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Jon
One more thing. the former owner added 28 extra running lights and the same for signal lights and my husband thinks that is 2 heavy of a draw and was wondering if he just took bulbs out of them, would that reduce draw. Can't take off or would notice on paint job. When LED's drop in price replace.
Thanks
Judi Brown
We found the resets the book was talking about,they were behind the 12 and 24 switchs. That draw pulled out after pulling release button in engine compartment. So are going to get bus runnig and see if charging right.
Thanks
Judi
Judi,
28 extra lights will not create the problems you describe, however it is important to understand your electrical system to properly point to the source of your problem.
For example, at one time the Prevost headlights and the ATEC and DDEC computers were the 12 volt items on the Prevost side of your electric system, with the balance of the lighting being 24 volt. The change to 12 volt lighting for the whole coach was made at some point which obviously added 12 volt loads meaning the equalizer(s) had to be working right or in a relatively short time the batteries on the 12 volt side were drawn down. Clearly this means an understanding of the Prevost electrical loads is important so you know where to focus when trouble shooting.
If the 12 volt Prevost electrical system voltage drops to a certain level, you not only have dead batteries, your computers for DDEC and ATEC shut down and your bus is not moving.
Keep in mind that the house and the bus electrical systems are isolated from one another so you do not get confused when trouble shooting. From your post is sounds like the house is 12 volts and has its own alternator. That makes the trouble shooting much easier because you are not dealing with an isolator and the alternator is not supplying two separate systems. I don't know what the practice was for Liberty at that time. It is possible the alternator mounted on the rear of the engine out of sight is a 12 volt, 270 amp for the house, and the smaller alternator is a 24 volt of lesser amperage, such as 145 amps is dedicated to the bus. Or not. You need to determine which is which because I can see if the small alternator is for the bus 24 volt charging, and you run all lights plus the OTR air conditioning the batteries may discharge.
My guess is that if the running lights pulled down the voltage on the 12 volt side of the Prevost system the equalizer is likely the culprit and if you found and reset the equalizer circuit breaker you may have solved the problem. The equalizer(s) when checked with a voltmeter should read 24 to 28 volts on the 24 volt electrical post and half of that on the 12 volt post with an allowable 1/2 volt variation. If you do not get those values the equalizer is not functioning properly. You may have one 100 amp equalizer or 2 50 amp equalizers. The voltage variations will be dependent upon whether the engine is running when you do the test or whether it is not and the batteries have been drawn down. Engine running I would expect to see 27.4 to 28.2 volts, or engine off, fully charged batteries 25.4 to 25.7 volts, with the values at the 12 volt posts (batteries or equalizers) half of those voltages.
Thanks to everyone for the help. Husband thinks has problem licked amd managed to save new batteries. We had computer on trip,but I couldn't
remember pass word, his computer not mine, so another lesson learned.
But 800.00 poorer.
Judi B