Keep blowing battery fuse

[DonC]

I have a 2012 Fleet. Since my purchase last Feb I have had on-going difficulties with blowing the black cable battery fuse. It has two camper batteries, plus solar, and by day 2 or 3 I am usually down to no power. Other than my frig, I might use 30 minutes of 1 light, 10 minutes of the stove per day. This is also driving 50 - 100 miles a day and being in full sun. I'll check and there will be a blown battery fuse, always the same one (there may be other issues also, I don't know). This has happened on every trip I've taken. I am always fighting my power.

Several months after purchase it was checked at the factory in Sacramento and nothing was discovered. My first trip this summer, same thing. I am preparing now for a trip next week and discovered the fuse was blown again.


I've sent an email to the FWC but they weren't able to solve the problem when they had the camper at the factory. I don't know what to do. I have a huge investment in the two extra batteries and solar and it doesn't do me much good.

Any ideas?

 

[leadsled9]

Check behind your front panel for broken wires. Common problem and may only show up some times.

http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/6660-wire-shorts-at-the-front-lift-panel/page-2?hl=+wire

I had several wires partially broken....and at times the exact behavior that you describe was happening to me.

It's worth a look see.

 

[NorCalSteve]

I have a Hawk so my wires may differ from the Fleet. I have a black wire (negative) that goes from the solar charger to the battery that is fused. And the red wire (positive) also has a fuse. FWC used 5 amp fuses, which was too small, and would blow so I switched to 7.5 amp fuses. My solar panel is an 85 watt panel. A 10 amp fuse might even be a better choice. But I would be suprised if this was your problem since your battery still should charge when you drive.

I also had a 30 amp breaker, near the batteries, that continued to trip (and got warm to the touch) when the engine was running and possibly when charging from shore power or AC (it has been over a year so my memory is failing me). This may have been a faulty breaker but I replaced it with a manual reset 50 amp breaker. I don't understand everything real well but my alternator is 105 amp so I was thinking it might be possible to get more than 30 amps of charge from the truck alternator so I upped the breaker to 50 amps and decided to make it manual reset. I did the same for the breaker under the hood of the truck.

I carry a voltmeter that I can plug into the lighter to check the battery voltage. There are a number that are available. I bought this one and it seems to work fine. Others here use different methods. I don't pay too much attention to the LEDs below the display when using the meter in the camper. A charged battery with nothing hooked to it will be about 12.8 volts. This voltage will drop as soon as you hook anything to it. The more power the device draws from the battery, the lower the voltage will will drop so you probably would be lucky to see a reading of 12.8 volts. As the battery is consumed, the voltage will continue to drop. I try not to let my battery drop much below 12 volts. How low to allow you battery to go is a subject in itself.

You said the refrigerator was running on the battery. Is it a three way or compressor type refrigerator? A three way refrigerator will use very little power when it is ran on propane and you can't run it on DC while the engine is off without draining your batteries in short order. So I am thinking you have a compressor type refrigerator.

Most of my camping is in the trees so I do sometimes have trouble keeping my batteries charged (even wtih a three way fridge). It gets worse in the fall as the sun seems to spend more time behind trees.

Steve

 

[dsrtrat]

You should try taking an amp reading while the system is charging both batteries in their depleted state and see if the load is close to or greater than the fuse rating. If there was a short circuit the fuse would blow as soon as energized. If the short is in one of the secondary circuits it would blow the fuse at the power block but usually not the main.

If the fuse blows after working for some time it sounds like an overload condition.

Two batteries charging on a 10 gauge wire may have enough voltage drop to cause problems.

Try disconnecting one of the batteries at a time and see if the amp load is lower and the fuse stops blowing.

Check all connections for tightness and especially the wiring from the truck to the female plug and male plug to the camper. Open up these plugs and check the connections.

If that isn't the problem start disconnecting one circuit at a time starting with your solar until the problem is resolved. The problem could be in the solar controller or any other component. It also be a problem with the battery isolator overheating and causing enough resistance to blow the fuse.

In my opinion the wiring in these campers is their weakest point and it is shame the way these campers are wired using inferior wire and components.

Dsrtrat