TV and Heat inop

[Loren Harris]

Hi there anybody, I and my wife are new to BAC etc and finally I get to converse with everyone. Glad to meet everyone and hope we can eventually get together someday.

Now, with my 2001 Beaver Patriot Thunder I noticed that my inverter shows a fluctuating voltage when there is no shore power hooked up or no generator being used. The way I found out was by putting a new LED TV up front with the original one left in the bedroom. In order to dry camp I cannot use the front tv because of the voltage going from 117v to "0" for a second or two and then back to 117v and this happens over and over. Now here is what I do not understand. When I turn on the rear bedroom tv the voltage stays 117v without fluctuating and then I am able to watch tv but like I say the bedroom one has to be on in order to watch the tv up front. Are the original tv's that come in these coaches new (which are Sony) happen to be 12 volt tv's? I am confused why this is happening. The tv I replaced up front is a regular 110 ac tv from Target. Somehow the coach is either wired in a way that the circuit completes for ac voltage steadily only when the rear tv is on. This doesn't seem right but maybe someone can explain it for me. Thanks, Loren Harris. By the way if I hook to shore power or use the generator of course I have steady 110 ac voltage.
Oh, another thing is with the Hydro Hot I cannot seem to have heat coming out of the vents on the floor except if I turn on the switch by the front of the sink in the kitchen to heat but then only heat comes out of the vent below the fridge which is warm. Are there some secret switches somewhere since the manual says there is a switch in all rooms. I have thermostats to adjust but what else is there? I have had this coach since May of this year so am getting familiar with it.

[David T. Richelderfer]

On my coach there are indeed floor-vent furnace fan-control switches in each room.  I found a fan-control switch (and 110v receptacle) near the accelerator pedal at the pilot's seat, another under the front lip of the counter top near the left kitchen sink, another on the wall near the linen closet in the bathroom, and another in the bedroom.  My fan control switches are three-way toggles with low-off-high fan-speed positions.

My thermostats are used to turn on the roof units and furnace.  My coach has three zones - living room, bathroom, and bedroom - one for each roof unit.  I have two thermostats, but the thermostat located in the bedroom controls the bathroom and bedroom zones as separate functions.  Only one setting can be actuated within each zone.  The three settings on the thermostats are heat pump, cooling, and furnace.  As discussed in another thread last month, if you need only a little heat on the furnace setting, then turn on the Aquahot (the 110v element water heater) assuming you are plugged into adequate Shore Power or have the Generator on.  If more heat or quick heat is needed, then turn on the Diesel Burner.

I am new to this also, having purchased in late August.  And my coach is presently in winter storage, so I am unable to verify this information.  There is lots to learn... and I will learn most of it... over time... as I need to know it.   And welcome aboard.

[Gerald Farris]

Loren,
In your coach, turning the thermostat to heat just enables the heat exchangers to deliver heat, but the Aqua Hot unit most also be turned on to provide a heat source. The Aqua Hot can heat with either 120V power, the diesel burner, or both together, depending on how you set the switch. There is a switch for the fan at each register, so if you are not getting heat from just one register the switch is probably turned off.

As for your TV problem, the original TVs that came in your coach are normal high end residential TVs for the date that your coach was built. I can not think of anything that would cause the condition that you described. The only thing that I noticed about your description is the fact that you had dead batteries at the time. You should not run your batteries down below 12V in an unloaded state. A fully charged 12V battery will read 12.7V about an hour after it is removed from the charger. There are numerous things that need to answered to determine the source of your problem, like how many amps was the inverter drawing from the batteries at the time that this happened. was the ignition key on, was the Bose system on, and how many amps does the TV draw?

Gerald    

[Dick Simonis]

Loren,

I see you have a replacement TV in the front.  It's possible that the TV doesn't draw enough power to "turn on"the inverter.  There is a threshold level that must be met and that is typically an adjustable value.  Ie, if it's set t 50W nothing less than that will start the inverter function.  An easy way to check is to turn on the AC lighting first than the TV.  Check your inverter manual to see what these thresholds values.

[Joel Ashley]

Loren-

As mentioned in my note to you, our coach doesn't have individual heat exchanger switches.  I was not aware such an animal existed until David mentioned it.  If your rig does use switches at each vent like his, then that is the most likely cause of your issue and an easy resolution.  Whether or not you have such switches, if you still get no heat from a particular vent, use a screwdriver to remove the vent cover, carefully reach in around the box and see if the hoses there are warm.  They are the tubes carrying hot fluid to and from the AquaHot.  

Simply put, the small fan or fans in the box move warmed air from one tube out into the room and the second tube returns cooler fluid to the AquaHot.  If the tubes aren't warm then the problem could be a non-operational pump for that zone in the AquaHot (of course, the diesel AquaHot switch below your kitchen counter should be on and the thermostat for that room be calling for heat when checking this).  If the tubes are warm/hot but the fans aren't running even with the thermostat cranked way up, then the fans aren't getting electricity, and wiring connections should be checked.

One faulty vent unit in our coach when new had a wire pinched under the box mounting;  broken copper strands didn't allow enough current through to the fan to run it, but I spliced in a new wire section and it was fine.  So there could be any of several reasons some of your exchangers aren't putting out heat.

Joel

[David T. Richelderfer]

Yes, Joel, that's why I told him where my fan switches are located.  I would assume he has a fan switch for each furnace heater vent.  I have two switches in the living room actually - one by the accelerator pedal and the other under the kitchen countertop lip... also a fan switch in the bathroom for the bathroom furnace vent, and yet another fan switch in the bedroom incorporated into the bathroom vanity under its countertop lip.  My thought is Loren pobably has more fan switches; he just has not located them yet.

The more time I spend on my knees looking under and around things the more stuff I find.  I found a couple 110v receptacles while on my knees.  Otherwise, I would never have known they were there.  Now I use them on occasion.