Blown Chassis Battery Fuse?

[lonestarace]

Hi:
While doing some maintenance in the battery compartment of our 2000 Monaco Signature 43' Caesar I found 1 of the 4 chassis battery fuses was blown. Funny, because everything is working? The fuse holder with the blown fuse(20 amp?) has an orange 8 gauge wire. I tried replacing the fuse w/another, but it blew immediately. The other 3 fuse holders have red 12 gauge wire and lesser capacity fuses.
I tried tracing the wire but found that was pretty much impossible. Does any body know what this fuse is for and what may be causing it to blow?

Thanks In Advance

[lonestarace]

I'll answer my own post.

I talked with Rob at Monaco and he said it is for the solar panel. This makes since because the RV-30 Charge Controller above the frig has been unreliable, but the solar system is keeping both the house and chassis bats charged. I've been meaning to send the controller to Heliotrope(CA) for repair. I'll now do it for sure.

Don

[lonestarace]

Mike Dice w/wwwSolarconrepair was able to repair($60+ship) the Heliotrope General RV30 solar controller in our 00 Signature. The chassis battery solar fuse doesn't blow anymone

[Mike Canter]

Don, I am glad it all worked out for you. On my 2004 Sig I believe I have found three fuses like yours in my battery compartment. One is for the engine ECU, another for the Allison and the other for the solar panel controller. There maybe a fourth hidden in there somewhere.

[slickest1]

Hi Don just seen you post. Yesterday I was working on my coach tracking down electrical problems and found the same fuse blown. On mine there is a fuse to the chassis battery bank, and another to the coach bank. The charge controller was giving a funny read out and I changed the fuse and now there is no readout. Looks like I will be sending my unit in for repair. I thought I would have to replace it but thanks to your post I see I have a cheaper alternative. Thanks Dennis.

[lonestarace]

Mike:
thanks for the info. Makes sense. Our 00 Sig has 4 of these fuses in the engine bat compartment, and our 02 Sig has 5. The 5th fuse is probably for the keyless entry system that the 02 has? The keyless entry works even with the bat switches off.

Dennis:
Glad to give back to the forum a little :-)

There are 2 different makers of the Heliotrope RV30 solar controllers. Look on the front of your controller for the location of where it was made.

One was made in Spring Valley, CA and is now supported by Mike Dice with Solarcon. If the LCD display is bad, he is no longer able to get this part.

The other was made In Eugene, OR and is now supported by AMsolar.

The problems I was having with my controller are as follows:
1) Getting too hot(160degrees) when out in sunlite
2) It would never show any + amps
3) 00.0 voltage indication for chassis bat(blown fuse)
4) LEDs rarely came on

The strange thing is that even with these problems my batteries stayed charged when in outdoor storage.

Had Mr. Dice w/Solarconrepair been unable to repair my RV30 controller, I was gonna purchase the "Morningstar Sunsaver Duo" for about $145.

[lonestarace]

Here is something I didn't know about and isn't in the owner manuals. There are 4 float charge dip switches on the back of the Heliotrope RV30 solar controllers that need to be set based on the type house batteries you have. There is a decal on the back of the controller that shows what the different float voltages available from the controller based on the different dip switch position combinations. Our Lifeline AGM batteries should be float charged at about 13.4 volts. LLA batteries like a higher float charge voltage.

The chassis battery charge voltage is non-adjustable. The decal on the backside will state what your controller is set at.

We hope this helps?

[slickest1]

Thanks again Don, I will have to check mine. I first had an alternator problem and the the starting battery went bad. Somewhere in the midst of this the readout on the charge controller was acting strange. I checked the fuses and the one to the starting battery was blown. It was a 25 amp fuse and the fuse to the house batteries was only 10 amp. After replacing the fuse I looked at the readout and it is blank. I am thinking PO had put too big of fuse in. I checked with a test light and there is still juice coming from the solar panel. Again thanks for the info. Dennis