'04 Damon Escaper w/12v problem.

[rgreen45]

We're having a cold spell in SoFla and my neighbor turned on the furnace in his '04 Damon Escaper. When he did, it cycled a couple times, no heat, then shut down. He also lost 12v power to the slide rooms, fridge, and w/h. I have climbed this coach from stem to stern looking for a resettable breaker to no avail. The "house" fuse box in the bedroom has about 12 15 amp fuses, all good. Everything I found in the left front lower compartment (mostly chassis stuff) was all good.

All interior lights work, water pump works, and everything 120v except appliances mentioned works. It's a Freightliner chassis.

I feel certain there's a resettable breaker tripped somewhere but I can't find it. Also, I verified a good ground as well as proper operation of the inverter/charger. Got 13.40 at house batteries.

[TAZ]

Are you sure you have a good ground all the way to the house battery?

[rgreen45]

Acting on a tip from MartyBandy, the problem is cured. Seems as though the LP detector is wired to not only shut down the LP valve, but the 12v to appliances and slides as well.

I spent all evening looking for bad connections, blown fuses, inadequate grounds, etc. but found nothing. The next morning I called my neighbor to tell him to power down/up his LP detector and he told me everything was working. If indeed it was the LPD, we must have reset it during our troubleshooting but failed to notice that the eyebrow board on the fridge was back on.

[rgreen45]

Ok, I retract my last post. The problem is still there. Bob's furnace came on during the night and shut everything down again, or so he suspects. I checked wiring on the LP detector and it doesn't even cut off the ASME propane tank. It's nothing more than an alarm.

I'll go over this morning and check the CO2 detector and then put the ECT2000 on one of the appliance circuits and trace it backwards.

[rgreen45]

Update:

After further review, the problem is in the 12v fuse panel in the bedroom. Specifically, the bus bar where all the (5) ground wires plug in seems to have intermittent contact.

"Wiggling" wires makes appliances on & off but as of yet no firm assessment as to which specific wire(s) is/are suspect. If indeed I confirm that the problem is solely ground related, I'll install a bus bar and re-ground all circuits.

[rgreen45]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgreen45 Update: After further review, the problem is in the 12v fuse panel in the bedroom. Specifically, the bus bar where all the (5) ground wires plug in seems to have intermittent contact.

In afterthought, this can't be right as I checked power supply to each appliance with an independent ground. I also checked continuity to frame of the ground wires. I had ground at the appliances but no 12v. Regardless, the problem is in the fuse panel somewhere. Bob said he had trouble with it when the coach was new as well.

[wa8yxm]

Glad you found it... I too have furnace issues. not so inexpensive though.

[rgreen45]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wa8yxm Glad you found it... I too have furnace issues. not so inexpensive though.

What's up with your furnace?

[wa8yxm]

Mine will start, run for a few seconds and shut down.

It appears the control board is toast.. I have caused the flame sensor to become hot and measured the output voltage and it's in range, but the mother board is not sensing it, All connections have been made and re-made often enough that I do not think a bad connection is the issue.


So the next step is to find a mother board tester and ..plug it in, This means a visit to a dealer who has one. Then, if my suspicisions are correct I get to throw money at it, over 100 bucks for that )(@#*$@ board.

[rgreen45]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wa8yxm So the next step is to find a mother board tester and ..plug it in, This means a visit to a dealer who has one. Then, if my suspicisions are correct I get to throw money at it, over 100 bucks for that )(@#*$@ board.

Seems you've got it figured out. We often use an aftermarket board .... Dinosaur is the brand. We've saved folks a lot of money and our parts guru said Dinosaur is good to offer tech help/assistance, etc.