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Showing results for tags 'bad wiring'.
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I bought my toy home just a few months ago. On my maiden voyage of 9k miles I ran into a ton of electrical challenges, including some battery issues. The previous owner had installed 3 80kW solar panels and a brand-new battery which worked great at keeping the house battery charged prior to setting out on the trip. Yay for boondocking! But when the temperatures started dropping in Missouri, the furnace fan would suck down the coach battery power. Then the battery didn't have enough juice to start the furnace leaving the home uncomfortably cold. I thought about adding another battery, but my instinct was that something was wrong. It wasn't immediately obvious, but I realized the isolator wasn't working. So I rigged up a little jumper to power both batteries from the alternator while driving. This got me comfortably through he rest of the trip and back home. When I could receive a delivery, I ordered a new Tekonsha 7000 12 Volt 3 Terminal Battery Isolator and installed it. A few days later I was trying to blow out the water lines in prep for winter using a compressor running off the house battery, but battery was dead despite 100 miles driven in the last 2 days. So I realized the new isolator wasn't working. After a little diagnostics with a multi-meter, the ignition input wire to the solenoid wasn't working. So I traced out that the wire was connected to a wire going to the windshield wiper motor. I immediately thought "Hmm, I'm not sure that will work." So I just turned on the wipers and voila! The isolator works! I now I have a spare isolator. And I realize my jumper solution probably put a ton of wear on the hood latch from opening the hood to connect and disconnect the jumper, every time I started or stopped the car for the majority of the trip... Oh well. I am now wondering if this simple mistaken wiring job is what caused the previous owner to add solar and the new battery, in the first place. Either way, glad to know all I need to do is drive in the rain so my house battery will be charged! ;-)