Electrical issues

[SmashRocks]

I’ll try to keep the back story brief. About 2 months ago I was hunting and ended up taking my Tacoma/swift on way more tough 4x4 roads than I wanted. After a long decent down to a normal road I heard some clunking every 10-20 seconds. I got to a good spot and investigated and found that the thermal fuse under the hood was the culprit. Checked inside the camper and either the thermal fuse there or the blue sea ACR was doing the same. Couldn’t tel which. So I unscrewed the battery wire under the hood which solved the issue and the camper electronic seemed fine. I taped it up and went on my way.

Came home to troubleshoot and I connected everything back as it was and I couldn’t replicate it. Fast forward to this week and it started again. I let it just click away as I was at work but it stopped shortly after.

Went home again to troubleshoot. Tested both thermal fuses and both are toast (no continuity between poles). Picked up two new ones today and the clicking began again at both. I unhooked everything to avoid damage.

Can someone confirm that the A side of the blue sea ACR goes directly to the truck battery? If so, when I test continuity between each wire end to a ground there is a closed loop (even with both ends, A side and truck batt side, not connected to anything.

I traced the wires under the truck and did not detect any damage at all.

Is my troubleshooting on the right path? The only thing I haven’t done is inspect the plug itself because I haven’t taken off the camper.

 

[Jon R]

Yes, the A side of the ACR is connected to the positive wire that comes from the truck battery,

On the B side, the white wire goes to the fuse box, and the red wire goes to the camper battery via the fuse device that is adjacent to the ACR.

If you are sure both the truck fuse and the fuse next to the ACR were cycling, then the camper battery wire is drawing excessive current when the ACR connects to the truck battery. I would check the battery compartment to see if the battery shifted and you have a wiring short. If it looks good, I would have the battery tested for internal damage.

 

[SmashRocks]

Yes, the A side of the ACR is connected to the positive wire that comes from the truck battery,

On the B side, the white wire goes to the fuse box, and the red wire goes to the camper battery via the fuse device that is adjacent to the ACR.

If you are sure both the truck fuse and the fuse next to the ACR were cycling, then the camper battery wire is drawing excessive current when the ACR connects to the truck battery. I would check the battery compartment to see if the battery shifted and you have a wiring short. If it looks good, I would have the battery tested for internal damage.

I have checked all connections in the battery box and even took off the face of the cabinet to trace things back. Like it said before, everything functions normally without the A side connected back to truck. I even have normal 13.xx voltage. I do, however have solar which appears fine but I never hooked up a scenerio where that was out of the equation.

How do I test for internal damage?

 

[Beach]

What Jon R said. Check for a short to ground, especially any wire runs that can chafe against the truck/camper frame. Could be any where in the system.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

From your description, it does sound like you have a direct short. I would reach out to Stan KennedyFWC to see if he can provide a wiring diagram that shows any and all connections of the wire you disconnected. If it’s a straight run, I would test things by running an external wire from the battery thermal fuse to its termination in the camper.

That the problem was intermittent, may make things harder to confirm, but if it’s still present, you’ll know the issue is at or beyond the camper thermal fuse. If it goes away and does not return you can proceed with a permanent fix.

Another thought, have you closely inspected both sides of the truck/camper connectors?

Gook luck, these things can be maddening.

 

[dscobell]

Have you checked the voltage of your camper batteries? I read somewhere that low battery voltage will create the noise you are describing. The thermal fuse requires a certain voltage to operate. If the voltage is low, it will cycle back and forth trying to establish a connection. Just a suggestion.... please take with a huge grain of salt...

 

[SmashRocks]

From your description, it does sound like you have a direct short. I would reach out to Stan KennedyFWC to see if he can provide a wiring diagram that shows any and all connections of the wire you disconnected. If it’s a straight run, I would test things by running an external wire from the battery thermal fuse to its termination in the camper.

That the problem was intermittent, may make things harder to confirm, but if it’s still present, you’ll know the issue is at or beyond the camper thermal fuse. If it goes away and does not return you can proceed with a permanent fix.

Another thought, have you closely inspected both sides of the truck/camper connectors?

Gook luck, these things can be maddening.

Thanks for the suggestions. I plan to give Juniper Overland who I bought it from here in Denver a call.

I’ll also do what you said and run a wire from the truck battery to the blue sea A side using the new thermal fuse and see if that answers my question.

My camper is on full time and I dread taking it off but it looks like I have no choice if I want to do a complete inspection

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Thanks for the suggestions. I plan to give Juniper Overland who I bought it from here in Denver a call.

I’ll also do what you said and run a wire from the truck battery to the blue sea A side using the new thermal fuse and see if that answers my question.

My camper is on full time and I dread taking it off but it looks like I have no choice if I want to do a complete inspection

If it’s still on warranty, let the dealer resolve it.

 

[Vic Harder]

Dscobell is on another path that could ALSO be true. To confirm you would need an ammeter that you can connect in line... to check if the problem is too much juice (caused by a short) or not enough - which is a far more common issue.

How long had the system been working just fine before this issue cropped up?

 

[rando]

The fact that the thermal fuses are popping would suggest the issue is too much current, not too little current. I would suspect it is damage to wiring under the truck, which will likely require replacing the whole wire.

Having a 30A breaker pop is not something that should be ignored - this is plenty of current to melt things and start a fire. Disconnect everything until you find out the root cause of the problem.

 

[SmashRocks]

We’ll team, my stubbornness to go through taking the camper off cost me a lot of time. But the problem was the whip coming out of the camper got pinched and cut right through the insulation. Thank god for fuses! I haven’t repaired it yet but I’m 99.99% sure all will be good once I do. Cheers and thanks for the ideas and support.

Here is a crappy pic I took as I worked from a headlamp in the driveway.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

We’ll team, my stubbornness to go through taking the camper off cost me a lot of time. But the problem was the whip coming out of the camper got pinched and cut right through the insulation. Thank god for fuses! I haven’t repaired it yet but I’m 99.99% sure all will be good once I do. Cheers and thanks for the ideas and support.

Here is a crappy pic I took as I worked from a headlamp in the driveway.

IMG_6322.JPG

Good work! Keep us posted.

 

[pvstoy]

The fact that the thermal fuses are popping would suggest the issue is too much current, not too little current. I would suspect it is damage to wiring under the truck, which will likely require replacing the whole wire.

Having a 30A breaker pop is not something that should be ignored - this is plenty of current to melt things and start a fire. Disconnect everything until you find out the root cause of the problem.

Glad you found it. I was going to repeat what Rando has said. The thermal breakers were doing what they were designed to do. heat up, pop, cool down and reset, then repeat. When you have a direct short (like you do) then they just burn out to protect the system.

Fix the short and replace both thermal breakers as your current ones have been compromised.