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Is It Normal...


siskiou

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that the 12 volt appliances are not working when on shore power only? 1986 Toyota Odyssey

We took the negative off the battery, to prevent overcharging, because we want to have the motorhome plugged in, with a small electric heater running on the days with freezing temperatures.

I noticed that we have lights and the stove hood fan working, but not the water pump, light panel showing the tank/battery levels, furnace etc.

Those only work, when the battery is connected.

Do we have a problem, or is this the way it's supposed to be?

Edit: Water pump is working, furnace is not. Furnace works great, when battery is connected.

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Any thing is possible with some thing as old as a Toy home lots of time for people to use their own ideal of how things should be wired.

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If you disconnected the battery, were there more than one cable on the battery post? (i.e. two or three wires to the plus and two or three wires to the minus.

If so, use a bolt and connect all the pluses together and the same for the minuses. 12 volts shouldn't be back-feeding from the battery, all power should be feed from the fuse panel. Make sure to wrap, tape, or protect the wires from shorting out to each other.

EXAMPLE - On my Dolphin, the Cigarette light plug that also runs the TV antenna amplifier was connected directly to the battery.

When I updated the battery compartment and added my high power inverter, I bought two battery cables, a BLACK (-) and a RED (+). I re-arranged the wiring so only these two cables get connected to the battery. When I disconnect the battery for the winter, I have a small 3 inch piece of hose that I slide over the cable end to keep it from accidentally shorting.

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto (For Sale)

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There are three wires on the negative, and also several on the positive (not sure right now, if it's also three, but most likely).

If so, use a bolt and connect all the pluses together and the same for the minuses. 12 volts shouldn't be back-feeding from the battery, all power should be feed from the fuse panel. Make sure to wrap, tape, or protect the wires from shorting out to each other.

I don't quite understand the instructions. Electrical is not my strength, unfortunately. ;)

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This assumes you want to disconnect the battery, and there are multiple connectors that normally attach to each of the battery terminals.

If there were three connectors that you had to connect to the PLUS terminal on the battery, then use a bolt and nut to connect those three connections together. Do the same with the connectors that went to the MINUS, use a nut and bolt to connect them together.

JOhn Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto (For Sale)

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I noticed that we have lights and the stove hood fan working, but not the water pump, light panel showing the tank/battery levels, furnace etc.

Those only work, when the battery is connected.

No, don't connect them to the terminal, just connect them to each other. This may be the reason some of your equipment doesn't work when you disconnected the battery.

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

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Oh, you mean to only connect them to each other, when the battery is disconnected?

We currently only have the negative wires disconnected.

Should we also take the positives off, and bolt them together, or is that not necessary?

I was also thinking of eventually adding a switch to turn the battery off, though not sure how to do this, with having several negative/positive wires.

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Yes!

I found a pdf for it a few minutes after posting. :)

Always happens that way.

In the manual it says that it switches to a trickle charge, once the battery is fully charged.

Does this mean, it won't cook our battery, if left plugged in?

It also says to check the battery water level at least once a week.

And that if the light on the charge sentinel flashes slowly, there is excessive charge current. What exactly does that mean?

Because it always does this, once the battery is fully charged on ours.

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i am not familer with that model of converter myself but as far as i know all of the old converters where pretty crude and were known for boilng the battery that is why they warn you to check the water often. you can get modern very high tec converters that will never over charge the battery. i cant park my dolphin at home so i have no reason to upgrade my own.

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All the old chargers were trickle chargers they only charged at a few amps. Most had fair power for the lights etc but not much for the battery.The biggest problem was very poor voltage regulation. If it is a small unit it is possible there is no rebuild and will require a new unit. See what some one like bestconverters.com says they are pretty helpful people.

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Thanks, everyone!

It's hard to decide if this is a decent charger or not, but we'll keep it for now. :)

I'm just wandering about the "excessive charge current" and what exactly it means.

The manual was silent about that aspect.

Maybe Progressive Dynamics will have more info about it.

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Here is quick answer (sorta), its not normal. Everything should still be powered on shore power and everything should be powered from the converters fuses. My guess is someone has done some wiring modifications. Do you have power at the fuses when on shore power?

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. You did not mention what kind of converter you have

We have the Progressive Dynamics PD 723Q.

Do you have power at the fuses when on shore power?

I really don't know.

Am not electrically knowledgeable and would need detailed instructions to figure this out safely.

We do have a multimeter.

And with the negative wires (there are 3) disconnected at the battery and plugged into shore power, the lights, fan in the range hood, 12 volt outlet above the fridge and water pump are all working fine. Just the furnace does not function without the battery disconnected.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My lights and pump where working too. Until I connected to shore power. I disconnected from shore power now they still don't work. I am just as frustrated. : /

All of the units with transformers in them have a relay inside. So here is what happens when you are not plugged in the relay supplies power from the battery. When you plug it in it disconnects the coach from the battery and the converter supplies the power to the lights, at the same time it charges the disconnected battery though another circuit inside the converter at a lower current rate. I know this sounds confusing but the converter has two completely different things going on when it's plugged in. Now if the relay sticks (they do this sometimes with age) when you unplug it the relay stays in the plugged in mode and the battery at that point cannot supply power to the coach. The old converters lacked a lot even the ones with a mediocre current limiting stage that at best were not very good battery chargers. Most of the converter output was weighted to lighting lights etc. and little was delegated to battery charging.
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