Battery power

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Danoglide54

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Joined
Sep 12, 2018
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Hi everyone,
My wife and I just bought a 2018 Winnebago Micro Minnie 2100BH a few weeks ago. I'm sure when we were looking inside at the dealer it was not plugged into 30amp service and I did check out the radio and it did power up and play. A few days later we came to pick it up and the Tech walked us through everything and we drove it home. That weekend we spent 2 days camping in our daughter's back yard plugged in to a 30amp service, everything worked like it's supposed to.
Since Florence is heading our way I got curious about running off the battery if we had to so I unplugged the 30amp cable and went inside to look it over. First I noticed the radio was dead so I already put some fresh water in the holding tank and the pump switch was on but when I opened the valve no water came out and the pump didn't sound off. Soooooo, I double checked the battery, it easily ran the power lift in the tounge. I looked in the cubby hole and double checked the battery cut off switch and it was correct. Checked all the 12 volt fuses especially the two 40 amp ones and last but not least I checked the voltage between the red and white cables on the circuit board and had no power. If I  plugged in the 30amp cable there was voltage there of course.

Am I missing something here? Anybody have a clue what it may be?

Thanks,
Dano
 
Suspect list:
No house battery
House battery is TOAST
Tripped circuit breaker (main) or blown main house battery fuse NOTE this is a breaker near the battery NOT the one in your breaker box

And #1 with a Button the battery disconnect system (AKA Salesman switch)

This switch will be in one of several places.. A common one is the step well as you enter (on the side) may be marked  USE/STORE (Choose use)

May be on a control panel along with gauges and other switches

May be on the dash marked AUX or AUX battery 

 
Being a travel trailer...it probably only has one battery, most likely on the tongue...and no dash. :p

I don't find the wiring diagrams for the towables on Winnebago's site, so I can't really offer any help. It seems like you've checked the major culprits...fuses, disconnect switch, etc. Maybe call the dealership for some advice?

 
Well, if you can run the electric tongue jack without being plugged in to shore power, obviously you have a battery and it's not toast.

How many wires do you have hooked up to the battery posts?  More than one to each?

I'm thinking that things like slides and the tongue jack are hooked up directly to the battery.  Meanwhile, there should be another set of wires leading to either the 12 volt fuse box, or the converter if it's one of those combined fuse box-converter units. Best practice would be to have either a master fuse or circuit breaker in the hot wire leading to the fuse box.  I'd look for that.

You didn't get any kind of wiring diagram?
 
I did find a junction box underneath the chassis, inside is the red and white cables from the battery. White cable is bolted to buss bar, red cable is bolted to a small black box of some kind. the red cable exited it at the top joined by a few smaller red wires. there's 12.6 volts going into the box between red and white cables and red cable to ground. There's no voltage between the red cable exiting the box and white cable or ground. There's 12.6 volts between the in and out red cables attached to the box.....hmmmm, I think the box is broken.

What does this box do? Is it a thermal overload protector? Will it reset?

Anybody have an idea? I'm planning on taking it out tomorrow and go to the dealer.

Thank for the replies!
Dano
 
Sometimes there are two hot wires at the battery. See if there is a wire that they missed putting on. It may have a circuit breaker under the frame rail up in front.
 
Is there a push-button reset on the box? Look at the sides of it. If it's the circuit breaker some  are resettable some aren't
 
If that fixed it get it plugged in and use your voltmeter to check the battery voltage while the converter is on. a lot of converters will only put out 13.6 volts and often times only get 13.4 or so at the battery itself. If that battery is as low as we would think it might be you may want to supplement charge with an automotive type charger if you have one on hand. Just pay attention to the voltage that it's putting out because some of those can put out too high.  A group battery like that shouldn't have any problem going up to 14.6 to 14.8.
 
I thought you were saying you were taking camping tomorrow. If you aren't then the converter should do fine but you might want to know what that voltage is in case you dry Camp a fair amount upgrading the converter might be something you want to do
 
You found the problem - congratulations!  The fix should be a simple reset.

When plugged into shore power, 120V feeds the converter, which supplies 12V to the battery and the 12V fuse panel.  With the breaker tripped, the fuse panel gets power from the converter, but gets no power from the battery.  Exactly what you described. 

There are several wires NOT going through the 30A breaker, as you describe.  They may feed the break away brakes, tongue jack and slides.

Hope this helps!
 
WOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!

I got way up under to give this a better look and even though I feel kind of dumb I feel kind of smart. It is a breaker of sort and it can be reset! But.....what made it trip? Inverter may have put out too many volts?

Thanks everybody for the replies, especially the PDF file Mr. Optimist!

Dano
 
They may have crossed the wires at sometime and popped it. Often times 12 volt wiring is red for positive black for negative. It's not that way on an RV so you might put a label on your wires to make it easier. No matter the color, the Negative post goes to the frame.
 
Dano,
Please do not feel dumb!!!!  You found the correct box and breaker after ONLY ONE post!  I have seen other threads go for a week before the OP finds the box and several more posts before they get it reset!  You are doing GREAT!
 
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