New Eagle Power Problems

[Garymc]

I picked up my Eagle last week and am having some power issues with it now... Today I was in the camper stocking it and found that the power would not come on (yes, I pulled the red knob).
I turned on the truck to see what would happen. The lights came on just fine, but when I powered up the furnace the separator audibly clicked off and then clicked back on ten'ish seconds later. This happened when I turned on any of the powered items, not just with the furnace.
I checked all of the fuses and breakers, but they seems to be intact. I also check the wiring connections and they seem to be fine also.
One more thing, when the red knob is pulled the battery monitor switch shows no charge at all, whereas yesterday it was fully charged.

So the gist of it is that the camper is powered when the truck is running, but is not when the truck is off.

Ideas? Bad camper battery? Bad separator?

 

[snow hunter]

It sounds like it is the camper battery to me.
How old is the camper battery?
You might want to get it tested because it sounds like it only has 12 volt power when it is getting charged and not holding juice on it's own.
good luck with getting some juice to your eagle.

 

[Seemore]

I has this problem and it turned out the my trucks stock ground was faulty and grounding directly to the frame solved it,

 

[Garymc]

I'm a moron. I left the fridge switch in the DC position on for two days, I assume that that would drain the battery deader than a doornail.... I've plugged in the camper n to the house AC and have pulled the red knob out. The red knob needs to be out for the batt. to charge, right?

Hopefully this was the cause of the problem....

 

[Garymc]

Could leaving the fridge DC switch on for so long have caused problems with any of the other charging components?

 

[Jack]

I'm a moron. I left the fridge switch in the DC position on for two days...

Some of us are more practiced at this technique .

After having killed one battery in this manner, I installed a BatteryBrain last summer. I've only managed to engage it twice since then! We like to run on DC when on the road to save propane and also because DC seems to keep a more even temperature. On DC the fridge doesn't go below 38F, but if it is cold outside, it's easy to drop down to 22F on propane. Lettuce is just not the same after that.

Yes, the battery is charged when running on 110 VAC shore power. It's a trickle charge (unless you get the add on to the Iota converter), so give it 24 to 48 hours for a full charge.

Unfortunately, fully discharging the battery shortens its life. All lead acid batteries have a life that is shortened by both the number of discharge cycles and the depth of discharge.

 

[pvstoy]

Good way to toast a battery

No but you did kill off some years of life on the battery.

Refrigerator pulls 10 amps and will make a battery deader than a door nail in no time. The on board charger is not going to charge that dead battery very well. It is only a 2 amp trickle charger to help maintain a battery. Buy you a good automatic charger and let it do it’s thing at 10 amps and when it cycles off switch it over to 2 amp for overnight. Good luck

 

[Garymc]

I bought a new deep cycle battery and had the charge checked (I have a use for it if it is not needed in the camper), it is at 100%. So, I hooked it up and flipped on one of the light switches and they light turned on for about 10 seconds and then the separator made a "clunk" sound and the power to the camper shut down.

WTF?

Stan, you read this board on Sundays?

 

[DirtyDog]

I bought a new deep cycle battery and had the charge checked (I have a use for it if it is not needed in the camper), it is at 100%. So, I hooked it up and flipped on one of the light switches and they light turned on for about 10 seconds and then the separator made a "clunk" sound and the power to the camper shut down.

WTF?

Stan, you read this board on Sundays?

I can appreciate your frustration with this, but the quickest way to get this resolved is going to be to email FWC directly. Stan is here as a courtesy, this board is not meant to be an official outlet for FWC warranty and support.

 

[Garymc]

I can appreciate your frustration with this, but the quickest way to get this resolved is going to be to email FWC directly. Stan is here as a courtesy, this board is not meant to be an official outlet for FWC warranty and support.

Oh, I know, it was kind of a joke. I'll be bugging first thing in the morning.

It is very frustrating though...

 

[Yukon]

This is probably why I don't use a refrigerator.

 

[Garymc]

So, it turns out that the negative battery cable 15A fuse was toast, I only thought there was one on the positive cable.
I'm not sure why the fuse was blown though.... I replaced it and everything seems to be good to go, power works fine. I am concerned about dealing with this in the field though.