House Batteries & Lights

[Monjoe99]

Hey All,
I’m new here and looking for some help. I have a 2017 Mirada 34KB and am running a 12V house system and I replaced my house batteries (GC2 6V golf cart in series) and now my lights, & monitor panel don’t work. I checked the house disconnect switch, breakers, the fuses and the inverter and all are working, not blown or tripped. My 110 is working because the fridge (residential) and microwave are working. What am I missing?

 

[Mark_K5LXP]

If 12V equipment isn't working even on shore power there is something open (like a fuse or breaker) or something is miswired (or a combination of the two). Time to step back and review the work that was done, since that's the most likely source of the problem. You do have AC reaching the AC breaker panel as evidenced by the fridge and microwave. That same AC will be feeding your converter so that'd be the first thing I'd verify. Then make sure the converter has 12V (~13.8V) output. Generally (on most RV's) the converter output goes to a power center/fuse bank where the battery power also comes in, and you should be able to see both converter and battery voltage there. The "salesman switch" battery disconnect is just that, it shouldn't affect the converter output into the power center so all 12V power out implies an issue in the power center.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

 

[826joey]

Was the 12v system working before battery replacement? Is it possible the batteries are in paralell rather than series

 

[Monjoe99]

Was the 12v system working before battery replacement? Is it possible the batteries are in paralell rather than series

It was working. Batteries are installed in series…made sure I did it based on the drawing in the manual.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

The most common cause for this situation is tripped reverse polarity fuses on the converter/charger (or inverter/charger, if that's what you have). There may also be a circuit breaker on the converter or inverter. These fuses or breakers are typically physically on the unit and not part of a power distribution panel and its bank of fuses or breakers. It's quite easy to trigger the reverse polarity fuses or inverter breaker when swapping batteries.

The reverse polarity fuses are typically a pair of 30A or 40A blade fuses. If a breaker, it would likely be a pushbutton type.

 

[Kirk]

 

[John From Detroit]

. I checked the house disconnect switch,

Is your house disconnect an actual SWTCH like a big blue or is it a remote.. a small 3 position rocker spring return may be marked USE/STORE in a panel or a small toggle?

The Big Blue is an actrual switch (May go by different names) the rest are remotes and a solenoid somewhere is the actual switrch IN my case the rocker got dirty and failed to send the "CONNECT" signal to the solenoid. I was able to fix it by removing power from it and operating like 100 cycles then restoring power and it had self cleaned. (When that works you have do decide "Do I buy lotto tickets cause when you hot you hot or have I used up all my luck for this month?")
You may also have missed a wire when re-connecting

 

[CharlesinGA]

Converter fuses. The output of the converter is through (usually) two 30 or 40 amp fuses in parallel to handle the 55 or so amps of the converter. If a separate converter, deck mounted, then the fuses would be found on the converter itself, however converters integrated into the power center will have these fuses on the 12v fuse board as two larger fuses off to themselves. These will blow instantly if a mis connection is made to the batteries, such as reverse polarity.

John's comment about having missed a wire, is quite possible. There are usually two or three additional small wires connected to the positive of a battery bank, for such things as tongue jack (on a trailer), or in this case, battery relay power. Look and see if you have an extra wire that fell down next to the battery box that you missed.

Charles