Electrical problem, inverter, Batts, orher?

[Captjake1]

Ok, so we started fulltiming 10 days ago. Today, unhooked from pedestal power and started hearing a very loud Humm from the box that contains all of the relays, solenoids and fuses. I can feel the ox buzzing, but cannot isolate a specific item in there that is buzzing or humming. All connections are tight in there also.

When I got to our new location, the fridge was a good 10 degrees warmer than it should be. Didn't check it prior to plugging back into shore power.

Invertor compartment was very warm and the fans were working overtime. After some troubleshooting with Magnum, I am equalizing the batteries right now and voltage seemed to be a little low and dropped off quicker than it should.

I have isolated that when the inverter is on, the humm/buzz occurs in the relay compartment (the inverter is just running fans for noise). When I turn the investor off at the Magnum panel, the noise stopped (when not connected to shore power). I have tried every action circuit and even the main 50 amp breaker, makes no difference.

Twice when testing I got a fault and over temp error at the Magnum panel.

The noise does go away and all seems normal when connected to shore power.

If the batteries are going bad, would it cause that much of a draw to overheat the inverter? Assuming there is excessive load on the inverter...being transfered to 'something' in the powered management box?

No Mobile techs in the area. Short of just throwing money at it...I am not really sure where you look next.

Thanks in advance

[SSRice]

I have had crazy electrical problems in the past, most recently it was 1 bad AGM battery in the bank of 4.
Bad grounds can cause weird issues as well. I know you mention all connections are good but it may worth finding the grounding bar in the rear run bay and loosen, clean and re-torque all grounding terminals.

Is the buzz you hear coming from the battery isolator in that same RR bay.

[YC1]

Any chance there is a GFCI nearby? Some will buzz when powered by a modified sine wave inverter.

[Captjake1]

GFCI was recommended by the repair shop, it is on the other side of the coach.
I will see again tomorrow when I get home. Monaco suggested checking voltage atoss the inverter fuse also.
The main ground buss bar must behind something in that box. It doesn't jump out at me.

[Bob (WA0MQE)]

If you haven't done so already check all your cable to battery and cable to inverter end connections. Check means remove each connector and make sure the connections are clean and there's no corrosion between the connector and cable. Also make sure their clean and tight. 90% of inverter problems are battery and/or connection problems.
Do a load test on each individual battery and check each cell with the float gauge. Make sure the inverter/charger goes thru all it's charge modes.

[kketterling]

Harbor Freight sells a battery load test for about $15. That will tell you quickly the condition of the batteries. How old are they?

[Captjake1]

Well, I took the batteries out and took them to a shop to have them load tested. They tested fine. I bought a hydrometer check the acid. It is all well within the fair to good area. I clean every connection I could find underneath ground and likewise. Put it all back together and it still have the same problem.
So now, I think the buzz is coming from the inverter itself. I can feel the negative battery cable Buzz at the same frequency that I'm hearing the sound I think it's getting transmitted from the inverter.
Still have the issue with them when I take off shore power and going inverter the batteries drop voltage very quickly.
I also had one technician tell me to not install AGM batteries. Which I am planning on doing when the time comes. Thoughts on that?

[Captjake1]

....and then a GFCI breaker decided to die. What the...? $50 and at least that is fixed.

[dmastroluca]

Originally Posted by Captjake1

I also had one technician tell me to not install AGM batteries. Which I am planning on doing when the time comes. Thoughts on that?

Got rid of our AGM's last year. Replaced them with 4 - 12V wet cells from AutoZone. Installed a watering system on them and water every month. Solar keeps them fresh when in storage. We have not had any issues and we are still getting long run times when boondocking. The lower cost of the battery pays for the watering system and more.

[Captjake1]

Had to buy a true rms voltage tester. Determined I only had 96 volts coming out of the inverter when inverting.
Remanufactered Magnum pure sine inverter installed seems to have solved the issues.
Batteries tested well all three times I tested them.
Getting a replacement sea-level solenoid to replace the big boy and a battery monitoring kit to add to the Magnum to show SOC. The big boy is suspect and this new solenoid comes highly recommended

[nothermark]

FWIW I just saw the thread and wondered why you were doing all the battery testing when it was clearly an Inverter problem as long as it happened when you were running in Inverter mode. If you would have used your meter to check the battery voltage under load and it was maintaining 12 VDC or so then they were not the problem.

[Captjake1]

Originally Posted by nothermark

FWIW I just saw the thread and wondered why you were doing all the battery testing when it was clearly an Inverter problem as long as it happened when you were running in Inverter mode. If you would have used your meter to check the battery voltage under load and it was maintaining 12 VDC or so then they were not the problem.

I don't know about another thread,. This is the only one I have been working on.
Batteries because ALL of the technicians I talked to said it was either bad connections or batteries.

[10Boomer]

Originally Posted by Captjake1

I don't know about another thread,. This is the only one I have been working on.

Batteries because ALL of the technicians I talked to said it was either bad connections or batteries.

Capt you have to hate electrical issues. To hard to track the difficult ones. Hope you get it resolved.


Sent from my iPhone using iRV2 - 2008 Monaco Camelot 40 PDQ

[bruceisla]

Originally Posted by Captjake1

Had to buy a true rms voltage tester. Determined I only had 96 volts coming out of the inverter when inverting.
Remanufactered Magnum pure sine inverter installed seems to have solved the issues.
Batteries tested well all three times I tested them.
Getting a replacement sea-level solenoid to replace the big boy and a battery monitoring kit to add to the Magnum to show SOC. The big boy is suspect and this new solenoid comes highly recommended

Glad you got it fixed. The additional items are worth installing.