Power Problem

[Danss]

Did a bad thing! left bus unplugged 3 or 4 days and house batteries will not run anight lite. When plugged in or on Generator everything is okay. after several days of both I thought it would recharge batteries, but no juice. It acts as if a switch or breaker is thrown as nothing comes thru. I am in Dallas several days and would appreciate any suggestions except Marathon as it is a 99 Vogue prevost conversation. Thanks, Dan @ 228-216-3706

[Ray Davis]

Can you get a volt meter on your house batteries? Can you see if you are getting charging voltage to them when plugged in? Can you tell if the chargers are working (hot, humming etc)?

If you start the coach, does this give you a better charge on the coach batteries?

Ray

[rbeecher]

Ray,

I spoke to Dan a minute ago and he is going to find a place to pull over and call me. I will have him check a couple of things including what he can of the items you mentioned. I have a 96 Vogue so I am hoping I can help him find things in his '99.

I'll give a shout back.

I also mentioned he can talk to Prevost Dallas on this I would think.

Richard Beecher

[rbeecher]

I spoke to Dan and went through checking the redings on his main panel and all house, chassis, and gen voltages are reading as they should.
We then went to the inverter panel where there were no readings/no lites on. Dan pushed the inverter "ON" buttons and the lites on the inverters slowly started flickering. I am no expert by any means but this suggests to me the inverters were not on and therefore no charging was taking place?

Dan mentioned the inverter "breaker" had tripped before the trip was started and he reset it, they were still ok when we checked them now.

Ray or anyone who wants to jump in on these this comments sre very welcome. Dan should be sitting still and hooked up in Dallas in a couple of hours and will check his mail for any ideas the group comes up with.

Richard Beecher
96 Vogue XL Forty - The Beechbus
Heading to River Ranch for the weekend tomorrow

[Ray Davis]

Depending upon his coach, he may have separate chargers, independent of the inverters. Most of the newer ones are combined, however, and maybe you hit it on the head, that the inverters had powered off when the batteries depleted themselves.

Now that the inverters are running, is he seeing charging voltages on the coach batteries? Did anything change when the inverters were powered up?

I'm assuming, if the batteries went completely dead, that it's going to take awhile for them to charge back up to any appreciable level. I would personally try to get a voltmeter onto the batteries themselves, and see if they are upwards of 13+ volts or not. I'm not sure what your charging voltage is set to, but I wouldn't be surprised at 14-15 volts.

Ray

[Danss]

While talking to Richard B. he mentioned the panel over the drivers head. I opened and both inverters were off. Turned them on and LIFE IS GOOD! Everything works! I can only assume that when batteries get so low the inverters turn off

Thanks to Richard and Ray for the help and an almost immediate reponse to a posting on this site. Dan

[nrhareiner]

Good afternoon,

On most conversions, the inverters will turn off automatically if voltage drops below a certain level. This is set so that the batteries are not allowed to be drained below a set voltage. This is what probably happened in your case.

Kim sloan
02 Vantare XLII S2
06 Dodge Megacab

[rbeecher]

While talking to Richard B. he mentioned the panel over the drivers head. I opened and both inverters were off. Turned them on and LIFE IS GOOD! Everything works! I can only assume that when batteries get so low the inverters turn off

Thanks to Richard and Ray for the help and an almost immediate reponse to a posting on this site. Dan

Dan,

I agree with Ray that checking the voltage with a meter is something you will want to do when you get a chance.

After we spoke tonight, I was thinking back to Nicks comments during the tech session at POGIII and what he said about some generators not kicking in (when set for auto start) until the house battery volts get down to as low as 10.8 in some conversions which he considered too low. I think mine kicks in at 10.8 so I am going to look into having it set higher.

I met and visited with Toybox for the first time this last weekend and he had some tips also which I will talk to Nick about so I can understand how our charging systems work a little better. I will pass on what I learn.

Glad to hear you are up and running.

Richard

[truk4u]

Dan,

If they're Traces, there's an LBCO setting (low battery cut off) that is adjustable. Sounds like if the LBCO is activated, you have to manually turn the inverters back on and we may all have learned something.;)

[rbeecher]

Tom,

Yes, DANSS and I both have the Traces in our Vogues. Any idea as to how the adjustment is made or where to look to make it?

Thanks,

Richard Beecher

[rbeecher]

Tom, Dan

On second thought, I am not sure Dan has Traces, can you verify Dan?

Richard

[rbeecher]

Tom,

My memory is worse than I thought. I just went out and checked and mine are Hearts.

Any suggestions?

Richard

[nrhareiner]

If they are Trace, the LBCO is adjusted from the remote panel. On mine it is in the 12th menu, the 7th selection down. that might vary, but look for generator settings (not either off, on , auto).

On Heart inverters there is also a LBCO, but only adjustable in rear of remote with using DIP switiches.

Hope this helps.

Kim Sloan
02 Vantare XLII S2
06 Dodge Megacab