Battery combiner relay or solonoid not working properly.

[funjnt]

If I ground solonoid small terminal the solonoid will close as it is supposed to and give me the combination of the two banks. If I have engine running it won't close. So your asking if there is 12 volts on house side with house batteries disconnected and solonoid closed. This is to see if solonoid is bad. Got it. Will check but don't think that's the issue. Im going there now, rained out. Will get back.

[funjnt]

Ok. I am thinking although the solonoid pulls in when engine not running there is or must be something wrong with it. I have gone over the wiring and all is working as intended.

So I just did this: Un hooked the house batteries, started coach and solonoid was closed working properly. Hooked up batteries and all is as it should be charging house batteries. Turned off coach, started up and not closing or charging house. Did several same scenerios with additional grounds etc. and it seems to me that... if there is any load on the solonoid when alternator is charging it won't close. I am wondering if the solonoid is too small rating wise, it's a 200 amp, thats what was there when I replaced it before. So I am going to order a 500 amp solonoid and see how that works. I am convinced the coach wiring isn't the problem. A new one is 64.00, ordering now stay tuned.

[Smitty77]

Hows your Oil Pressure gauge looking?

Some of these require the Oil Pressure Gauge signal, indicating the engine is running, before they'll work. The manual triggering of the switch working, could indicate a signal problem from the Oil Pressure Gauge(?).... Might want to check the wiring to the sending unit?

Smitty

[funjnt]

Verified. There is a seperate oil pressure switch that I had replaced a few years ago. It closes when there is oil pressure and thus to ground. The ground grounds the bottom small terminal closing the solonoid. I verified this in the beginning. I also checked for any 12 positive injection negating the ground for the solonoid. All checked out ok. I feel it is the solonoid. All the wiring seems correct. It certainly is a stumper.

[a250gpguy]

Originally Posted by Pillbox

Funjnt,
I did some reading on your cc. You are correct , no bcc. Your switch works off the engine oil pressure switch, If I read it right. Check around the oil pressure switch for a bad wire.
I read this info on country coach forums.
Terry
“
I don't like the way CC uses the pressure switch to tie the batteries together because if your house batteries are low your alternator can be trying to charge your chassis and house batteries at the same time. That's (6) 8D batteries in my case which will fry your alternator. I disabled the ability of my coach to do so and haven't lost a alternator since. I lost 3 previously. You might try running your generator going down the road which will give about a 10-15 amp charge to your chassis batteries as well as fully charge your house batteries if you are not in a position to work on it Right now.

I also limit the amount of charge by batteries get to about 10 amps ea. For Extended battery life.

Kevin Burns

2000 Affinity, 5865

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Larry Reimers
[*]
Re: Alternator issue?
Reply #2 – May 29, 2019, 12:41:53 pm
Yahoo Message Number: 117838
I had the same problem. The problem was corrosion in the battery cables .

J Shealy
[*]
Re: Alternator issue?
Reply #3 – May 29, 2019, 01:05:44 pm”

@Pillbox
Dude you deserve a medal for this post. This kind of post is absolutely WHY this CC forum is the BEST on the interwebs.

We ever meet up I have a warm fire and cold beer or better with your name on it.

Ch

[funjnt]

I have had great experience on here with everyone and yes, this must be the best rv forrum out there. I say must because I don't go to any others. Several issues have been helped here for me alone over the years.

So the relay came and I will try to get it installed this weekend! Keep yall posted.

[funjnt]

Ok so I have a final verdict. In essence the solonoid was replaced with a 500 amp solonoid and it works as intended. Not that the 500 amp makes a difference but I just went higher in amperage.

Now let's discuss another issue I uncovered while installing this thing. As I had to disconnect both sets of grounds, house and chassis, I noticed there was a large ground missing on the chassis side. I think this is the ground to the engine directly. I reattached this and had no idea it was left off. I replaced the chassis battery before it went to florida and this about when the problem was noticed.... Ahah. So I don't think the solonoid was bad as it was working properly without engine running. I think with the engine running and not properly grounded it was grounding improperly elsewhere thus causing this issue.

So yes I missed a large ground wire that had fallen behind the bank of batteries and I couldn't see it untill I noticed when unhooking all the grounds. So to those of you all who said it sounds like a ground issue.... I would say it was a ground issue and I feel this was it.

Thanks to all of you and I will be back with other things!

[TR4]

Glad you’ve got it fixed, thanks for all the updates.

Bill