Chester, you are correct that the switch on the inverter is supposed to be off - I fixed it earlier (picture was from yesterday as I recall). I have been through my Heart manual and I DO have ALL AGM 8D batteries so the dip switches should be the same but they are not where the manual shows them on the back of the remote panel...
I’m thinking maybe the shunt wire (there is a lavender wire somewhere) may be keeping the smaller house bank of two batteries from charging. It’s odd that the bigger house bank is over 13volts so either: these batteries were never used since we arrived here on Sunday or they have been being charged from the inverter. There is probably a third option that I missed but not sure what it is.
P.S. I still have only ONE battery from each house bank connected just to weed out a weak battery in the mix...
Does't each batter have to be isolated to obtain a voltage reading or a load test? A hydrometer reading will give good information without disconnecting each battery.
2001 Newell #579
tow a Honda Odyssey
fun car: 1935 Mercedes 500K replica
I think there is a fuse link somewhere on the battery cables. IIRC it is a round device that the cables attach to. You could ohm it on both sides to make sure that is good.
I have been completely disconnecting the terminals on the batteries to both test and charge them just in case one is bad.
For the battery fuse I tested them while I was at Tom’s but I think I am going to pull the one off for the second house battery bank (Newell suggested) and see if it will start charging.
I did finally get a reading of -5.5 amps for the 1st battery bank on the heart interface remote.
I may try to get down to one battery for the whole house so I can really test only the charger - will have to figure out the wiring (and take lots of pictures of the current wiring).
Ok, thanks for the readings. What does NA mean? No voltage at all? or batteries not connected? or something else?
By charger, I mean the coach charger, the Heart.
With charger off, measure the voltage on the test battery. Now turn the charger on, the voltage will go up if the charger is working. Measure the voltage on the batteries, not the Link 2000 panel.
E10 is an error code saying the remote is seeing low voltage.
The shunt wire thing is not a valid theory.
Interesting that the set of batteries behind the tag tire is charged.
Didn't you just have new batteries installed before you went out to Tom's. The installer may have wired them incorrectly.
On your Link 2000 panel, you should have Bank 1 and Bank 2. As it came from the factory Bank 2 is the CHASSIS battery, not the two behind the tag tire. But that was 20 years ago, and who knows how it is wired now.
Minus amps on the panel would indicate the charger is not charging.
Starting at the inverter connection for the battery cables, it would help for you to trace those cables and make a sketch.
Forget about load testing for right now, voltages are good enough. With those voltages so varied in your house bank of batteries, I suspect a fundamental wiring problem. It looks like the charger is charging batteries 3 and 4 in House Bank 1, but those batteries are not supply voltage to the coach. And it looks like the charger is not charging batteries in House Bank 2 but they are supplying voltage to the coach.
Don't forget to turn the merge switch to off.
Richard and Rhonda Entrekin
99 Newell, 512
Maverick Hybrid Toad
Inverness, FL (when we're home )
(This post was last modified: 04-03-2019, 11:51 AM by Richard.)
I turned on the charger from the remote panel and saw that the battery in the front (4-battery) bay IS charging at over 14 volts.
I have 1 battery connected in the rear (2 battery) bay and it does not look like it is charging. I will check it again in a few minutes...
I’m attaching a picture (before any changes) of the wiring inside the 4-battery house front bay which goes TO the 2nd house bank (of 2 batteries) - notice there is a shunt between the disconnect switch and the wire going from the 1st house bank and the 2nd house bank - not sure why the wire was not connected directly...
I removed the wire from the shunt and the disconnect switch and wired BOTH wires directly to the single shunt to remove any other possible problems with wiring.
So now I have:
1 battery in the front 4 battery bay connected to the inverter
1 battery in the rear 2 battery bay that I believe is connected directly to the inverter/charger...
I’m hoping this is correct.
I sent pictures to Newell to help explain what I’m doing...
Thanks Richard, by NA I mean the batteries are not there at all - I only bought 4 total for the house since we don’t boondock much.
I was thinking I could just put the other two (all 4) in the same bay for the house and connect them all together on just one disconnect switch but not sure how I would wire that...
You are correct about these all being new batteries and the guys that wired them back up may very well have messed them up. It’s the second bank of batteries that are messing with my brain. They seem to control all kinds of 12-volt stuff in the coach and the coach will not function without those two batteries working.
Re-wired the bay 6 and 7 together on one block (not a shunt like I was calling it but rather a ‘lug’).
Now all the batteries seem to be charging but I will give them a little while and check.
When I check the batteries for charging/not charging do I need to unbolt them totally (ground and positive) or just turn off the battery disconnect?
This is the basic diagram of the coach but instead of two disconnects I have one now for bay R6 and R7 (I finally counted the bays)...
The other thing that I need to add is the wire coming from the battery merge solenoid/switch to the battery bay R6 (where the 4 house batteries are).
Final update for the day: looks like we are charging! I checked the batteries and they look to be charging also on the Heart interface panel the amps are slowly dropping as the batteries are charged and it moved to ‘Accept’ mode (finally). I plugged in the rest of the batteries and as long as there are none really dead we should be back up to full power tonight!
THANK YOU! To Richard and Forest and Chester for helping me to NOT spend $3k on a new inverter but instead learn more about what I have! I appreciate all the help and support from this forum.
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