Trace SW4024K Charging

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

We are having a bit of a problem. As most of you know we have a new 2001 XLII. when we picked up the Royale one of the inverters was not working, so it was removed to be repaired and will be shipped to us. Being 4000 Wt inverters, we hooked the load from the bad one on to the good one. During the next few weeks we had no significant loads dry camping. We ran the generator. When plugged in to shore power, the charger worked fine. No heavy loads until the other inverter gets here and installed. We are now in Key West on shore power. Saturday evening was not a pleasant one! I twisted my knee and was taking it easy, when Sandra told me that there was a problem with power in the bus. On entering the bus, I looked at the power LCD's ( one for each leg ) 120 V-0 amps. I checked the Trace monitor for battery voltage, it showed 9.9 V and still inverting. A red LED on the monitor was flashing with "an error message". Since everything was working fine up to this time, I had not taken the time to get familar with the inverter set up. Now, I am in a hurry. I tried to set the inverter to charge only, start generator, shut down inverter and start over. Nothing is working. Since I was hurting and not concentrating, I decided to clean out the refrigerator and just start over the next day. Before bailing out, I shut down the 12 Volt and ran the engine for 30 min -which brought the batteries to around 11.7 volts. I now have a portable charger on it and battery voltage is around 12.7. Any one out there have an idea on where to begin or end??:confused::confused:
Thanks, Ed

[Loc]

Ed,

Sorry to hear about the knee. I have had the misfortune of being plugged into shore power with everything running and the shore power going down and the load on the inverter being too much and the inverter shutting completely down. Once it gets the error message it shuts itself down and does not reset itself when the power comes back. It will kick out and go to error if you have two AC's running or other heavy loads and you lose power. However, when this happens there is not activity (no inverting as you said you had). After shutting down all the loads I reset the inverter to SRCH and it kicks back in (otherwise the loads will kick it off again because of the delay on the shore power). Check the circuit breakers on the inverters and make sure they are not tripped. Do you have a green light for your AC1 or AC2 indicators when plugged in? You can read the error messages on the Trace control board (I don't remember the pads to push, but try running through the menu). If you have a bypass switch you can bypass the inverters while on shore power until you can get someone to take a look.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Ed,

I haven't a clue about your inverters specifically, but generally speaking when you have two inverters they each have dedicated 120V AC loads that they either cover by converting the battery power to the 120V AC power for those circuits, or in the prescence of shore power they become chargers and transfer the power through them to the 120V AC devices.

When you remove one inverter it would leave the remaining one to keep the batteries charged, and the circuits powered by the missing inverter would not have power unless your coach had some type of by-pass arrangement.

Since you have not applied heavy loads your batteries should have been maintained at the float voltage, and AC power should have been available through the inverter's internal transfer switch.

If you can get the house batteries back up to a charged state do the resets Loc suggests, and then once back on shore power check battery voltage to see if shore power is getting to the inverter and the inverter is functioning as a charger. That would be my first step. I think there is some reason why power was not getting to the inverter battery charger section, or that inverter has lost that function.

Be careful. We don't want you messing up you knees. If we keep going the direction we are heading half of POG will be in physical therapy.

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

Thank you both for the info. Ed is going to check in to this tomorrow morning. He has been scratching his head alot today and also, hurting! He said that he will definately post tomorrow after he proceeds with the knowledge above.
I have to add some more humor here, Jon. Ed hurt his knee --chasing teenage girls down our road after they were caught going in to our mailbox. I caught them in the act and they started running away. Ed thought he was still young, I guess!!!:D As the girls say, "You will pay for this!":cool:
Again, thank you and Ed will post tomorrow on the charging problem.
Sandy

[truk4u]

Good Grief, I won't add anything to the inverter issue Sandy, but what was he thinking!:confused: Ed, teenage girls are much faster than an old tug boat captain!;)

[Prevost.Rick]

when you added the extra load to your inverter the inverter will always maintain the loads over the charging so the charging had no chance since you you are down to one inverter and only one charger you have 50 amp total,40 amp of load that will only give you 10 amps of charging ,call me i,ll explain 813-833-2284.thank you

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Rick,

Teach us all. On another thread we learned from Kevin that Marathon splits its battery banks in two and each has its own dedicated inverter so it is understandible that if one fails it can allow the batteries on its bank to lose voltage.

How does Royale set up its inverters? I also am curious what loads Ed had on the inverter when he was on shore power that would have so overloaded the circuits it lowered the charge rate. A bus at rest, basically in storage is not going to have heavy AC or DC loads so Ed will have to let us know exactly what loads were on the inverter. As I read his post he dry camped on one inverter so he was managing the power properly. Then I presume drove it to Key West and I also presume the batteries were charged during the drive and then connected to shore power. I'm trying to figure out what loads could create the problem that dry camping did not, and to understand how those loads could rob power from the inverter charging circuit.

[JIM CHALOUPKA]

Thank you both for the info. Ed is going to check in to this tomorrow morning. He has been scratching his head alot today and also, hurting! He said that he will definately post tomorrow after he proceeds with the knowledge above.
I have to add some more humor here, Jon. Ed hurt his knee --chasing teenage girls down our road after they were caught going in to our mailbox. I caught them in the act and they started running away. Ed thought he was still young, I guess!!!:D As the girls say, "You will pay for this!":cool:
Again, thank you and Ed will post tomorrow on the charging problem.
Sandy

Jim Skiff, we need more emoticons on this site and I mean right now, words alone can not express the way we feel about what is going on here! :D:D: and please take the limit off of the quantity allowed in each post!!!

JIM

[BenC]

Please look at the existing inverter again and read the model number off the end of it. I have never seen a Royale coach with 24-volt house batteries. They typically used the engine-cradle alternator strictly for house battery charging, and the 300-amp/12v model. The inverters they typically used were model SW2512, which where 2500 watt inverters using 12volts. They physically look the same, but the model number is the important indicator to their identity. In addition, they were wired (against Trace Engineering's suggestions) with ONLY one AC input and an automatic transfer switch upstream (for selecting generator or shore power as the charging source). Typically, the "extra inverter" only powered the center roof air conditioner while driving down the road. The other inverter powered the fridge, microwave, and outlets for televisions, etc. Both, however, did charge the 12-volt house battery bank. Also, please read my post on the other thread about how Marathon wires the battery banks. Each inverter DOES NOT have it's own dedicated battery bank. The default "set shore cord amps ac" for the SW2512 is irrelevant, since they hooked the only AC input to "AC in 2" in order that the inverter would realize when the gen came on when Autostarting it. The default "Set Gen Amps AC" is 30amps for that model inverter. With too many loads downstream of the inverter, it will reduce the charge rate and essentially justs pass through to maintain the loads downstream. If you were running the roof a/c and made it a load of that inverter, then combine that with the fridge and outlets, and you may have actually been discharging the battery bank. Call Rick or myself and we will gladly walk you through the settings to help get you by until your other inverter gets installed. Thanks.

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

Thanks to Rick and Ben at Coach Works, Ed's back in business. Lessons learned. No mater what inverter manual that comes with your bus, find out what is in it before posting. I dont have 4000 wt inverters. When you are working in the electrical panel and turn off the master breaker no mater how many times you flip the indivudial breakers they wont work until you turn the master back on.
Thanks to all of you for your time and suggestions. I still dont know what age has to do with it honey.

[Charles Spera]

I so know how you feel!!!!


<snip> When you are working in the electrical panel and turn off the master breaker no mater how many times you flip the indivudial breakers they wont work until you turn the master back on.
Thanks to all of you for your time and suggestions. I still dont know what age has to do with it honey.

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

. I still dont know what age has to do with it honey.

WOW! My day was made this morning when Ben called and solved our problem!! If things had kept going the way they were, I would have AGED and shared "empathy" with Ed.
Thank you all for your prompt attention. This is why POG is our family-along with all the great friendship and fun!!
Sandy

[rfoster]

Ok, now that the bus is fixed -- what are you gonna do about Ed's knee & those teenage girls?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Roger, Think about your question for a second and you will quickly realize Ed will be chasing slower girls, or getting faster knees.

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

Roger, Think about your question for a second and you will quickly realize Ed will be chasing slower girls, or getting faster knees.

I sure hope that he gets "faster knees"! I don't want him chasing ANY girls:rolleyes: I will let him chase ME around the house with the "faster knees".
Sandy

[phorner]

Ed,

Glad you have your problem resolved and that it turned out to be an easy fix.

Now you can fully concentrate on better chasing strategies....

[mike kerley]

Ed, Maybe you should think about what you'd do if you caught them? Better yet, forget chasing them and just think about what you'd do if you chased them and caught them.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

OK, what do you do when you catch them???????

[CAPT MOGUL & Sandy]

OK, what do you do when you catch them???????

He never caught them(I did) but he was screaming and asking them while running down the road, "Where do you live and who's yo mammaw?" HA! Just kidding!
No, they ran so fast and when Ed turned his knee, that was it. He is really paying for all of it now. The knee is bigger than his head today. (Don't go there please, Jon;)). We have to be nice for all the family.
I have to get our Orthopedic Surgeon, who lives next door to us, look at him tomorrow.:eek:
Sandy

[truk4u]

Who's yo mammaw!:rolleyes:

C'mon Sandy, you know he was screaming, "who's ya Daddy, who's ya Daddy"!:p

[Gary & Peggy Stevens]

No Tom that wasn't nice................ FUNNY but not nice !

[truk4u]

Sponge Bob - Get a grip, your mind is in the gutter if you took it wrong! Have you never listened to Country Music?