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Old 04-29-2006, 06:19 AM   #1
camp_in_pa
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Default Is it my battery or converter

I am having electrical trouble with my 1998 2518. We just bought it used last October and didn't even have time to use it last season. I opened it up yesterday to air it out and start spring cleaning.

I neglected to disconnect the battery over the winter. There is a deep-cycle marine battery (12V) attached. I put the battery on a portable charger for several hours. It reads 11.88V with a digital multi-meter. However, I get no power on DC in the trailer.

I checked the battery cells and topped off a couple of cells and I plugged the TM into shore power overnight. I hear the converter humming when it is on shore power but it doesn't appear to be charging the battery.

How can I troubleshoot this further? It appears to me that if the battery is reading close to 12V, it should be able to at least power a light bulb inside??

Thanks for any help and look forward to camping this year!

Dean

Lancaster, PA
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Old 04-29-2006, 06:48 AM   #2
dbnoll
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I would try using a slow charge rate for at least 24hrs, i.e., 2A. It sounds like you may have a bad cell. You could take it to a parts store or even a Sears and have it load tested. If it won't take a slow charge after that long of a period, you either have a bad battery or a bad charger.
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Old 04-29-2006, 09:00 AM   #3
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Well, anything 11.9v or below at no load is considered pretty much the fully discharged state.
Check the voltage at the battery while under charge from the converter. You should see around 13.8V from the Magnetek 6300 series converter if it's working. Let us know what it is.

Paul
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Old 04-29-2006, 10:38 AM   #4
Bill
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Dean -

If you left the battery connected over the winter, then the phantom loads (aka parasitic loads) in the trailer completely discharged the battery. Not a partial discharge, but right down to ZERO. Complete discharge is very bad for a battery, and that in itself may have destroyed it. Beyond that, a battery that is completely discharged will freeze at about the same temp as plain water. Freezing almost always destroys a battery. Was the TM stored where freezing temps were encountered? If so, everything you have done since simply confirms that the battery needs to be replaced.

You can do a SEARCH of this board for "parasitic loads" or "phantom loads" to find more information on this topic.

On the other hand, there is an outside chance that there is a different problem. The symptoms you describe are kind of ambiguous.

First, if you plug the TM into shore power, then the interior lights should light. If the lights don't light while the converter is running, then possibly the converter is bad. Or, for some reason, the fuse in the light circuit has blown (this is unlikely, IMHO).

If the lights work, the next thing to check is the battery fuse. This is a 30-amp fuse in the main battery line (red wire, about 6" away from the battery). If the lights work, but battery doesn't charge, then the fuse MAY (repeat MAY) be bad.

HOWEVER:

If you connected your portable charger directly to the battery (portable chargers usually have battery post clips), and the battery still reads 11.88 volts, then your battery is gone. The main fuse is not part of this situation.

How old is the battery? If it is the original battery, it is now 8 years old, it is WAY overdue for replacement anyway. I generally figure 4 years is about as long as a battery should last.

Putting all of it together says that you need to replace the battery. Sorry.

Bill
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Old 04-29-2006, 08:55 PM   #5
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Well, I had both my father and father-in-law help me troubleshoot the problem today. We found that there is an inline fuse about 8 inches from the positive terminal. And lo and behold, the fuse was blown! So, there was no way for the battery to be drained since there was no way to drain it!

I put in a new fuse and plugged the TM into shore power. I will check it tomorrow to see if it charges. I will also check the date code on the battery.

Sometimes it is the easiest (and apparently the most obvious) things that can cause the most frustration. I previously went inside and popped all the circuit breakers and removed and reseated all the DC blade fuses, etc. I never imagined that the little plastic tube on the wire could have been the problem! I have never seen an inline fuse get blown! Oh well, live and learn.

Hopefully this was a fluke and not an indication of another problem!

Looking forward to getting the TM cleaned out and ready for camping.

Thanks to all the great help from my fellow TM Owners!

Dean
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Old 04-30-2006, 10:55 PM   #6
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Sounds like a sulfated battery to me. We had problems with that with military trucks that sat around a lot. If a battery sits around for long periods of time with little or low charge, the sulphur in the acid accumulates on the lead plates and decreases their usefulness. In other words they won't take a "full" charge and will not hold a charge very long. In other words, they are shot! If you have an Interstate Battery store in your area, they will test it and tell you what's wrong. A lot of other parts stores will check it, too, but they only want to sell you a new battery so they almost always will tell you it's "bad". Interstate _at least our local one - will tell you the truth even if they don't make the sale. There are "Battery Rejuvinators" that claim to fix sulfated batteries, but IMHO they're worthless - we tried some on the military trucks and they did absolutely nothing.
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Old 08-01-2020, 01:35 PM   #7
Szabo101
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This is a an old thread, but it has been very helpful as we just purchased a 2007 2720SL with blown fuse issues. Here is my question:

The battery keeps blowing the in-line 30A fuse as soon as it is connected, it is about 10 inches up from the battery terminal. The previous owner has this wired as black wire to negative and white wire to positive.

Everything seems to work just fine (and no fuse gets blown) if I make the black wire positive(hot wire) and white wire negative. Seems to me like in-line fuse should be on hotwire-black just like it is in a home - is this correct?. Any thoughts?
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Old 08-01-2020, 05:07 PM   #8
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Yes, in a TM (and most other automotive-type applications), the black wire is positive and the white wire is negative. (In automotive applications, the negative wire is connected to the chassis, and is often referred to as "ground". Old British cars, incidentally, did it backward.) If the battery was hooked up in reverse, you may find that it has damaged some electronics stuff in the TM.

Yes, the fuse should always be in the positive wire, the very first thing connected to the battery, and physically close to it.

Bill
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Old 08-31-2020, 12:56 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill View Post
If the battery was hooked up in reverse, you may find that it has damaged some electronics stuff in the TM.
My new '20 power distribution center has reverse polarity protection fuses. Hopefully '07 (and earlier) models had them too.
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