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Old 04-17-2016, 10:58 AM   #43
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Hypoxia,

First congrats on the new Monaco! I'll look forward to your posts about the projects on the new coach.

Solar. It's on my project list. Would you share what type panels you installed, how many, how you secured them to the roof, did you run the feeder cable down the chimney, what model inverter you chose, and anything else that would a good thing to know. Inquiring minds want to know!

If you already posted this info, please share the link.

On the batteries, your solution to add 2 more was so simple. Just remove the battery holders! I've been looking at adding more battery but was over thinking it with how to add another shelf in the battery bay.

Take care!


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Old 04-17-2016, 11:02 AM   #44
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Dave you might also want to think about a higher profile battery for your upgrade if you go with AGMs. You won't need to access them for maintenance so you can use more of the vertical height in your battery bay.
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Old 04-17-2016, 11:05 AM   #45
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Dave you might also want to think about a higher profile battery for your upgrade if you go with AGMs. You won't need to access them for maintenance so you can use more of the vertical height in your battery bay.

Good idea. I'll keep that in mind!

Thank you, Santa!




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Old 04-17-2016, 11:50 AM   #46
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Great thread.. Keep the project and updates coming!! For those of use considering similar vintage RV's this is extremely helpful!

In regards to Klipsch, if you haven't listened to them I would suggest doing so before you buy. Some love them while others don't... I fall into the don't category actually listed to their higher end home line (not what Best Buy sells) just last week at a local audio shop and I am not a fan at all. That being said if you have a local shop that sells their product you might be able to get them for close to the online prices. Typically 60-80% off msrp is what the shop pays for the speakers so they might be willing to work with you if it's something you want. I think there are much better options especially since you are a DIY kind of person...
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Old 04-17-2016, 05:46 PM   #47
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Trading in good sound for bad??

Re: Speakers;

Please be careful before you give up on those Bose speakers over the Klipsch ones !!!! I could not Imagine that they all of a sudden managed to produce a speaker set that would be better then any Bose set ?
If you (really) don't like the Bose ones try for Mission or Keff or even Martin-Logan or Mordaunt-Short (if you like your music.) But don't replace a pretty descent set with a pretty poor (or in my opinion bad) set !

Best regards,

Ed
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Old 04-17-2016, 08:11 PM   #48
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Great thread.. Keep the project and updates coming!! For those of use considering similar vintage RV's this is extremely helpful!

In regards to Klipsch, if you haven't listened to them I would suggest doing so before you buy. Some love them while others don't... I fall into the don't category actually listed to their higher end home line (not what Best Buy sells) just last week at a local audio shop and I am not a fan at all. That being said if you have a local shop that sells their product you might be able to get them for close to the online prices. Typically 60-80% off msrp is what the shop pays for the speakers so they might be willing to work with you if it's something you want. I think there are much better options especially since you are a DIY kind of person...
NC25T,

Thank you for your recommendation on listening to them at a local shop. That does make sense.

Also, thank you for reading my thread and for the encouragement to continue. I have plenty of fodder to generate more posts.

Take Care!
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Old 04-17-2016, 09:17 PM   #49
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Project: House Batteries and Battery Control Center (BCC)

This is another project from October 2014 and will cover the house batteries and the Intellitec Battery Control Center. Sorry no pictures.

Setting the stage.

As mentioned in earlier posts, the Rev we purchased needed some TLC. Several things weren't working properly and the house batteries and charging system was one of them.

When we inspected the coach the 12V stuff in the coach was acting a bit strange. The place we purchased the coach from was a used heavy equipment dealer. The Rev was the owner's coach and he had his mechanics service what they could. They were fine with mechanical stuff like oil changes, brakes, etc but knew even less than I did at the time about anything inside.

When we inspected the coach the batteries were down. Figured it was because the coach had sat for several months and not plugged in to shore power. Asked them to throw a charger on the batteries which they did for me.

Once the batteries charged a bit, things inside the coach started to work. We checked out everything noting all the stuff we'd have to correct if we purchased the coach. Armed with the list of items to be corrected, we did get a few more grand off the asking price. Deal.

After the purchase transaction was completed, my bride and I headed east from outside of Columbus, OH back home to Delaware. The further we traveled the weaker the house batteries became to the point where the steps wouldn't fully retract. We made it home in one piece.

Time to see what is going on.

We have 4 - 6V Interstate GC2 deep cycle batteries. The first thing I checked was the water level in the batteries. I pulled the caps on the battery and looked inside. Hmmmmm. Nice plates but probably shouldn't be exposed to the air.

Pretty sure the batteries are toast but let's add some water to the batteries. I put in nearly 2 gallons of distilled water. Yikes!

Charged them overnight. Checked voltage on each battery. A couple were about 6V and the others where something like 5.7V. Not good at all. Might was well check the specific gravity. Yep, same readings of being really, really discharged.

Let's see. Guess I'll pull them out and take them to a battery shop so they can put their fancy tester on it. Yep, tested bad. Each battery had at least one cell shorted. Time to purchase new batteries.

With my wallet much lighter after trading in the old batteries for new, I installed them. Sure are a lot of connections on the batteries and glad I snapped a photo so I could get it right when I reattached the cables. All right, that is done.

Next, let's check out the charging system. Checked out the books that came with the coach. I also contacted American Coach and requested some more information. Deb at American Coach was very helpful and sent me a bunch of stuff on the 12V and 120V electrical system. Love having schematics!

I read up on how the Battery Control Center (BCC) was supposed to work. Let's see:
  • House batteries should be charging when connected to shore power. Check!
  • Chassis batteries should be charging if below 12.6V and plugged in to shore power. No go!
  • House batteries should have a trickle charge from the little, tiny solar panel when not plugged in to shore power. No Go!
  • Chassis batteries should charge while engine is running. Check!
  • House batteries should charge while the engine is running. No Go.

I did some troubleshooting of the BCC circuit board. Well, I see a couple of spots that look like a bad connection. I pulled out the board. Yep. A couple of the circuit board traces are blown and one of the connector pins is flopping in the breeze. Repaired the obvious problems and looked it over some more. Nothing else to do but try is out in the coach. Reinstalled and test. Hmmm. No change.

Next step was to research repair options. Let's turn to iRV2.com. Did a search and found out I was not alone with BCC problems. Came across a post that spoke highly of M & M Electronic Repair in Ohio. Gave them a call and spoke with Mark. He worked with me over the phone to make sure I had checked all the obvious stuff. I had. Time to order a replacement board.

Ordered the board. Not too bad at about $140. It arrived 2 days later. Installed it and tested. Voilà! Success and all the charging variations work!

I wonder how much it would have cost me to have a RV shop do the troubleshooting and repair of this problem. Much, much more I'm sure.

Since this project, 1 1/2 years have past, traveled over 20,000 miles and have lived in the coach for a total of 5 months. All is well with the batteries and BCC.

Until my next project post, thank you and take care!
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Old 04-18-2016, 12:45 AM   #50
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Nice write up
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Old 04-18-2016, 08:21 PM   #51
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Project: Malfunctioning Thermostat

Here's another project from 2014.

I call this one the case of the wacko thermostat.

For those following along, you know that we purchased a 2003 Revolution that needed some TLC. Once we brought the Rev home, I began working on the issues one at a time.

The Issue

The thermostat that controls the AC and Heater on the Rev is located in the bedroom at the rear of the coach. It has 2 zones. Zone 1 is in the bedroom/bathroom area and Zone 2 is the front of the coach. There is a remote temp sensor about mid coach for zone 2.

This issue didn't materialize during our pre-purchase inspection. Now, the thermostat was a bit funky during the inspection but that was because of the issues with the house batteries. I reviewed that project here.

As I was working on things, I would run the AC from time to time. What would happen is the thermostat in the bedroom would lock up. You couldn't adjust anything on it. Only way to get it to work was pull the 12V connection to it. Guess we better figure out what is going on.

First thing I checked was the thermostat itself. I just happened to have another one. Reason I had it is the previous owner had problems with it not working and his RV dealer told him to replace it. Well it really didn't fix the problem as you'll see.

Next thing to check was the wiring. So, I got out my trusty schematics to see where in the world the control wiring ran. Checked the thermostat connections, pulled the covers on the AC units and checked connections, and pulled the cover for the 2 heaters to check. Nothing obvious.

Let's do a some research on iRV2.com. (You may have noticed a theme developing with me researching on iRV2. This forum is a goldmine of info!). I came across a couple of posts telling about weird things happening in their coach from bad fluorescent ballasts in the overhead lights. Hmmmmm?

Armed with that lead, I went out to the coach and started seeing if the lights might be causing interference that would lock up the thermostat. My testing was to make sure the thermostat still worked, turn on one light, and then go make sure the thermostat worked. I repeated the process for every light in the coach.

As I started my test, the very first light (in the bedroom) caused the thermostat to lock. Well, that's promising. Let's see if we can repeat it. Reset the thermostat and make sure it works. Turn the light back on and see if I can adjust the thermostat. Nope! OK, that light is causing problems.

I repeated this testing on the remainder of the lights. I found one other in the gallery area that also caused the thermostat to lock up.

The cause has been found!

How to correct?

Now that I know what is causing the thermostat to lock up, I need to decide how to correct it. Guess I could replace the ballast. Naw. Let's use this as a reason to start upgrading the lights to LED!

Just so happened I had recently read the articles and watched the videos from TheRVGeeks.com on changing over to LED. Nice!

I went with there recommendation on using M4.com. It happened to be close to Thanksgiving 2014. I noticed that M4 would have a Black Friday sale with 15% off of their LED products. Might as well wait for it.

I placed the oder and the replacement LEDs arrived in about 3 days. The instructions were easy to read and the retrofit was straight forward. I replaced the 2 bad fluorescent lights and all the smaller reading lights over the couch, above the sink, above the dining table, and in the bedroom.

With the new lights in, let's test and see if the thermostat still works. Flipped the light switch on the 2 replaced tube lights. Thermostat continued to work! Yeah!

Wrapping it up

I didn't replace all of the florescent bulbs on the first go. I needed to spend money on other more pressing items. However, in November 2015, I hit that year's M4 Black Friday sale and replaced the remainder of the interior lights with LEDs.

Just FYI. I went with the warm white LEDs. Very happy with the color.

I also replaced the exterior porch lights at the same time. Other than the basement lights and the docking lights, we're now totally LED with the house lights (haven't messed with the headlights, marker lights, or tails lights... yet!). I can tell you that the power draw of the LEDs are a small percent of the incandescent and florescent draw and has had a positive impact on battery charge life.

That wraps up this riveting episode.

So, until next time, take care!
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Old 04-18-2016, 10:24 PM   #52
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Re: Speakers;

Please be careful before you give up on those Bose speakers over the Klipsch ones !!!! I could not Imagine that they all of a sudden managed to produce a speaker set that would be better then any Bose set ?
If you (really) don't like the Bose ones try for Mission or Keff or even Martin-Logan or Mordaunt-Short (if you like your music.) But don't replace a pretty descent set with a pretty poor (or in my opinion bad) set !

Best regards,

Ed
OMG, I started a Ford Chevy Dodge thing! The quintets don't figure into that argument IMHO. It's true the larger ones have naysayers as do some of the Bose units according to some of the audiophile sites. My Monaco Signature has Bose speakers which in this case are far inferior IMHO. Perhaps they were seconds?? I think if you came and heard the sound quality of the Quintet's you would be impressed.
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Old 04-19-2016, 12:17 PM   #53
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If you decide to upgrade your brake/signal/backup lights I highly recommend the JDM Astar 1200 lumens bulbs on Amazon. VERY bright and the instant on-off makes them very eye-catching. They really light up the scene as backups, too, which is nice.
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Old 04-19-2016, 01:36 PM   #54
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OMG, I started a Ford Chevy Dodge thing! The quintets don't figure into that argument IMHO.
Sad but true

For me Bose is about as bad as it gets... Klipsch is a little better but not much.

But it really just boils down to what we like. If you are happy with brand X then by all mean use it
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Old 04-19-2016, 02:52 PM   #55
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Sad but true

For me Bose is about as bad as it gets... Klipsch is a little better but not much.

But it really just boils down to what we like. If you are happy with brand X then by all mean use it
Personally I like Infinity speakers
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Old 04-19-2016, 03:04 PM   #56
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ANYTHING would be better than the Panasonic speakers my coach came with. I remember pocket AM radios in the '70s sounding better. Definitely on my upgrades list.
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