No Power on Battery

[nomad]

I've read all the archive articles on this subject, but have found no solution.
This is a 2002 Colman Santa Fe popup.
Everything works on A/C shore power, btut nothing works on Battery Power.
Battery is good = 12.7volts
All connectors are connected w/ no visible corrosion.
Fuses are all good.
The only oddity is that the voltage at the far end of the trailer (at the converter
connector, when disconnected, is only 10volts) No visible cuts/shorts in the wire. Most of the wire harness is protected in the frame of the trailer.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,

[wavery]

I've read all the archive articles on this subject, but have found no solution.
This is a 2002 Colman Santa Fe popup.
Everything works on A/C shore power, btut nothing works on Battery Power.
Battery is good = 12.7volts
All connectors are connected w/ no visible corrosion.
Fuses are all good.
The only oddity is that the voltage at the far end of the trailer (at the converter
connector, when disconnected, is only 10volts) No visible cuts/shorts in the wire. Most of the wire harness is protected in the frame of the trailer.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,

Check the ground cable from the battery where it bolts to the frame of the trailer. That is often a problem due to vibration and corrosion.

[AustinBoston]

Check the ground cable from the battery where it bolts to the frame of the trailer. That is often a problem due to vibration and corrosion.

I sure hope this works, 'cause my next thought is pulling new wires.

Before pulling new wires, check the quality of every connection along the wire.  A reduced voltage when all that's happened is it's gone through some wires indicates a bad connection.

One other thing - I could believe (but I don't know this for a fact) that my converter has a battery cutoff voltage, so that everything is disconnected when the battery falls below a certain voltage.  This would protect both the battery and the stuff connected to it.  So that on one side of the converter you could read 10V and on the other you'd get 0.  

I do know for a fact that the converter monitors the battery even when not connected to shore power.  My pop-up is 6 years old, but the converter was replaced with a unit very similar to (or maybe the same as) the standard converter Fleetwood was using in 2003, so you may have the same converter.

Austin

[nomad]

Check the ground cable from the battery where it bolts to the frame of the trailer. That is often a problem due to vibration and corrosion.

There is a neutral/white cable at the battery, but no gound cable.
The White/neutral cable is good all the way back to the converter connector.
I have no reason to believe that the converter took a surge, but that's what
my local RV service dept is telling me after describing the problem over the phone.  I've only used it with battery power,other than testing it here at home
on A/C, which is why I don't believe it.

[wavery]

There is a neutral/white cable at the battery, but no gound cable.
The White/neutral cable is good all the way back to the converter connector.
I have no reason to believe that the converter took a surge, but that's what
my local RV service dept is telling me after describing the problem over the phone.  I've only used it with battery power,other than testing it here at home
on A/C, which is why I don't believe it.

The white cable is your ground cable. If it goes directly to the converter, that means that the converter is grounded by bolting it to the frame. The other scenario would be that every connection on the camper is grounded through a wiring connection (white wire to each device), as aposed to using the frame for ground. I think that my camper is wired that way actually.

In probably 75% of cases like this, low voltage is caused by a bad ground. Usually it is corrosion (which may not be visible) in a connector. The corrosion causes resistance and that resistance will give you a pretty steady low voltage reading because the resistance doesn't change. If you put a volt meter on it and start wiggling wires or jostling the converter, you may see the voltage change, if your moving of the wires affects the resistance.

It is also fairly common to have a bad wire (either pos or neg) from the battery to the converter. A few people have reported finding that on PUT. I think that I would think about starting by replacing those wires.

[nomad]

Thanks Guys!
I did see a grounded white wire under the camper, at the tail end, that looked a bit rusted at the screw connection.
I hope this is it.
I'll check out your suggestions & let you know.

[nomad]

Thanks Guys!
I did see a grounded white wire under the camper, at the tail end, that looked a bit rusted at the screw connection.
I hope this is it.
I'll check out your suggestions & let you know.

Well, found 2 wires grounded to the frame, but after removing, cleaning & replacing them, I still have no power.
I guess I'll try running temporary wire just for test purposes.
Any other suggestions while I'm at it?

[aw738]

[/QUOTE]It is also fairly common to have a bad wire (either pos or neg) from the battery to the converter. A few people have reported finding that on PUT. I think that I would think about starting by replacing those wires.

This is what I had to do. I had 12 volts one foot from the battery and 12 volts at the converter, but it would not light the light in a test light. I replaced the main wire from the battery to the converter and fixed the problem.

[ForestCreature]

I don't know if the newer converters have that internal fuse or not. If you do have an internal fuse in your converter did you check that one?

[nomad]

I don't know if the newer converters have that internal fuse or not. If you do have an internal fuse in your converter did you check that one?

I checked & found no internal fuse. This was the reason, given by my Local RV service dept., for suggesting that the Converter is fried. He said, "without a fuse, the Converter took a surge".  I've had nothing but battery connected since
I used it last October. I only connected A/C, to test it, when the battery failed to provide power.

[XJJoe01]

Go check the grounds and wires as the others have posted.  Also, check to see if there is in-line fuse if there is not a fuse on your converter.  I really think there is a fuse there to protect the converter, battery, and your tv.  Mine are inside the trailer under a plastic cover hiding the cooling vents of my converter.  It also has some circuit breakers in there.

 
On my camper, the fuse blew on the input (30 amp fuse) ac side and when it did, it did not work on the battery untill I changed out the bad fuse.
 
Best of luck,
 
Joe

[nomad]

Problem Solved:
After exhausting every resource & possible cause, I finally accepted that it must be the most expensive part of the electrical system, THE CONVERTER.
For whatever reason, I then decided to push on the wires at the access hole going into the frame at the battery end.  I had done this before, but this time my wife was inside the camper & started screeming: "the lights are on, the lights are on!"
There obviously must be a short of the hot wire from the battery.
Now, there is a smooth plastic sleeve around the hole where the wires go into the metal frame, likely to prevent the wires from rubbing and wearing on the sharp edge. I pulled the wires out of the frame, as much as I could, looking for a cut in the insulation, but found none.
The really odd thing is that the the short happened inside the smooth tube area of the frame.  I can only assume that it happened during manufacturing, which may be why a number of you had similar problems & solved it by replacing this wire.
Since I believe the insulation must be cut very close to the access hole & seeing what a headach it will be to replace, I'm going to try sliding a plastic sleeve over this wire & into the frame.
I hope this posted info will be helpful to those with similar electrical problems in future.
Thanks to everyone who offered help on this problem.

[wavery]

Problem Solved:
After exhausting every resource & possible cause, I finally accepted that it must be the most expensive part of the electrical system, THE CONVERTER.
For whatever reason, I then decided to push on the wires at the access hole going into the frame at the battery end.  I had done this before, but this time my wife was inside the camper & started screeming: "the lights are on, the lights are on!"
There obviously must be a short of the hot wire from the battery.
Now, there is a smooth plastic sleeve around the hole where the wires go into the metal frame, likely to prevent the wires from rubbing and wearing on the sharp edge. I pulled the wires out of the frame, as much as I could, looking for a cut in the insulation, but found none.
The really odd thing is that the the short happened inside the smooth tube area of the frame.  I can only assume that it happened during manufacturing, which may be why a number of you had similar problems & solved it by replacing this wire.
Since I believe the insulation must be cut very close to the access hole & seeing what a headach it will be to replace, I'm going to try sliding a plastic sleeve over this wire & into the frame.
I hope this posted info will be helpful to those with similar electrical problems in future.
Thanks to everyone who offered help on this problem.

If you had a "Short" (hot wire contacting ground) it would be blowing the fuse at the battery. It wouldn't give you a low voltage reading.

More than likely, you have a partial separation inside the wire itself. This can happen from vibration or corrosion. It could also happen from using cheap wire in the first place.

My suggestion would be to cut both wires on either the inside or outside of the camper. Attach a heavy string to them and pull them through from the other end, pulling the string through after the wire. Attach new wire to the string that you just pulled through and pull them back the other direction.

If you can open the converter and attach the new wires to the connection that they originate at, that would be best. If not, Make sure that you make a good splice and solder it. It's best to get "Shrink wrap" tubing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/48-HEAT-SHRINK-TUBING-WRAP-SLEEVES-ASSORTED-COLOR-WIRE_W0QQitemZ7610896440QQcategoryZ73132QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
instead of taping the splice. You slide the shrink wrap on before you make your splice, After you solder the splice, heat the shrink wrap with a heat gun. If you don't have a heat gun and are very careful, you can heat the shrink wrap with a lighter. Just heat it enough to shrink it all the way around. Also, be sure to install all new wire end connectors. Solder them and use heat shrink on them also. This will insure that you will never have this problem again and only have to worry about "Camping stuff" and having a good time.

I am actually going to replace mine in a couple of weeks. I intend to use 8g marine wire. Marine wire is very high quality wire and the entire wire is tinned to prevent corrosion. http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/producte/10001/-1/10001/145803/0/0/wire/All_2/mode%20matchallpartial/15/0

At the same time, I am going to add this cut-off switch in the hot line:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=92688

[nomad]

I guess I felt that the battery hot wire's in line breaker was keeping it from blowing the fuse. (There's a little breaker on the wire about 10 inches from the battery)
What do you mean by a "partial separation in the wire"?  A cut inside the insulation?  How would that happen?
Thanks,

[wavery]

I guess I felt that the battery hot wire's in line breaker was keeping it from blowing the fuse. (There's a little breaker on the wire about 10 inches from the battery)
What do you mean by a "partial separation in the wire"?  A cut inside the insulation?  How would that happen?
Thanks,

If the circuit breaker was blowing, you would have "0" voltage, not 10v.

Sometimes, wire gets broken inside the insulation from a variety of reasons. #1 is poor quality wire, #2 is vibration, #3 is over handling (maybe by trailer manufacturer), #4 good old corrosion #5 is back to the ground problem that I mentioned before (which you may have already corrected). If you have a bad ground the hot wire can sometimes become overheated and erratic flow of current can increase corrosion because of the constant expansion and contraction from heating and cooling of the wire.

The wire is made up of about 100 individual strands of wire. Sometimes several of those wires are parted by over bending or corrosion and just a few are making complete contact. If that is the case (and probably is) you are now trying to operate your 12v system on something less then speaker wire. It just wont handle the voltage and will give to a reading but won't handle any load at all. It is not uncommon (as has been reported here before) to get a 12v reading on a meter but not have enough amperage to operate a light bulb.