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03-31-2009, 03:54 AM
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#1
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 40
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Water Heater Problems
Hello Everyone,
I have an 06 Seabreeze #1321 with a Atwood 10 gallon Hot Water Heater that I am having trouble with. Recently I turned the switch on and the red toggle switch lit up, however I did not see the little red light under the switch that says dsi light up like it usually does. I guess this is the Direct Spark Ign that starts the pilot. After I flip the switch I got this bad odor that was around the shower area and could not figure what it was until I got in the shower and had cold water. Does anyone have any ideas on what it could be? Maybe the circuit board or something else don't know much about them!
Thanks,
John
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03-31-2009, 11:30 AM
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#2
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Senior Member
Monaco Owners Club
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Yuma Arizona USA
Posts: 2,994
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Go to atwoodmobile.com and select troubleshooting guides under support center. Maybe that will help.
__________________
Brian, Loretta & Lucy (Golden Retriever)
2008 HR Endeavor 40 PDQ , ISL 400
2010 Dodge Ram 1500 Toad
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04-01-2009, 03:29 AM
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#3
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Moderator Emeritus
Country Coach Owners Club Appalachian Campers Gulf Streamers Club
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Chattanooga, Tn.
Posts: 12,060
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Check the connections of the water heater, especially the 120 vac connections and relay on the backside of the water heater. I have found many loose connections in this area and burnt wiring, relays and covers as a result. Most likely you will find the same.
__________________
Mike, RVIA & RVSA Certified Master RV Technician
Amy, Dr. Assistant - Roxie & Mei Ling, four legs each
2000 Gulf Stream Scenic Cruiser 450 hp & 1330# torque
06 Saturn Vue, 06 Chevy Z71 4x4 & 2014 Corvette Z51 M7
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04-01-2009, 08:53 AM
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#4
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Senior Member
Official iRV2 Sponsor
Monaco Owners Club Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Utah
Posts: 611
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I have recently had to replace my board three different times on that same atwood water heater. First it would not stay lit. Than when replaced it would not heat on electric. Than we replaced the board again and after a short time the board again went out on the gas side. We have both working right for about two months now. And believe me they dont warranty after the second board goes out.
__________________
Lee and Fran
Holiday Rambler Vacationer
While traveling down lives paths stop to smell the flowers.
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04-01-2009, 10:08 AM
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#5
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 40
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Thank you for your replies! When your board went out what happen? I turned the switch on and it started to put off this bad smell and I could not figure out were it was coming from until I tried to take a shower and the water was cold.
Thanks,
John
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04-01-2009, 11:39 AM
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#6
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Senior Member
Monaco Owners Club
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Yuma Arizona USA
Posts: 2,994
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Can you describe the bad smell? Was it like a burning smell or more like the rotten egg smell of raw propane?
__________________
Brian, Loretta & Lucy (Golden Retriever)
2008 HR Endeavor 40 PDQ , ISL 400
2010 Dodge Ram 1500 Toad
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04-02-2009, 02:41 AM
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#7
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Moderator Emeritus
Country Coach Owners Club Appalachian Campers Gulf Streamers Club
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Chattanooga, Tn.
Posts: 12,060
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MtManLee
I have recently had to replace my board three different times on that same atwood water heater. First it would not stay lit. Than when replaced it would not heat on electric. Than we replaced the board again and after a short time the board again went out on the gas side. We have both working right for about two months now. And believe me they dont warranty after the second board goes out.
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Replacing the boards is not repairing the problem. What is causing the boards to fail? I have always trained my guys, not to just treat the symptoms, but to find the problem and cure it. I would check into the possible issue of dirty DC out of the charging system. Let us know what you find.
__________________
Mike, RVIA & RVSA Certified Master RV Technician
Amy, Dr. Assistant - Roxie & Mei Ling, four legs each
2000 Gulf Stream Scenic Cruiser 450 hp & 1330# torque
06 Saturn Vue, 06 Chevy Z71 4x4 & 2014 Corvette Z51 M7
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04-02-2009, 03:43 AM
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#8
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 40
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I figured it out! It blew the Thermal Cutoff fusible link! I ordered a new one and should be back working soon. Thank you for all of your help!
Thanks,
John
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04-02-2009, 10:13 AM
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#9
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Senior Member
Official iRV2 Sponsor
Monaco Owners Club Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Utah
Posts: 611
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My boards went out because of parks with squirrely power poles and I have learned many have that problem. I now have a autoformer to keep my power withing limits thus I hope never knocking out another board.
__________________
Lee and Fran
Holiday Rambler Vacationer
While traveling down lives paths stop to smell the flowers.
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04-07-2009, 09:23 AM
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#10
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Senior Member
Workhorse Chassis Owner
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Savage, MD
Posts: 233
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Trouble Shooting Attwood
Their manual is awful for trouble shooting. Also their customer service does not give you logical steps for trouble shooting. After spring commissioning last Friday, the water heater would only run 2 minutes on gas and then shut down. I did this about 5 times, with a duration of about 20 minutes between tries.
Attwood told me to replace the ignitor, which is dumb, because it lit, the ignitor should be good, but I spent the $45 and almost a 2 hour round trip to get the part.. . . . the flame would not have lit at all if the igntor was bad.
Their next guess was the fuse link in the clear tubing. Cheap enough, only $13 to give a try. No luck. Now they said the board. Lucky for me, the RV store did not have a board in stock.
Sat. morning, the boss said did I know if there was water in the tank. Dumb question, as my main tank was full. Oh but, had I remembered to open the by-pass up after winterizing last fall. No, but that should not matter. Wrong.
Water heater works just fine - moral, they do not heat air fairly well. Back in business.
__________________
Bill N8HDW & Nancy N8HDV
2005 Sea Breeze 8341 on W-22 Chassis
2008 Saturn Vue I-4
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04-07-2009, 10:46 AM
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#11
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Moderator Emeritus
Nor'easters Club Workhorse Chassis Owner iRV2 No Limits Club
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 30,785
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Do not feel bad some of us have done the same thing. The only problem now if you were useing the 120v heater element it may be burnt out.
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04-07-2009, 11:22 AM
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#12
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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Fulltime- On the Road
Posts: 383
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BlueRibbon --- glad you discovered the problem before investing in a lot of unneeded parts!!! A couple of points for others that may have DSI ignition problems....
the Atwood ignites when the circuit board receives 12Volts DC from the water heater switch you mention. This switch may have a "light", or should cause a light to illuminate and when turned on should cause a second light (pilot failed) to momentarily illuminate. Some rigs may have green lights others may have amber or another color that indicates "heater on" or something similar. The second light most likely should be "red" in color and should indicate "pilot failed" or "ignition failed" or something similar. Once ignition occurs, which should only take about one second the red "pilot failed" light should extinguish.
WHen the gas heater switch is turned on 12 volts DC is applied thru a series circuit consisting of the thermo fuse, the ECO (emergency cut off) and the Tstat. The 12VDC is then to the circuit board and the board appies appropriate voltage to the propane gas valve causing it to open. Milliseconds later the board applies spark voltage to the igniter which hopefully causes ignition. Once the flame ignites the circuit board detects, or senses, the flame and the red "pilot failed" light is extinguished. Flame sensing, or detection, is done via the igniter. When flame touches the igniter and heats it red-hot a very, very, very, small micro-current is produced which the circuit board detects, or senses. This small micro-current then causes the board to turn off the "pilot failed" light. If the board fails to detect the micro-current, then the board will turn off the voltage to the propane valve stopping the gas flow and circuit board goes into fault mode and the red "pilot failed" light remains lit. Fault mode is reset by cycling the power switch (heater switch) off and on. Finally, when the water reaches temp, the Tstat opens and removes the 12VDC from the board and hence the gas valve closes and the flame extinguishes. When the temp drops, the tstat closes and the cycle repeats.
So, if the thermo fuse, the ECO, or the Tstat are open, or defective, then the circuit board will not open the propane gas valve and hence the Atwood will not ignite. Therefore, as you discovered, the Atwood directions to replace the Thermo fuse was basically worthless...since your atwood did ignite.
The atwood advise to replace the igniter was not that far off....as a bad igniter could produce ignition but a bad igniter could fail to detect, or sense, the resultant flame. In this situation cleaning the igniter could possibly remedy this. However, as you stated your Atwood stayed lit for two minutes.... and I'm betting the "pilot failed" light was extinguised and hence, the igniter did its job and detected the flame.
The Attwood rep should have asked if the "pilot failed" light was extinguised... which would most likely indicate the igniter was detecting flame.. and hence the problem most likely was elsewhere. Even so, 2 minutes after ignition the igniter could still have been the problem, failing to detect flame...but the "pilot failed" light still should have come on.
__________________
Roadking
2006 Country Coach Inspire. 51946
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07-19-2019, 08:38 PM
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#13
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 50
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Hi, when was the last time you added bleach to your fresh water tank? You could have bacteria build up and that does cause a bad odor.
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07-20-2019, 02:56 PM
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#14
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 26,692
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnM.
I figured it out! It blew the Thermal Cutoff fusible link! I ordered a new one and should be back working soon. Thank you for all of your help!
Thanks,
John
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Burnt wire insulation/burnt clear tubing..STINK
Thermal Cutoff blows when exposed to 190*F temp....this happens due to blow-back of gas flame out of combustion chamber/burner tube
That happens when either are obstructed.....
Should clean burner tube and combustion chamber so it doesn't happen again
Burner tube...small bottle brush
Combustion/Exhaust Chamber....run a wire up thru it, tie rag to wire then pull it back thru doing a chimney sweep
Atwood OEM Fault Light ONLY comes on under couple of conditions
1) Propane flame doesn't light/PROVE it lit
2) ECO Opens.....since it will auto reset the fault light is a visual that the ECO tripped.
Trips to shutdown ALL heating ---ELECTRIC or PROPANE
When using Electric a millivolt signal goes from circuit board thru ECO to gas valve to ground. Millivolt signal lost circuit board shuts down DC and triggers Fault
Same on Propane except 12VDC
RV MFGs may have lighted on/off switches or LED Indicators but OEM Fault is only lit when a fault occurs
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I took my Medication today. HAVE YOU?
Dodge 3500 w/Tractor Motor
US NAVY---USS Decatur DDG-31
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