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dallas121469 · 01-12-2020, 12:02 PM

2007 Monaco Dynasty

We had some heavy rain, freezing rain and cold weather. Now I have no power to my dash, ignition, stairs, levelers . My front Aladdin is still working as is the radio but when I turn the key I get squat. I need the stairs to work ASAP because I have a 12 year old lab. Battery switches are on and monitor says batteries are good. Did I somehow blow a fuse? Or flip a switch somewhere? Stairs were the first thing I noticed because they had retracted themselves even though I was parked. The only thing I did was relevel the rig during the storm. Will start checking fuses but what else could it be?

No lights are on in the front run electric box. Is there a main chassis fuse?

When I toggle battery cut off I get no sounds, clicks, etc. No power to start generator.

K7JV · 01-12-2020, 01:08 PM

Wow! I'm attaching a couple of drawings that I made that should be fairly applicable to your coach, as ours is an '06 Dynasty.

I'm looking for common points. Aladdin works. Stairs don't work. Leveling works or worked. No lights in the front run box.

The Aladdin is on the house battery, not the chassis battery. The HWH leveling system uses some power from the house battery and some from the chassis battery. The pump for the PowerGear leveling is on the chassis battery, on our coach.

I would expect you to see lights in the front run box on boards #4, #5, #11, #12 and #13, as those are all on the house battery system. From what you described, I would expect no lights on boards #6, thru #10, as they are on the chassis battery system.

There is a 150 amp circuit breaker in the rear run box that ties the generator, the PowerGear and the front run box chassis systems. You might check across that to see if it could be somehow open. It shouldn't be. I've never pulled the little cover on any of them, but it could be that it has tripped, somehow, and needs to be reset. Perhaps water could have somehow enabled a significant short that tripped that breaker.

Let us know what you find. And good luck to you.

jacwjames · 01-12-2020, 01:26 PM

You might also check the battery disconnect, mine failed and I lost all power to the dash etc.

Radio still worked because it powered on the house side.

If you are checking voltages it is better to start at the very start and work you way through the system.

dallas121469 · 01-12-2020, 03:36 PM

Went and bought a multimeter. Started doing some voltage testing and found some low readings so I went back to basics and tested the chassis batteries. They were less than 12 V. So I'm trickle charging them but now it seems that they aren't charging off shore power. I've read that some rigs do charge chassis batteries while on 110 and some don't. How can I tell if mine should charge off 110 or not?

distaff · 01-12-2020, 04:30 PM

An '07 Dynasty should charge off shore power, but 110 may be too low for the inverter to direct enough power to the coach batteries to trigger your cross charging system. I believe you will have an Intellitec BIRD and BigBoy system installed in your rear run box.

The BIRD monitors voltages on both 12v systems and will send a signal to the BigBoy telling it to close and pass power to the other system to charge it. The BIRD system needs to detect 13.3v for a period of 2 1/2 minutes on one of the two 12v systems before it tells the BigBoy to close. I am deliberately not specific about which 12v system because the B in BIRD stands for bi-directional.

One way to test if this is your problem, not failure in the BigBoy, is to put your multimeter on the chassis batteries and have someone press the BOOST switch on your dash - it will also send 12v to the BigBoy telling it to close, bypassing the BIRD system and closing the relay to combine the two 12v systems. If you see the voltage jump (basically to the same level as the coach batteries) then you know your problem was that the BIRD didn't signal the BigBoy to close.

If the voltage doesn't jump when the boost switch is pushed it is also possible that the $5 relay downstream from BOTH the Boost switch and the BIRD has failed (mine did) and that could be your problem as well.

It is possible the BIRD system is bad, but start with the simple diagnostic first.

A few other things to look for - the BigBoy should be hot to the touch if it is closed, and you should hear it humming. If you don't have someone to push the Boost switch you can make a jumper and put 12v to the input on the BigBoy to see if you can get it to close. You can also have problems with your batteries that can make it act up.

153stars · 01-12-2020, 04:51 PM

Do you have a pair of jumper cables with you you can just jump POS. lead on house batts.and chassis POS. if they are in same area. That will combine them like bird or big boy solenoid. Better just do it to charge before trying to draw big amps like jacks or starting.
Battery combining issues seems to be very frequent across every brand from top end rig on down. They all use about the same solenoid so there's that.

dallas121469 · 01-12-2020, 05:29 PM

I did see the big boy solenoid in the rear run box. When it warms up I'll do some diagnostics. Thanks for all the information!

K7JV · 01-13-2020, 07:00 AM

You can also operate that Big Boy relay while standing at your rear run box by pressing one of the two small, yellow switch "buttons" on the BIRD board that Paul is talking about. When you open your rear run box, that board is on the right side of the enclosure, about half way up. You will see the two yellow switch buttons on the near edge of that board. The one about half way up the board is the one for the Big Boy. The one about an inch below it toggles the "salesman switch" contractors. (There are two of those. One is for the front run box house loads, and the other is for the Intellitec cabinet house loads.)

Paul's advice is golden! That's the best summary description of how the "BIRD" system works on these coaches, that I've seen. Thank you, Paul!