Atwood furnace, where's heat register? top or bottom?

[Mongo]

Ok so I have an atwood 8516 in the back of my 99 Granby that isn't working. Turn on the thermostat and in a few seconds the fan runs. That's it no clicks no ignition. I checked and the sail switch was not closing so I replaced it. Same result. Not closing here's where it gets weird. I was looking at it and the air flow is the wrong direction to close the switch. So I reversed the red and black wires on the fan (to reverse the rotation) and bingo. the sail switch closes. The thing is in all the pictures I can find the Red fan wire goes to the relay and the Black goes to ground. Reversing that just doesn't seem right. But it's the only way the sail switch would close, like i said the air has to flow that direction. So what register vent is the heat supposed to blow out of? The bottom or the top? If I reverse the fan wiring so the sail switch closes it blows out the bottom, which is where the burner is, which seems right..... right? Can anyone confirm that on yours?

I confirmed there's gas at the valve and applying 12v to the solinoid opened the valve and I smell gas. So Gas is ok....

So that's part of the story. After getting the sail switch to close and get 12v on the white wire at the board, I figured the board is bad. So I ordered a Dinosaur Fan 50 ignition board due to their high regard on the internet. Went to install it and I have no LED's lighting and no response. The thing is if the sail switch doesn't close there's no power to the board. So how does the board turn on the fan to close the sail switch to power the board? I spent 2 hours on this thing tonight and It's really frustrating me!

Anyone with the Dinosaur board and just the 3 factory wires on the connector Red, Yellow, White? Plus the Fan control spade jumpers. Do I need to change the t-stat?

 

[Stan@FourWheel]

What is powering your camper?

A deep cycle 12 v marine battery?

Sound like you have the main camper wire mixed up at the camper battery.

The white FWC camper wire at the battery goes to the positive + battery post.

The black FWC camper wire goes to the negative - post.

Give that a try ...

 

[Ted]

The heat blew out of the bottom register in our '03 Hawk.

 

[K6ON]

The heat blew out of the bottom register in our '03 Hawk.

Same for my '96 Grandby.

 

[Bosque Bill]

Hot air comes out of the top on my 2013 Fleet (if I understand the question.)

 

[Mongo]

Well Stan, you are the man. I had the battery hooked up backwards. I assumed red was power white was ground.... Believe it or not I graduated college as a ASE master auto tech. I guess in the last 10 years I've lost my touch! I'm embarrassed to admit how many things I noticed that should have given the reverse polarity away like LED's not working but incandescent's did, the center of the cig lighter outlet was gnd and rim was hot, fan running backwards, etc....,. Assuming will get you every time. Red isn't always positive I guess. I think I'll change that because it's just wrong to have a RED ground wire.

So surprise surprise my battery and water level monitor works flawlessly now too! LED's are polarity dependent. I filled the tank and emptied it checking at different levels and it seems to be pretty accurate eyeballing the bucket of drained water. One less thing on the list!

As for the furnace I got that going but I did have to use the new Dinosaur control board. The atwood board was not working even after correcting the battery wiring. But I have wonderful warm heat now so I'm a happy camper. Can't wait to get out for the maiden voyage with this puppy!

Thanks guys!

 

[craig333]

Glad to see Stan the man did the trick for you. I'm ready to see some action pics!

 

[Stan@FourWheel]

I bet your refer. will run on 12v power now.

 

[Timothy McGowen]

Don't feel bad Mongo. I hate to admit it but I used to only play with DC electric. When working on the house one day I found out that the black wire was not negative.