
Originally Posted by
Darl-Wilson
Tom and Jon, I checked this out last night and, with your new suggestions,again this morning. The maximum reading I got was 12.8V. The breakers are OK but I only get the same 12.8V across them. Same with the master and from battery to negative on jumper lug. The main check that I think I should have been making (and stupidly didn't check earlier)is simply to see is I am getting 28V out of my battery bank. This is also 12.8V. There is an equalizer that has a 28V lug, a -lug, and a 12V lug. 12V measures 12.8 but the 28V yields a .59. One cable from the equalizer was placed on a negative battery post. When changed to a positive battery post the equalizer read properly except no 28V. I still do not have 28V anywhere in the engine/battery compartment, including the starter. Tom, I think you are on to something when you wrote about the battery cable issues. When this problem 1st occurred the road service company sent out a guy with a 1976 Chev 1/2 ton PU with a battery jumper connection hanging out of the grill. I told him there was no way this was going to get the bus started and I had ordered a commercial truck service truck. He insisted that he could get me started. When it didn't work he called back to his boss who had him remove the battery cables and charge each battery separately. Of course this didn't work either. The second company, with a similar setup but with 4 12V batteries was unable to jump start with the batteries so he jumped it from the starter.
Other than the cable I described above that was apparently mistakenly placed on a - post there is nothing obviously wrong with the cables. Of course there has to be if the batteries are fully charged and connected properly and only check out a 12.8V.
As it stands right now I may not be able to get back on this until Saturday. My whole family, wife, kids, and grandkids are leaving about 4:30am tomorrow for 2 weeks in Puerto Vallarta. Saying everything is in disarray is an understatement!
I am going to get into my Prevost schematics and thoroughly check out the cable configuration on the batteries. I suspect everyone that has helped me on this has wondered if I did something wrong. At this point I think I amy have overlooked the obvious. More to come. Thanks everyone! I'll keep you updated.