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Old 03-21-2021, 05:12 PM   #21
THenne1713
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Battery Power and Converter/ Charger power goes to the FUSE PANEL, and then to the RV circuits/ devices, but has (usually TWO) 30a fuses on fuse board, separate from the row of outputs that control connections Battery (or Converter) to the FUSES. Locate/ check these two 30a? If NOT ON the board face, (some) older models HID them on the back of the phenolic plastic FUSE BOARD., DISMOUNT BOARD (two screws?) AND LOOK ON BACK? Hope this helps?
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Old 05-25-2021, 07:56 PM   #22
jsbelknap
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Originally Posted by KRoseVideo View Post
I have a 2005 GulfStream BT Cruiser BT 5211 and had similar problems with the DC, although I have not started the generator when I was plugged in to a land line.

There were a number of problems that I encountered and eventually overcame. I will try to outline them here and, if there is interest, I could make a video.

1) First thing I needed to do was go to Home Depot and buy a decent Ammeter (Ampere Meter) and a decent Volt Meter. One meter can do both jobs, but I bought separate units.
Use the Volt meter to check the battery to see if they are charged. 12+ Volt on your Volt meter. Check at the Positive side where the cable attaches from the vehicle and the Negative side where the Negative Lead attaches from the vehicle. This assumes you have two 12 volt batteries hooked up in parallel. (See YouTube Videos for how to hook up if necessary.) I used the Ammeter to know what, if any, Current was flowing through the cables to the batteries. The Ammeter helped a lot with diagnosing the problems and with knowing when I had succeeded.

2) The second thing is to know the priority for charging the batteries. FIRST is a Land Line whether 30 amp or the cheater plug 15 amp connection. Either of these will provide power to the converter to charge up your 12 volt batteries. SECOND power Source is from the Vehicle running in which case the excess power after charging up your vehicle battery is diverted to the Coach Batteries. (See 3 below.) THIRD Priority for charging your batteries is the Generator whose main function is to provide AC Current.

3) In my BT Cruiser, There is a 5 amp fuse that is "in-line" approximately 1 foot from the Vehicle battery, in the wire that heads over to the junction on the driver's side of the engine compartment. In my case, we found that the 5 amp fuse was blown. Replacing this helped but not totally. We used the Volt Meter to confirm that we were getting 13+ Volt to the opposite side of this junction, thereby giving higher voltage to charge the 12 Volt battery. I checked at the battery end of the + cable and saw that it was 13 + volt so this was good. Initially, prior to replacing the 5 amp fuse, our DC Volt Meter just showed the Voltage of the house battery which at the time was 12 volt since I had, by this time, bought a battery charger and charged my batteries outside of the camper to be sure that I knew the batteries were both good. (They were 8 months old at the time.) The 12 volt reading was just the voltage of the battery. It still seemed that my batteries were not really getting fully charged. So I moved to step 4 below.

4) Finally solved my problem when I figured out what those three BUSS BREAKERS down in the battery compartment did and how they possibly got dis-connected by the cables or other wires bumping against them. It seems that there are little red buttons sticking out of the front face of each of these breakers. These stick out at a height near the top of the batteries which made me conclude that a cable must have hit one of the three when I installed the two batteries in Parallel as described earlier. I eventually pressed the red buttons on all three of these breakers and then NOTHING WORKED. I knew I was making progress. Using my flash light, I played with the breakers and found a little black flapper sticking out the bottom of each of the Buss Breakers. I pushed these flappers up and they stayed in position. then, Vola, I had full DC Power and could operate all of my DC Appliances.

Note: My DC system provides control power for the Dometic refrigerator to ignite and operate with Propane. Or, the refrigerator can operate with AC Current from a Land Line or Generator. My Frige does not operate with just the DC power.

Hope this helps somebody. Roy // KRoseVideo

So this looked like exactly what was happening...until I dug deeper.
we just bought a 2005 33 ft. Independence Class A. All works except to Dock power.
For the life of me, I can not find the converter. There are circuit breakers at the front of the bed and all seem to work, but no converter unless I am missing something.

I also can't find any cabin batteries! I have 4 perfect deep cells in the front of the hood that are in series and read out 12.5ish In addition I looked for the Buss breakers and no sign of those either.
We can run our DC lights for about 10 min and there done, but all 4 deep cells are fully charged. We do have one of those goofy red handle disconnects in the front but appears to function. The Coach starts without any issues.

And for the life of me I can't seem to find a resource to identify the function of a battery switch that is located on the block where the radio and fan switches are located on the dash.

Any and all input is appreciated
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Old 05-25-2021, 08:27 PM   #23
THenne1713
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jsbelknap View Post
So this looked like exactly what was happening...until I dug deeper.
we just bought a 2005 33 ft. Independence Class A. All works except to Dock power.
For the life of me, I can not find the converter. There are circuit breakers at the front of the bed and all seem to work, but no converter unless I am missing something.

I also can't find any cabin batteries! I have 4 perfect deep cells in the front of the hood that are in series and read out 12.5ish In addition I looked for the Buss breakers and no sign of those either.
We can run our DC lights for about 10 min and there done, but all 4 deep cells are fully charged. We do have one of those goofy red handle disconnects in the front but appears to function. The Coach starts without any issues.
And for the life of me I can't seem to find a resource to identify the function of a battery switch that is located on the block where the radio and fan switches are located on the dash.

Any and all input is appreciated
1) So BATTERY switch on dash is usually a BOOST, connects Coach to Chassis battery to START in case of Dead chassis battery; usually will NOT be Instantaneous, so allow 5-15-minutes; maybe even crank GEN first too? DUAL FUNCTION, can also be used TO START GEN IF COACH DEAD, (probably more common?); 2) If you have not converted to LED, highly recommend that first; (Reduces battery drain by 90%); my CONVERTER FAN has not run since changing bulbs. The RED Handle BaATTERY DISCONNECT should be turned OFF anytime stored without Shoreline power to prevent battery drain. If you have a printed MANUAL, suggest you make NOTES as you decipher your coach? You can download if needed from Gulfstreamcoach.com website? 3) The x4 deep cycle batteries should be your coach; turn off your red handle to verify it works. BOOST or CHARGE COACH WHILE DRIVING acoomplished w/ SOLENOIDS, and YES, they can/ do go bad, so test both annually or when trouble symptoms arise? Suspect MOST Red Battery switch do NOT disconnect chassis battery, but I could be wrong? LUCK
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