaches) is some software changes installed on a ROM chip.
Physically, the two units are identical. One of the software changes is a
reduction of the pass through amperage of the inverter. The pass through amperage
of the residential unit is 60 amps while the MC2 version is 50 amps. I don’t know for sure but I think the continuous and intermiittent ratings were reduced as well. If anyone
is interested, the other changes are a defeat of the “sell back” feature,
labeling for marine and RV use and a change in priority of utility (shore
power) AC IN and genset AC IN. If both utility power and genset power is
available at the same time, the residential version will connect to utility
power and ignore the genset. The MC2 version will connect with genset and
ignore the utility power.

I am not sure if I entirely agree with your statement of
“the inverters cannot produce the same current as shore power or genset power”. My understanding is the inverters can
produce the same current as shore power for short periods of time but I could
be mistaken. I don’t have the MC2 manual with me so I can’t confirm. You are absolutely
correct that the genset can produce more current than either shore power or the
inverters.

I would respectfully suggest everyone has to manage the
loads when on inverter only mode. As
to Vantare owners having to manage loads more than others, I cannot speak to
that other than to say, now that I have my battery charging conflict sorted
out, I had no issues with managing loads this past weekend under fairly heavy
usage.

You are also correct about the lightening protection aspect
and I did not mean to imply that the inverters should substitute for external
lightening protection.

The intent of that statement was protection from the
sometimes-questionable shore power at resorts and campgrounds. Having lived in
the Bahamas for a number of years, we experienced every variation of over
voltage, under voltage, variable frequency of Hz, loss of one leg or the other,
loss of neutral you can think of. The entire house with exception of the hot
water heater, clothes dryer and the central HVAC system ran through a single residential SW 4024. While people all around us were carting their
refrigerators, TVs, freezers, microwaves, etc off to the dump on a regular
basis, I sat there for many years with not a single power related failure. I
did take one TV to the dump but that was a result of too many gin and tonics at
a party. I set the parameters of the inverter a lot tighter than the Trace
defaults so it would drop the commercial power and switch to inverting sooner.
The inverter was tied to auto-start the generator just as our coaches are.

The point I wish to make (and this is only my experience) is
that in the Bahamian summer months, the inverter would kick in and out
sometimes 5-6 times a day because of fluctuating power. The refrigerator
compressor was “protected” so to speak because it never saw the fluctuating
voltage and didn’t suffer the stop/start that you might get with utility power.

I am all too familiar with living in the lightening capital
of the USA. A boat I owned sustained $70K worth of electrical damage in 1997
from lightening strike that also back-fed the house and took out a number of
appliances and even an underground phone line. On an inverter/lightening
related topic, the person that purchased my last boat emailed me a week or so
ago stating that the boat was hit by lightening. The interesting point is all
the equipment powered through the inverter, TVs, refrigerator, microwave, fresh
water pump, etc all survived whereas other items such as the A/C units did not.
Turns out, the 120-volt pass through relay of the inverter shorted out and
protected all the loads.

Gil, maybe we should get together over a beer and debate the
finer points of inverters.

Paul

[Jerry]

Roger,

Keep
us posted. I have exhausted all efforts dealing with Norgren direct
for various valves for our buses with no success. They’re proprietary
with Prevost and I could never cross anything over.

[Jerry]

Do the vanners play a role in house battery charging when running down the road? Thanks for the info.

[Jerry]

You are right Jon they are very proud of their stuff, just cannot believe that an 8uf capacitor is worth $850. The next time I am buying 12 of these capacitors for repair if needed on the road.

[Jerry]

Mike,

All your Norgrens are likely in need of rebuilding or repair. I suspect however that at 22 years of age it is likely the 4 screws in the end cap(s) are frozen to the valve body and your efforts to remove them are not going to be successful. You also have the risk that if it is stuck it is because the internals have been exposed to moisture so new O rings and the effort to replace them will be a waste of time.

Your vintage Norgrens should still have the original Norgren numbers, and not the proprietary numbers assigned to Prevost so you can easily shop them for price. Find the closest Norgren dealer and contact them and Prevost for pricing.

Before you go to the effort to replace them, make sure your air systems are dry. And then keep them dry.