Community Forums

Johnontheroad · 07-31-2018, 07:39 AM

Noticed that I was having wire bundles hanging down into my console “glove compartment” so I removed the whole dash panel to try to tidy up the harnesses. Saw the biggest problem, harnesses were bundled and held together with electrical tape.

Of course, now that the coach is three years old (and out of warranty) the glue on the electrical tape starts to lose adhesion and becomes a sticky mess. And all the support for the harnesses and other components goes away, leaving a dangling mess.

Without any substantial wiring diagrams, I hesitate to do more than just use tie wraps to straighten things out a bit and provide component support. But it sure would be nice if the factory would do small things like using tie wraps instead of electrical tape to hold the coach together. And maybe even using a few screws to hold thing in place instead of gravity.

Good morning, there’s my rant for the day. Even so, I’m happy with my Aspire, now that most of the kinks have been worked out.

W0GEN · 07-31-2018, 07:50 AM

Yes that is one difference between the Monaco we used to own, it came with a full set of electrical drawings, what is available for our CS is dismal in comparison. I have witnessed the same as you, I have posted on this forum but am still trying to ID some disconnected wires with no luck... I will have to balance this when I decide to trade for my next one!
Just venting with you!
Bill

bobbelcher · 07-31-2018, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W0GEN

Yes that is one difference between the Monaco we used to own, it came with a full set of electrical drawings, what is available for our CS is dismal in comparison. I have witnessed the same as you, I have posted on this forum but am still trying to ID some disconnected wires with no luck... I will have to balance this when I decide to trade for my next one!
Just venting with you!
Bill

Coming from an engineer who has dabbled in production work, wiring schematics and owners manuals are a very costly thing to have made. They take a lot of time and money to produce and depending on the guy assembling that day, they might not even be accurate. With that said equipment and vehicles should most definitely come with them. I'm just saying that they might not be made due to the excessive cost that comes with making them.

To the op's question or rant, it's all about the quality of the person putting things together a d the level of care the company has. In my Industry we have guys that take the time to make things look nice and all that. We also have ppl who duct tape things and say good enough. One does their job in 3 hours. The other does theirs in 3 mins. Which one do you think the owner likes.

Nowabeachbum · 07-31-2018, 08:00 AM

This has been an issue with Entegra from the beginning. Our 2011 had a hodgepodge of wire splices, electrical tape, wire ties, wire bundles, spit and gum! We have been in the dash of the 2019 and the unnecessarily long wire bundles are still there but at least most are factory terminated. The old unreliable electrical seems to be relegated to just a few areas like rca connectors. Clean and tidy behind the curtain do not seem to be in Entegra’s vocabulary!

brobox · 07-31-2018, 08:06 AM

John they finally listened. Nowabeachbum removed the dash cover to show me how they cleaned the wiring up over the Classics. You can actually see in there now and get to the GPS, SD card with no problem. Looks like they used ties as well

W0GEN · 07-31-2018, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobbelcher

Coming from an engineer who has dabbled in production work, wiring schematics and owners manuals are a very costly thing to have made. They take a lot of time and money to produce and depending on the guy assembling that day, they might not even be accurate. With that said equipment and vehicles should most definitely come with them. I'm just saying that they might not be made due to the excessive cost that comes with making them.

To the op's question or rant, it's all about the quality of the person putting things together a d the level of care the company has. In my Industry we have guys that take the time to make things look nice and all that. We also have ppl who duct tape things and say good enough. One does their job in 3 hours. The other does theirs in 3 mins. Which one do you think the owner likes.

As I have too, I retired from John Deere after 34 Years, My experience there was that the employee cutting the corners would end up elsewhere. Deere has quality checks in place throughout the production process, and yes often times the customer pays a higher price for the product. I will pay a higher price as I believe in the saying "You get what you pay for". Time was spent to create Standard Operating Assembly Procedures and employee training to insure these practices were followed. Our "owner" did not accept shortcuts to quality.

Johnontheroad · 07-31-2018, 09:03 AM

As a point of reference, I sold wiring, cables and termination products to Boeing and later to other aircraft manufacturers years ago. The year Entegra was formed, I visited their plant and toured the wiring floor. Everything was quite basic then, and I wrote a proposal to modernize the plants wiring techniques. Most of it involved standardized tools and techniques. But the budgets were not there, at least not at that time.

The wiring in my 2015 Aspire is not much different than it was in my 2006 Travel Supreme. Glad to hear that it finally is improving. A good wiring system may cost more to design and build initially but will pay off in lower assembly costs and much reduced warranty and support costs.

BTW, the most wire I ever sold for one aircraft was 1.4 Million feet. That was to the 707 AWACS aircraft. That’s almost double a production 747.

fla tom · 07-31-2018, 05:49 PM

I think the real problem is they will not provide/release the schematics to coach owners . I have received very detailed plumbing schematics for a project I am working on.(they will give them to dealers)

Lault · 07-31-2018, 06:08 PM

The wiring mess was still on the 18 as the 16 I own, so I guess Entegra pulled off a miracle for 19. About time.

MRUSA14 · 07-31-2018, 06:09 PM

This topic is like an arrow to my heart, as I have been complaining about this since I traded my 2003 Beaver for my 2013 Anthem. The Beaver not only came with a full set of detailed schematics, but each and every wire was engraved and marked every 3 feet to show its function. So a headlight wire said headlight on it, a radio wire said radio, etc. All wires were neatly bundled and there was no such thing as a loose, dangling, or unterminated wire with the exception of a few wires that were clearly marked as spares. What a joy to work with compared to the nightmare of mystery spaghetti wires on my Anthem.

The Anthem is a better coach in a number of ways than the Beaver was, but wiring and documentation is certainly not one of those ways. Hopefully Entegra will take the high road and clean up their wiring act, including full schematics. How can you build or troubleshoot something reliably without a clear blueprint?

hogdriver · 08-01-2018, 11:30 AM

Ditto what Marc said. My old Monaco had tidy, well marked, well documented wiring.

The prettiest wiring in a RV, besides a Prevost, was back about 1995 I looked at an Alpine MH. Being built in WA state they had wire harnesses made by Boeing. Very tidy wiring.

W0GEN · 08-01-2018, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fla tom

I think the real problem is they will not provide/release the schematics to coach owners . I have received very detailed plumbing schematics for a project I am working on.(they will give them to dealers)

I can believe this... And I wonder if they even have an electrical schematic! I opened the panel today and installed a couple of volt meters to monitor my solar and it is a big rats nest of wires, and not one is labeled! This may give me pause to go to a different manufacturer when I purchase our next one!

lowejug · 08-01-2018, 05:49 PM

These are the things that you just don’t get anymore...
I also had a Monaco dynasty and there was detailed drawings of where all the wires were run through the whole coach and the owners manual was so descriptive it was amazing...

I think they say now “take it to a authorized dealer” and that skips all that...
And now everything is on the internet.. no owners manuals...

Sad but true...

MRUSA14 · 08-01-2018, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowejug

These are the things that you just don’t get anymore...
I also had a Monaco dynasty and there was detailed drawings of where all the wires were run through the whole coach and the owners manual was so descriptive it was amazing...

I think they say now “take it to a authorized dealer” and that skips all that...
And now everything is on the internet.. no owners manuals...

Sad but true...

Most often the dealers have no more information than we owners have, so it becomes a guessing game. Bad enough when you are under warranty, but even worse when you are paying dealer $100/hr or so to play “find the mystery wire”..