I have had a few Electrical Demons lately that I felt are blog-worthy. I know that someday, someone will have the same issue and start out on a feverish Google hunt for a fix to the problem. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, as that is what I did

Getting someone to scrub your battery tray is much easier than doing it yourself!

The picture above is Damien helping me install new house batteries. We have only had the coach for about six months, but it sat on the dealer's lot for quite a while, and they obviously took it out to shows and such. I am sure the batteries were neglected, as they lost their charge very quickly. We went to Sam's Club and found the exact replacements for ~$56 each. They are Interstate 6V - the exact ones that came standard with the coach.

The two main issues I have had to deal with: a dead 12V system in the entire coach, and, a week or so later, a dead refrigerator. As usual, Monaco Tech Support was a great, and walked me through solutions. Click for pictures and story...

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Problem: Lost all 12V in coach

This was very odd. We were plugged into 50A service, had the radio going, along with a couple of small inside lights. The radio suddenly stopped playing and the lights went out. As I looked around, I saw that the 120V items were still energized, but nothing 12V was on. Most everything in the hallway control panel - switches, HVAC thermostat, house AC LoadMeter - were all out. I first checked the distribution panel, then the outside post to make sure everything was still energized. All was well.

I then went to the battery bay and metered across several areas, including the breaker, main fuse, and solenoid. Checked the inverter/converter. Again, all was well. I put in a call to Monaco tech support - left a message. While I was waiting for a callback, I checked all of the switches, fuses, and breakers I could find.

When they called, first question was about the battery cutoff switch by the door. The next thing he had me to was to go to the front street side compartment and open the cover on the large box up there. He had me check the fuse on the solenoid in there, and when that was fine, he told me to meter both sides of the solenoid. One side had full voltage, the other side was dead.

He said I could just bypass that solenoid until I could replace it, as it was only for the battery cutoff on the dash. I ended up giving it a whack with my wrench and power came back on. The next day, I found a nut and bolt and bypassed the solenoid altogether. I have never used the battery disconnect switch inside the coach before, but will probably replace the solenoid eventually nonetheless. I asked the tech why he sent me there right away, and he said "yea, those go bad".

Problem solved. No house 12V, bad solenoid, bypassed solenoid, everything is fine once again. After posting on a message board about it, I discovered that this has happened to several other people. They have all bypassed it without ever looking back.

Problem: Refrigerator Inop - nothing on indicator panel, no light

This, of course, happened at the most inopportune time. We were overnighting in a small town, just came back from dinner, and found the refer dead. We were plugged into 50A service, but nothing was happening. Of course, checked every fuse panel I could find, breakers, etc. It appeared the refer was the only thing dead.

I called Tech Support, and they called back pretty quickly. He had me look in the rear fuse panel - nothing in there for the refer. We then went back up front - home of the dead solenoid - and he had me look for a few things that were not there. The Knight is a more basic coach than most of the others, and I suppose some things just don't cross over. He did show me that there are two fuses in there for the refer, and a small 5 amp fuse supplied all of the 12V to the fridge. I found 12V on both sides of the fuse.

I then went back to the outside refrigerator panel and metered the incoming 12V lead on the main controller board. Dead. The tech support wanted me to look at some other things, but I instead traced that red wire backwards. I found that it went to a small snap-disk thermostat on the flue that vents the propane exhaust.

Upon metering it, I found that there was 12V on one side, but nadda on the other. I pulled the thermostat and tested resistance across the leads. Open connection. I asked the tech guy about it, and he was not aware that there was that t-stat in there. I jumped across the leads and the fridge came back on.

I am sure I will have to order a new t-stat from Monaco, or hope to find one through a Norcold dealer such as Camping World. This is something that I will replace as soon as possible.

Problem solved, temporarily. Norcold refrigerator did not work, no power to front panel or inside light, found snap disk thermostat on chimney was open, jumped the two leads together and 12V was back to the fridge. Will replace t-stat as soon as possible.

Other current electrical gremlins: both bulbs on the step lights burnt out - impossible to find replacements. LED on my NEW handle light burnt out. Will have to order a new assembly or find a way to replace just the LED. PIA nonetheless.

--kev