Country Coach Owners

[dale farley]

Although, most of us have a full set of manuals and electrical schematics of every system on the bus, it will be helpful to have lower level schematics that show the components on the circuit boards.

As a result of our CC discussion at OKC, Miles has agreed to go to CC and compile all the information he can find on our systems. I have agreed to make a list of CC owners so Miles can present this list to CC. I need everyone to send me the following information via this post, Private Message or email:

Owner Name: Dale Farley
Year of Conversion and Model: 1999 XL 45'
CC serial # : 60389

Thanks, Dale

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Dale, I am not a CC owner, but I would suggest as a group you take an inventory of the assets you already have as owners. Amongst the owners may already be some of the data you seek along with some knowledge of the systems or people who have successfully maintained the systems. You may wish to ask for that information also. It may include information from others that have had a CC, but who have another conversion now.

Also, I have seen posts and spoken to people with earlier conversions and their need for knowledge about their systems and components may not include the electronics, but is also something that should not be overlooked.

[flyu2there]

Dale,

I presume that you are describing the mother and daughter Boards located behind the plexiglass shield in the most forward bay. I have the data that shows what system or systems each daughter board controls. There are also a handfull of what I might call grand daughter boards that are spread throughout the coach that control things like auto generator start, fuel quantity indication, speech processor, alarms, motion sensors and so on; unfortunately in many cases they are inter laced and if you have a failure on one you may, or may not have multiple failures.

That being said, as one who has been down this road, the data that CC has on the specific boards runs from the general (this plugs into there type of thing and these are the outputs) to the hyper technical (motorola model 53001-a transistor up to coach number 603XXX superceded by Motorola model 54002, revision A, thru coach number.....................) There is no mid ground and personally, anyone who is not an extremely talented computer technician with every lick of data from not only Prevost, CC, and the Vendor who developed and built the product is in dangerous territory for fear of complicating the issue.

I had a fuel indication problem. CC tech support told me how to find a different power supply for same (which is apparently what CC does in these issues) but I chose the path to fix it! It took months and I called a number of marks (aircraft r and e guys, computer techs et al), all to no avail. I found the vendor for the boards (Eugene, Oregon) and had several boards tested and checked by them....no help. At the end of the day I finally found a fuse (not shown in ANY schematic)hidden back by the coach, not house, batteries that was connected to a 300 series wire that ran first to the motherboard, then directly to a granddaughter board behind the television thence thru the speech processor and down to the fuel gauge.

Couple of additional words of caution, no matter how great the temptation to "clean up" the mother board, daughter board or connectors (they do get dusty) avoid the use of spray clean...use canned air and forget about it. Those cutsie little red connectors that are so widely used will melt themselves down when touched with spray clean, followed by disconnecting themselves from thier homes...it is not pretty!


John

[dale farley]

Jon & John,

One of the main things we are looking for is the schematics for the mother & daughter boards. CC has provided good documentation down to the board level for virtually every converter-specific system in the bus.

I currently have a switching problem with my Webasto. The existing schematics show all switches, relays, etc., down to the board level. Miles and I have traced my problem to the #18 daughter board on the ECC, but we can't go any farther without a schematic for the board. We could do the shotgun approach, but that should only be the last resort. We know the switch is good, the Webasto System itself is good, and the wire to the board is good.

My problem is probably a lazy relay on the board, and would be easy to replace if we knew exactly which one it is. All of the boards (including the mother board) are single-layer boards, so repairs should not be that difficult.

This information would be extremely helpful for every owner to have in the bus whether they want to troubleshoot or have any other technician perform the work.

[dale farley]

John,

When you get a chance, how about making a picture of that fuse and posting it for all to see. I was not aware it existed. Thanks.

[flyu2there]

Dale,

First of all I am a long ways from home and the bus but I will post a pic when I get back.

Secondly, each of the relays has red/green lights...they should all be either red or green when you first look at the board. Should a number of these be without lights the circuit is either not used or the relay is bad, look further down and make certain that the fuses are all good, they also have lights. Further, as I recall a number of the daughter boards are interchangeable, especially the ones at the far right side (the higher numbers). Take a look at the sisters and see if they have the same part number and swap them...carefully, only after powering down both ac and dc. See if that resolves the Webasto problem. Failing that, open up the mother board, it is hinged on the LH side. There are a number of miniture micro switches on the back that are used by those, really in the know, to isolate various systems. Could one of those been accidently pushed? Should you have an assistant, you could push those switches one at a time to see if the problem resolves. I would think twice about soldering on that or any of those boards; when I shipped mine to Inner City Electronics they sent me a special bag, like for computer parts. I was also warned about static electricity and to make sure I was grounded when touching anything like the mother or daughter boards. FYI, all of the "stuff" down there was built by Inner City Electronics in Eugene and truly, they are the ones I would have test or repair any of those components.

John

[dale farley]

John,

I fully understand and agree with the precautions you are referring to when doing circuit board handling and repair. Many years ago I went through a 4-year electronics program where we did micro-miniature board repair down to 7 layers of circuitry. Unfortunately, I no longer have the tools or recency of experience to do work to that level.

Although these boards require careful handling and proper repair techniques, they are considered about as simple as they come when dealing with circuit boards. They are really no more complicated than the boards in my electric fence chargers and gate openers that I routinely repair after consulting with a technician.

Fortunately for us, Miles is a CC owner, and he is about as sharp as they come when it comes to electronics circuitry. I am a has-been; he is still very much an expert in the field. I remember enough to get myself in trouble. Miles knows enough to get me out.

[flyu2there]

Dale,

Understood, go for it! Once again caution when it comes to the red connectors, they are also used to connect the daughter boards to the mother board. They are an odd ball size and come from the aircraft industry, believe they are made in Seattle. CC and others used them as connectors and because of their side grooves, they are like Lego's and blocks are made from them. Trouble is yours, like mine, are approaching 10 years or more and they are brittle....break one and you will play hell finding a replacement. Nobody but no one has them save the manufacturer and I might add, they are very proud of their merchandise.
As mentioned before, never squirt them with spray clean, what ever is in that stuff nowadays will cause them to immediately self destruct and you will hear the faint plink plink plink as the wires fall off whatever they were attached to. I do not know about the relays but would guess that they are not Radio Shack items although a saavy electronics guy can pull off the codes. Inner City is a good resource, he has every schematic in the land, much more than CC has....trouble is, he is not too talkative and apparently very busy. BTW, they do not care much for the coach number rather the part number on the specific board in question. Seems that every coach that CC has built is slightly different (aside from cosmetics and accessories) than the other. Good Luck, keep us appraised.

John

[flyu2there]

One more thing. The bulkhead, in front of the mother board has a cooling fan for that the compartment. I would bet that the filter, a chincy little foam rubber thing, has never been cleaned.........have a look.
Also, no matter what temptations anyone has, set the thermostat on the fan to the max temperature (as per CC); seems it sucks in outside air thru that little filter and if you have or someone has set the thermostat to a much lower temperature, the fan will run nearly all of the time, plugging the filter quickly and rendering the fan useless.

[dale farley]

I was checking mine the other day because I have never heard it running. When I turned the thermostat down, it came on, so it seems to be working right.