Input Amp loss

[Edward Buker]

Roland,

If I am following your post right you have a 3 amp AC draw that stops when you lift the house battery terminals. That would say to me that there is a dc current that turns on an AC supplied unit that draws 3 amps AC, Things like the refrigerator are possibilities. Try going into your AC breaker panel and turn off each breaker one at a time to see which one stops the 3amp AC draw. There are usually 3 or 4 breakers in the basement in a small grey box also to try one at a time. In addition you can pull each DC fuse or turn off each DC breaker that supplies the house side of things and see if one of those fuses disables the 3 amp AC draw. The batteries being down is caused by the DC amps being consumed and the AC amps is of little consequence other than the AC and DC amps seem to be drawn together when you test things.

Stick with the external charger and get the batteries back fully charged and see if the DC amps drops off. If you have a way to measure DC amps after the batteries reach charge you can see if there is an excessive house draw by any house fuse or breaker. The fact that no DC house fuse or breaker has blown or tripped has me believing that the coach side of things are pretty normal just no charging is available and your batteries are run way down in charge level. You will get swings in battery voltage with small DC current draw when the batteries are deeply discharged which is what I think the AC amps in leg two being turned on and off is telling you. The issue is the DC voltage swings in a battery discharged sate is pretty normal and not much of an indicator of the real charge or discharge state or capacities of the batteries. Hope this helps.

Later Ed

[Roland DuBree]

This is a revised post to correct errors in the original Post.
My 2.0 Prosine stopped working with a HI DC voltage fault and shut down. Will not restart with power off. etc. or use of Bypass switch. To get power in to coach for invertor output items the Prosine was removed and the AC in was connected to the AC out wiring. This makes all work inside but there is NO Battery charging except from engine alternator. No charging from shore power either. Went out next day to check Chassis and House battery voltages because do not want refrigerator to shut down with all items in it. Found Chassis at 6.5 and house at 11.3 volts.  Best of my knowledge nothing on in RV except Refrigerator, 2 CO sensors and as far as I Know nothing on Chassis side. My incoming 120 VAC power saftey device tells me I am reading a 3 amp draw on the L-2 leg and No amps on L-1 leg. Both legs read 123 volts.  Remove hot (red) terminals from Chassis to see if amps drop. One terminal goes to Engine starter = No amp drop.  Other going to fuse bank and to battery isolator lifted and amps drop to zero. This same line feeds power to all engine items in compartment up front under driver window.  Chassis batteries were load tested in July and found fine only 2 years old, How do you find where the 3 AMPS are going - no switches to turn thing off on chassis side!  Hooked up external battery charger over night with terminals on Chassis batteries,  Chassis reads 12.5 and House 12.2 volts.  With charger on amps draw is 4 amps because charger plugged into MH AC socket. How o yo check the item like the isolater, start boost solenoid, echo charge (Replace 2 years ago, etc.  Looks like the problem is on Chassis side but where and how to find?  3 amps sounds like a pretty large draw!

[Edward Buker]

Roland,

Read my post again.....you are drawing 3 amps AC without a charger involved. If you go through the routine you will find what is drawing the AC amps. When you lift the DC chassis battery + lead you are killing some DC circuit that controls the AC circuit and activates it to work so it starts pulling the leg 2 AC current. That is really a non issue. The batteries are seeing a DC load of 4 amps on the charger which is pretty normal so I think the coach is fine. If you want to know where the current is going follow the routine I mentioned but in the end I do not think that you have a coach problem other than the lack of a working charger.

Later Ed

[Steve Huber]

Roland,
The Hi DC voltage fault indicates the inverter saw >16v on the house batteries. You can go through your ac breakers to see if you can locate the draw, as Ed described above. You may also want to open the COACH battery disconnect switch (or use the coach power switch) to isolate the coach battery circuit. If the draw is still present, it almost has to be either from the isolator or the solar charge circuits, neither of which is AC. Since the chassis batteries are not tied directly into the AC circuitry, I suspect you are seeing a feedback from something where the draw is showing as an AC current draw.

From what you are describing I would suspect a faulty battery isolator. You can verify the Echo charger operation via the indicator light.The light on your echo charger should be flashing green with house batteries at 12.2v. They need to be 13.3 or more for the light to be steady green and charging of the chassis batteries to occur.  If red or off, you have a thermal or fuse problem respectively.

To test the isolator, there should be a procedure in the manual. Here's one for a 1602 Sure Power which I think was used by Beaver.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR TESTING A SURE POWER ISOLATOR WITH OHMMETER*:
1. Remove all wires from the isolator.
2. Using a needle movement ohmmeter RX-1 scale or a digital ohmmeter diode scale , hold the Red* probe on the terminal "A" and with the Black* probe touch terminal #1 and #2, and the "E" terminal for 3A isolators (group 2), and the "R" terminal for (group 3) isolators. A good isolator will show a current flow from "A" to #1, #2 and "R", and no current flow to "E".
3. Next, hold the Black* probe on the "A" and with the Red* probe touch terminal #1 and #2 (terminal "E" and "R", if used). A good isolator will allow no current flow from "A" to #1, #2 or "R" and will show current flow from "E" to "A".
4. Hold one probe on the aluminum heat sink, being sure there is contact by scratching through the protective coating. Then touch with the other probe, terminals "A", #1, #2 (the "E" terminal for 3A isolators [group 2] , the "R" terminal for group 3 isolators). A good isolator will show no current flow.
5. Colored terminal indicates "E" post on group 2 isolators and "R" terminal on most group 3 isolators.
*On some import ohmmeters, the red and black probes are reversed for these tests.
**If using a digital ohmmeter, a diode scale MUST be used.

Steve

[Steve Huber]

Roland,
I posted the above before seeing Ed's latest post. He may be right and the inverter failed, throwing the Hi DC voltage fault w/o really seeing that voltage. If it were me though, I would reinstall the inverter w'charged batteries and see if it is still faulting/not charging before I spent $ on a new one.
Steve

[Roland DuBree]

Do not think it will work.  Stopped at a Prosine service center in White House, TN to get them to bench check it.  It would not go on for them.  Also somehow the Bypass switch was broken off so maybe that too is part of the problem.  After 12 years maybe it's time.  Did go on Xantrex web site and found they have an Out of Warranty exchange policy for the 2.0 PROSINES.  THEY SAY LIST ON NEW IS $1875.00 AND IT COMES WITH REMOTE AND THEY OFFER THE NEW ONE AT 30% OFF OR $1312.50.  SO MAYBE ALL IS NOT TO BAD.  HAVE TO GET ANSWER BACK FROM THEM ON DETAILS ON SHIPPING COSTS AND MY COST TO SEND THE HEAVY PIECE OF JUNK BACK.
Thanks for the reply.

[Gerald Farris]

Roland,
Before you invest in a non-repairable inverter with a fairly high failure rate like a new ProSine, I would seriously look into a new Magnum inverter. The Magnum seems to be more reliable, and in the event that there is a failure, it is repairable.

Gerald  

[Edward Buker]

Roland,

I do not know if I have helped you very much here, hopefully some. Try when you write the post of your problem, refer to DC amps or AC amps when you mention amps, and DC volts and AC volts when you mention volts as you are writing this problem up so we can be sure we are on the same page when both the AC and DC sides of things are being discussed in the same post.

I think in the end you are concerned that the coach is pulling 3 amps on the DC side when you think everything is off. What may not be off is the engine ECU at about 2 amps, all the clocks and memory holding info in the radio/ nav etc, the Echo charger has circuitry, some dc to the thermostat circuits, the 12v circuit in the frig control board, like you say the CO2 monitor etc. When the echo charger is on the small loads from both the house and chassis loads are combined, the 3-4 amps as seen by the charger sounds pretty normal to me.

If I had to replace my charger it would be a Magnum even if it cost more given the known design and quality problems people have had with the Xantrex Prosine. I do not really know what I am getting in an exchange program. If they threw in a 5 year or more warranty I might be interested given that is a sign that they are confident in the implemented fixes and something has really been improved. If they just replace parts you have not solved the reason why it failed in the first place. A unit this expensive should protect itself with monitoring circuits and shut down before it fails. I'm with Gerald on this one unless your plan is to sell the coach very soon.

Later Ed

[Roland DuBree]

To all who have give answers here is Latest.  I isolated, I think, the 3 amp draw to the 12 VDC  draw of the Norcold refrigerator.  The  1 draw is my car type battery charger plugged into a 120 VAC socket in the coach bay. ( 1 amp AC charger draw and 3 for Norcold =   4)   Where I am reading the amps is on an amp readout on my coach in coming shore power (123 VAC) line. I have no Chassis batteries connected to the coach only the House. What I don't understand now is with DC batteries feeding only the house input lines why do I also show 12 VDC power to all the chassis items before the key operated solenoid when the engine is running.  How do house DC volts cross feed into chassis circuits?  I have not yet checked Isolator and those items because to get to them I need to lift the bed to get to their mounting location on a wall in the engine compartment and I cannot lift bed, it's a 2 man job!
As mentioned before the inverter charger is also not installed now only inverter IN to out AC power wire is connected together.

[Edward Buker]

If the engine is running the alternator is producing 12V to both the house and chassis battery banks through the isolator. If when you shut the engine down the 12V to the chassis side is eliminated then that is the likely source.

Later Ed

[Roland DuBree]

Ed, guess I don't explain well. The 12 VDC feed back from house batteries to all of the chassis circuits before the key turn on solenoid. Not after because key is OFF. The engine was not running. The engine/chassis batteries are not even hooked up.  All batteries were removed to repair my battery tray drawer. I have jumper cables from house batteries outside to the coach house battery cables and also the auto charger installed at the jumper cables to feed the power to the Norcold to keep food from going bad.   Power should only be on the house battery side of the isolator, so maybe my isolator is bad and I am feeding back thru it to the chassis circuits.  Looking at a wiring diagram schematic only other place the feed back might be is thru a stuck closed start boost solenoid. Will have to check these when I get the bed up.

By the way to concerned about the Magnum vs Prosine. I looked into it read up all the data on the Magnum MS-2000 and it appears to be a  much better unit.  Best of all I found a place to buy it with the RC remote and it is only $150.00 more that the $1343.00 30% discounnter Prosine out of warranty price.  So i will get the Magnum MS-2000 pure sine wave unit.  Another good deal about the Magnum is the remote is wired with the RJ11 4 wire phone cable that the old Prosin used.  The new Prosine uses a 6 wire phone cable. Should be able to use the old Prosine cable already well installed and not have the ugly job of getting a new 6 wire cable routed from the very rear to the front of the coach.   Thanks to all for the talk to us a Magnum.

[Edward Buker]

Roland,

Sometimes it is hard to grasp all that is going on from afar so some confusion on my part is in order..... I think your reasoning is sound looking at the isolator and the jumper start solenoid. It is also not out of the question that the main lead to the front power busses coming from the battery area/main switches got wired into the wrong side of things at the factory or when being worked on. Sometimes when an isolator goes bad and diodes on one side are still good an expedient temporary repair would be to move a lead to combine the battery banks onto one side/stud. That could have happened and never been repaired. Good luck on the hunt, keep us posted on what you find.

Later Ed