"Da Box" under the hood?

[JimM68]

Subject is a 1999 Pace Arrow Vision, a 36ft class A on a Ford V10 F53 chassis.

Under the hood, in front of the friver, is a box full of wires, 3 relays, and a circuit board with come lil relays, integrated circuits, and a bunch of fuses.

I'm after a better understanding of this lil box.

I know:

3 BIG relays, one each are the house and coach disconnects, the third is the "JUMP" relay, it connects the house and coach batteries together.

The fuses in here are for the things that fleetwood added to the CHASSIS. ("coach 12v fuses are in the panel under the refer)

This box has the main function of managing battery charging.
This is the part I need to understand better.

Last year, I found the house battery going flat WAY too often. Troubleshooting it, I found that the main engine alternator was not charging the house battery at all ever.

I "fixed" this by putting a kjumper between the IGNITION fuse and the JUMP relay solenoid. This energizes the jump relay whenever that V10 is running, and effectively connects the house and coach electrical systems at the source.

I did some tests today.

.....................HOUSE.........Coach
at rest...........12.45v.............12.6v
V10 running....14.13v.............14.18v
jumper off.......12.45..............14.18
Plugged in.......13.51..............12.52
genny on........13.4................12.5

So... the V10 only charges the chassis battery.

The A/C - intellipower 9100 charger only charges the house battery.

My jumper makes the V10 charge the house battery.

How's this system supposed to work?

How does that lil solar panel on the front a/c figure in?

I want ALL my battery's to stay charged all the time.

Last summer, I had several incidents while traveling where I needed to use the jump switch to get the genny going because the house batteries were dead (before adding my jumper wire!)

I also had a couple incidents where (after camping or parking in my drivway several days on shore power) where I had to start the genny and use the JUMP switch to get the V10 to crank up. (Coach battery was dead.)

Unit sits a lot so solar will be needed as well. How does that lil solar panel on the front a/c figure in?

I've read that there is an accessory for the Intellipower 9100 (battery magic?? or sumptin) that will keep it from cooking the batteries?
My 9100 is buried pretty deep under the fridge, how can I tell if I have that accessory gizmo?

[Old Bounder]

Give me an e-mail address and I'll send you the wiring diagram for "Da Box" and a trouble shooting guide that should explain the operation quite well.

[Old Bounder]

BTW - You don't have the "wizard" for your PD-9100. Contact www.bestconverter.com and order one.

That center solenoid that does the charging can easily be repaired or replaced.

The little solar panel on the top AC unit is just a trickle charger. Don't count on it doing much.l

[JimM68]

Thanks Lou.
I know it didn't come with the wizard, just wondering how to tell if it's been added before I bought the coach last year...

Not suure what you mean by "center solenoid that does the charging" but if it is the "JUMP" solenoid I was talking about, it works just fine if I hot wire it, and it also works fine if I hit the emergency start switch on the dash, but it is not getting a signal from the PCB. From what I read, the board should let the alternator fully charge the coach battery, and then start charging the house batteries?

Any idea how that lil solar panel is wired?
I would think even a trickle charger would keep the coach battery up when the MH is parked for a few weeks, but it doesn't. The red light lights when the sun shines.

[Old Bounder]

The little solar panel is wired through fuse 18 on the BCC circuit board directly to the house battery. It is very impotent.

Intellitec makes a device called a BIRD (does the function of the Bi-Directional Isolator Delay) circuit on the BCC board. That would be a good replacement if your board is bad. You could also wire up a Trik-L-Start device to replace the bad circuit.

You could continue to use your jumper, but it doesn't give you any protection from the house batteries draining the chassis batteries if they runn low while camping or in storage.

Let me know if i can be of further help.

As for the wizard on the converter. If you have one, it will be plugged into a phone style jack on the converter. It was incorporated inside on the newer 9200's

[JimM68]

Thanks for the info Lou. Another day, I'm gonna try to troubleshoot the pcb, will also call RC Custom Products and get cost on a new board, saw one on ebay, but $150 seems a lil steep. I would like it to be working properly again, particularly if I shell out some bucks for a good set of 6 volt house batterys.

[wa8yxm]

Is there a name, such as "Inetlletec Battery Control Center" on the front of the da-box

If so put a www and com on the first word or put the whole phrase into Google and visit the customer service pages (Tech Support?) for the diagram.. I did

And after doing that and figuring out what was wrong I was able to fix mine when it malfunctioned.. For a total cost of.. Drum roll please: $0.00

[Seajay]

a word to the wise concerning ''Da Box'' ,.. I found this out the hard way.
On the outside of ''Da Box'' you will see several nut and screw type connectors with wires hanging from them. these wires have insulating caps on them and they are simply ''hanging on the screw''. Over time, with the jiggling and wiggling of the coach they have a tendancy to do two things. By some strange fate the nuts will come undone just enough that the contact between the fitting and the screw post will come unreliable and you will get some really weard stuff that will drive you nuts.
The second thing is that the wires will actually wear into .... this aint so bad except there is at least one occasion where two wires are encased in one sleave protector and you dont notice that one of the wires is broken...... At every oil change (i change my own oil) I check/wiggle these wires to be my nuts are tight and my screw shafts are right....
One more thing .......
In my ''box'' when you open the front of it you look down at the left hand corner in the back and you see two little silver relays with a ''reset button'' on the front of them. These control the power to your coach. If they kick out, YOU GOT NO POWER NO WHERE IN YOUR COACH. .... I have had to reset mine once when I hired Gomer to try to fix my jacks that quit working. I used a pencil erasor to push them back in ........
This valuable information will cost you ten cents if you use it and you have to pay me the next time you see me. Of course. If it dont work for you ....
I NEVER KNEW YOU ................LOL .............
Seajay the sailor man

[mythplaced]

Originally Posted by Seajay

....I check/wiggle these ......to be my nuts are tight and my screw shafts are right....

Yea, I do too

[JimM68]

absolutely... right shafts and tight nuts, got it.
After thinking about pulling the board out and trying to fix it... well without the board the rig is dead, and it's been a few years since I've tried to 'shoot a discrete circuit without a schematic. So I broke down and ordered one today, from Fleetwood, $160 plus shipping, should have it in a week.

[JimM68]

ok, this is all too wierd.

Last weekend I put a charge wizard on the 9100, and all was good. It charged the batteries then cut the voltage to 13.2 and sat there. The coach was in my driveway, plugged in to shore power all week.
Since my RV Custom product CB115 board was bad, I had my good battery cvharger plugged in and hooked to the chassis battery.
No problems all week like this.

Yesterday I put in the new CB115 board, and I powered the rig up this morning. I noted right away that it was now charging both batteries, and put it out of mind, busy day, scratched it off the list and moved on.

This afternoon, the kids noticed a very strong sulfer smell by the coach. A quick walk around revealed the house battery was boiling so hard it was SMOKING!
Way hot too. I unplugged the shore power ASAP. Disconnected the battery. Nut was almost hot enough to burn. Battery very hot. Checked voltage at the battery. 10.7 volts.

This battery was on my list to replace anyway, but... I need the charging system to be solid first.
I just spent $200 on the charging system. It had never done this before. After the battery cooled down I hooked it back up but left shore power off.
I also noticed later that when I fired up rthe V10, chassis volts never went over 13, and the engine sounded very heavily loaded at idle. Normally she just ticks over at idle, and voltage is 14.2.

I didn't have any time to check stuff out. Coach is back in the storage lot now.
Anyone have any ideas what might be going on here?
I can't see that CB115 board doing this... at least not all of it.

[Old Bounder]

Assuming you wired the CB115 correctly, I doubt it is the problem. The board just picks solenoids and routes voltage to and from the batteries, it does not generate, or amplify, any voltages.

At 10.7 volts I think your house battery developed a shorted cell. Charging it to 13.2 or 13.6 would certainly make it boil.

You can physically disconnect the house battery the next you power up the unit and check the converter output.

[wa8yxm]

I agree with LouLong.. 10.5 volts and smoking is a shorted cell.

The PDI 9100 series with a charge wizard pluggd in is what I call an OUTSTANDING converter.. Outstanding means it is on the list of "BEST" converters but it has at least one feature that makes it even better

You simply can not get better than OUTSTANDING

Another Outstanding converter is the charger seciton of a Xantrex Prosine. (Different feature)

I have to add water to my PDI charged house batteries... Once a year.. Or less.

[Captain Morgan]

Rather than starting a new thread, I'll just add to this one.

I have a 2003 Pace Arrow 37A that I'm having charging problems that I believe are related to the CB115 board. Here's the symptoms;

The alternator will not charge the house batteries unless I engage the emergency start button while driving down the road. I overcome this (for now) by wedging a small piece of plastic in the switch to keep it engaged.

When the engine isn't running and I'm either running the generator or connected to shore power, the chassis battery doesn't charge unless I use the emergency start switch as I stated earlier.

Based on reading post on this fourm, it appears the CB115 is the culprit but i'd really like some guidance or a copy of the troubleshooting guide before I just replace it.

Any advice?