Does my 5th wheel have a 24 volt system instead of a 12 volt system?

Hi everyone, I'm still pretty new to RV'ing (hence posting in the newbies board), and thought I was getting to know our trailer pretty well until the other day.

We have a 1996 Alpenlite Hillcrest 31RK 25th Anniversary Edition and have been redoing a lot of the interior as it's pretty dated. I pulled down one of the non-functional light fixtures from the ceiling the other day and tested the voltage on the wires leading to it with a multimeter and got a reading of 28 volts. I understand that the large majority of RV's are going to be 12 volts, and we recently replaced the old wall lights with 12 volt LED lamps which are working just fine. Is there something I'm missing here as far as wiring goes? Is it possible that we do have a 24 volt electrical system and our 12 volt lights just haven't burned out yet? The fixture I pulled and tested has two fluorescent light tubes in it, so is it possible that just the roof lights have 24 volts because it has to power two separate 12 volt lights off of one set of wires? I also replaced some of the roof vents and they don't seem to be overloaded or spinning faster than I'd expect (which I am assuming is what would happen if they were receiving double the voltage they're rated for). There is no solar setup of any kind (I've seen that 24 volt systems may be better for solar panel setups).

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Unfortunately I am away from home for work for a few days so can't test anything right now. I just want to get some ideas for what to check on when I get back.

24 volts will fry pretty much everything, I think your meter is incorrectly set. If the trailer has two batteries make sure they are connected in parallel, pos to pos, neg to neg.

Roy M ] said:

24 volts will fry pretty much everything, I think your meter is incorrectly set. If the trailer has two batteries make sure they are connected in parallel, pos to pos, neg to neg.

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most people use 2 6volt deep cycle
To wire two 6-volt batteries in series to produce 12-volts, you would connect the load to the positive terminal of battery # 1. Connect the negative terminal of battery # 1 to the positive terminal of battery # 2. Ground the negative terminal of battery # 2. I have produced a diagram showing the connections for you.

https://www.etrailer.com/question-60431.html

Okay, I'll check out the batteries next time I'm down there. I know we have 2 in the compartment but don't know how they're wired up. I'll also double-check my multimeter and make sure I am setting it properly. Thanks for the suggestions!

Rest assured there should be no 24v power in your Alpenlite.  Start checking at the battery(s) and make sure your meter is set to DC volts in a range that includes 10v-16v.

If the trailer has two batteries make sure they are connected in parallel, pos to pos, neg to neg.

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CAUTION! This is true IF, and only IF the two batteries are 12V batteries. If those two batteries are 6V batteries, then they need to be wired in series, not parallel.

It could be his 2 12vdc batteries are in series instead of parallel the leds and most other devices will handle this as they are designed for 10-28vdc generally.

The 12v's in series would produce 24v, but few things in the RV would survive that for more than a minute or two. Anything above about 16v is typically fatal to stuff designed for car & RV use.

The fixture I pulled and tested has two fluorescent light tubes in it, so is it possible that just the roof lights have 24 volts because it has to power two separate 12 volt lights off of one set of wires?

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No, it doesn't work that way. 

A few questions with a may shed some non LED light.

ONE: What make and model converter?  Can't find your converter IF a single cover covers both FUSES and Circuit breakers. What is the make and model of that assembly

What else was turned on

Were you plugged into shore power

My thinking for those who will follow up if I'm nto the first.. Magnetek 6300.

Are you sure you had your meter set for DC and not AC?  Another member had just that issue, he was reading 28 volts on his 12 volt lines with the meter set to AC, when he switched it to DC all was fine.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,121517.0/topicseen.html

I'll be back home in a few days to take a look, but I'm fairly certain in my exhausted stupor the other day that I had my multimeter set to AC instead of DC. If that's not the case I will come back and start trying other suggestions, but I'm fairly certain that is the case. Either way I will update the thread when I find out what's happening.

Thank you all for the suggestions!

ON many meters if you read DC on the AC scale it will be about 1 1/2 (ABOUT) the actual voltage. Just so you know.  so 14 VDC would read as 20-21 VAC.. and even this can vary meter to meter.. GOOD meters block DC when reading ac volts. but alas. Those are either expensive or rare.

Okay the official verdict is that I had the meter set to AC. Setting it to DC gave me the expected 12.73 volts.

Thanks everybody! I'll go sit in the corner for a while now...

LOL! I think most of us have made that mistake at some time.

mynameisbs said:

Thanks everybody! I'll go sit in the corner for a while now...

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If that's the worst you ever do, you are WAY ahead of most of us! ;D  I assume you haven't found the thread yet where we all tell stories of the various kinds of self-inflicted damage we have done to our RV's...

No kidding. ;D

scottydl said:

If that's the worst you ever do, you are WAY ahead of most of us! ;D  I assume you haven't found the thread yet where we all tell stories of the various kinds of self-inflicted damage we have done to our RV's...

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No, I haven't found that, I will go hunting right now for it!

There are probably more, but here's one of them: Oh bleep!! that just happened, appropriately titled.