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RVGOBBLIN · 11-02-2022, 02:49 PM

I've been chasing this issue for about a month now and with winter coming, cold showers are about to become much colder and so I'm hoping to find someone with some insight on my potential water heater issue.

I have a propane-only Atwood G6A-8E water heater and it no longer attempts to ignite. I've tested the brown power wire and I have 13+ volts feeding into the board but the board isn't sending any power to the igniter. There's no power going to the gas valve either and the red 'fault' light is on at my inside switch panel. I don't know what the fault light is telling me and the documentation I have for the water heater isn't clear on that either. I ran through the troubleshooting scenarios in my manual to chase the power and I've also followed a few videos online and they've all led me to a faulty igniter board...problem is, I'm on my 4th board with the exact same issue and so I'm not convinced it's the board but I don't know where to go next. My current board is a new Dinosaur Electronics board since I assumed I was getting bad replacement boards from China but the issue persists. I'm quite confused with where the issue might be and not knowing exactly how the board logic works, I don't know what to chase next.

Some other info, that may or may not be useful:
I have plenty of propane - more than 50% in my tank. To be sure that wasn't the issue, I switched to a different tank with as much or more propane but the issue persists. My stove and furnace work fine on both tanks.

My propane valve on the water heater is new - I'm not saying that is or isn't the issue, just throwing it out there. If it isn't even trying to ignite, I haven't even suspected the valve but that could be a bad call on my end - if someone understands this is a bad assumption, please advise.

My brown power wire is feeding 13+ volts but after I plug the connector to the board, the power appears to drop to 2.8 volts when I test the lead after it's connected. I don't know why that is, but I would expect to see 13+ volts even after it's plugged in. I'm guessing this power change is facilitated somewhere at the switch panel where I'm seeing the fault light? There's really nothing up there except the switch and the fault light, so I'm not sure that's true.

My thermostat and ECO are both new. My thermostat is before the board power connector and since I'm seeing 13+ volts at the connector, the thermostat wouldn't be the issue.

I don't know what that blue wire does other than send a fault code to the panel, if anything.

Old-Biscuit · 11-02-2022, 06:53 PM

Your Atwood G6A-8E uses a simple DC circuit
12VDC from the ON/OFF Switch goes to/thru the "thermal fuse' (clear tubing) to/thru T-stat to the circuit board via Brown Wire
*t-stat closes at 110*F for heating cycle

When circuit board gets the 12VDC via Brown wire it then sends 12VDC to/thru ECO to Gas Valve via Red Wire
*at same time high voltage DC goes thru Spark Electrode for ignition of the gas

Blue wire....circuit board sends DC to FAULT Light when Flame fails to ignite/prove it lit

Suspect your issue is with the Connector/brown wire Pin (inside the connector)
Might need a new wiring harness to resolve the issue
https://getrvparts.com/atwood-93189-...s-with-cutoff/

RVGOBBLIN · 11-03-2022, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Old-Biscuit

Your Atwood G6A-8E uses a simple DC circuit
12VDC from the ON/OFF Switch goes to/thru the "thermal fuse' (clear tubing) to/thru T-stat to the circuit board via Brown Wire
*t-stat closes at 110*F for heating cycle

When circuit board gets the 12VDC via Brown wire it then sends 12VDC to/thru ECO to Gas Valve via Red Wire
*at same time high voltage DC goes thru Spark Electrode for ignition of the gas

Blue wire....circuit board sends DC to FAULT Light when Flame fails to ignite/prove it lit

Suspect your issue is with the Connector/brown wire Pin (inside the connector)
Might need a new wiring harness to resolve the issue
https://getrvparts.com/atwood-93189-...s-with-cutoff/

Your suspicion was close. Per your suggestion, I followed the brown wire back to check connections and I replaced the connectors at the thermostat since they looked somewhat crusty down inside. I then put a jumper across them and the problem was gone and the thing fired up like a champ. Thinking I was done, I hooked up the new connectors to the thermostat and the problem was back! I grabbed an old thermostat from the stash and put it in and the problem was again resolved, so my problem apparently all along was that damned [new] thermostat! It's one of those aftermarket adjustable ones from Amazon.

I burned up a lot of brain cycles on this one, but the plus side is the best lessons are never easy and I learned about propane systems that will likely be useful in the RV world!

Old-Biscuit · 11-03-2022, 03:46 PM

Atwood 'adjustable' t-stat

IF you had mentioned that from the beginning, I would have made a different suggestion.........

Those adjustable t-stats are JUNK!

Sorry you spent monies on 4 circuit boards and that JUNK t-stat