Intellitec Help request

[wildtoad]

Found out two things this mormning as I was leaving the campground. One the chassis battery is not being charged while plugged in although it is supposed to.(needed a jump as ..>) Two the Emergency start switch is not effective. Looked in the Intellitec manual and it says to reset the circuit breaker. No help there. So before I schedule a trip to CW to have them look, any ideas that a novice can do?

This is not an emergency as I can a) charge the battery (done did it), and b) can buy some jumper cables to jump it from the aux battery.

[EngineerMike]

High amp solenoids have a habit of burning the contacts a bit as they make & break contact if there is a meaningful voltage difference. House & chassis batteries can be off by enough to cause this. Over time, you can get charred bits that interrupt proper contact across the fat terminals on an intertie solenoid. Sounds like you have the same situation.

I took one apart for fun, saw the damage, buffed up the contacts (they were copper contacts but silver coated, the arcing burned off enough of the silver to leave copper exposed at the contact's center). Put the gizmo back together w/small bolts where I had drilled out rivets. If yo do the same, try some dielectric grease on the contacts (i didn't do that & don't expect much service out of this spare when I put it into use, but it'll do in a pinch).

You can diagnose this by having someone hit your Emergency Start switch, while you measure volts across the fat terminals; should read same voltage as one batt bank on one stud, voltage of other bank on other stud before hitting switch; should read same voltage on both studs if making proper contact. When there is a 0.2V difference contacted, you've got enough resistance in the contacts that its time to change the solenoid.

You can also check using ohms across the two fat studs. Contacted it should read near zero ohms. If you contact, decontact, contact, decontact & get different ohms each time, that's the charred bits of contact material getting in the way of making proper contact. I had small granules that moved around in what was left of the OEM dielectric grease.

If you hit the switch & nothing happens, you either have trouble on that circuit (not getting signal to solenoid properly), or the coil has an 'open' in the windings (would read infinite ohms or O.L. across two small studs).

[RV Wizard]

You should have what is call the Battery Control Center mounted on the firewall. It is a black plastic box with a detachable cover. Inside you will find fuses and circuit breakers to check for the battery disconnect circuits. Good luck and keep us posted.

[wildtoad]

Originally Posted by RV Wizard

You should have what is call the Battery Control Center mounted on the firewall. It is a black plastic box with a detachable cover. Inside you will find fuses and circuit breakers to check for the battery disconnect circuits. Good luck and keep us posted.

Yep checked it out. All fuses good and the one cb appears good too. Thanks for the response.

[Gary RVRoamer]

The same solenoid is probably used for both - basically the charge controller uses the Au sart relay to parallel the batteries when the chassis battery needs charging from the house 12v system/charger.

If you have an Intelletec BCC, it will not charge the chassis batteries until the house reaches a threshold voltage - 13.3v on mine. Thus, if a house battery is bad, the voltage is dragged down below the threshold and the chassis never gets charged.

But since your Aux Start doesn't work either, my guess is that you have either lost power to that solenoid or the solenoid itself has failed.

[wildtoad]

Originally Posted by Gary RVRoamer

The same solenoid is probably used for both - basically the charge controller uses the Au sart relay to parallel the batteries when the chassis battery needs charging from the house 12v system/charger.

If you have an Intelletec BCC, it will not charge the chassis batteries until the house reaches a threshold voltage - 13.3v on mine. Thus, if a house battery is bad, the voltage is dragged down below the threshold and the chassis never gets charged.

But since your Aux Start doesn't work either, my guess is that you have either lost power to that solenoid or the solenoid itself has failed.

Thanks. House battery is good. Made an appt. to have it checked out next Friday. I'll post what is determined. And it is the Intelletec BCC.

[wildtoad]

Just to close the loop on this and thanks to those that responded. What I was told was that a) there was a wiring issue, and b) the chassis battery was bad. The latter I suspected so was not surprised. Time will tell if all is well.