Interesting Little Electrical Puzzle

[Glider]

Originally Posted by 86Scotty

You'll like the Blue Sea, and I knew you would like the Scangauge.

Box up that generator and send it my way when you're done with it.

Too bad we didn't leave it with you when you had the Silver Streak in your driveway...

Maybe you know someone in the shipping industry who could help us get it from Point A to Point B.

Honestly, the gennie can go at any time. I don't need it. First person to make me an offer I can't refuse gets it.

[86Scotty]

Hmmm. I'll think about it, however shipping would double the price. I bet it won't be hard to sell.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by 86Scotty

Hmmm. I'll think about it, however shipping would double the price. I bet it won't be hard to sell.

Interesting. The ebay sellers have figured out how to ship the 4.0 KW Onan gennies for $200 anywhere in the country--and that's a significantly larger unit than my 2.8KW box.

If you or someone else wants the gennie, I'll figure out how to get it shipped--if the ebay folks can do it, so can I.

[Glider]

I couldn't stand the mystery. I wired the 1315 back in. At present, it is behaving reasonably well.

The relay opens and closes at between 12.9 and 13.0 volts, which is a bit lower than the 13.2 in Greg's bench tests.

When the converter is charging the house side, I lose .1 volts across the relay. By the time the voltage gets to the ScanGauge, I lose another .3 to .4 volts. Consequently, at the moment the house batteries are charging at 14.4, and I'm showing between 13.9 and 14 at the ScanGauge for the chassis battery--this is with the engine running or off. Makes no difference.

No battery light in quick testing tonight. I'll spend a little more time with it tomorrow.

The Blue Sea will be here on Monday, and it is going in, regardless. It will be a nice little upgrade in any event.

[Scalf77]

Bianca,

Since you have your curiosity up, it would be nice to test the resistance across the terminals, to see what amount of contact resistance has built up. This unfortunately is really a bench test, because you need to disconnect the Surepower from the circuit, and take the unit apart. If you take the control module off, you will be left with the Trombetta solenoid.

You then need to apply 12 volts and ground across the two smaller terminals (coil), it won't matter what the polarity is.There should be nothing attached to the two larger terminals. After you hear the solenoid close you can then use a ohm meter to measure the resistance across the terminals.

In the long run you will be much happier with the BlueSea unit.

-greg

[Glider]

Greg-
I like the test you suggest.

And here's an update: I've been driving the van with the 1315 wired in and the generator running, and the battery light has not come on--which is consistent with every other time I've driven with the generator running, except that one time. Go figure. In any event, the Blue Sea unit will be here soon.

[daveb]

You know one of the ways I got those contacts to clean up (without tearing it apart) was to make the relay chatter. I found the resistance was intermittent and if it wasn't working to par a rapid open and closing helped. And like I said, I once hit it with a wrench when the thing was stuck. Worked fine for quite a while after that.

[86Scotty]

Originally Posted by daveb

You know one of the ways I got those contacts to clean up (without tearing it apart) was to make the relay chatter. I found the resistance was intermittent and if it wasn't working to par a rapid open and closing helped. And like I said, I once hit it with a wrench when the thing was stuck. Worked fine for quite a while after that.

I've heard of that. In the RV world where you have a battery connect switch you can flip it up and down a bunch of times and basically blow the corrosion off the contacts. However, it didn't work for me. Mine just up and died.

[Scalf77]

To really clean the contacts you need to connect with a high amount of current, it is a 200 amp solenoid, so it really needs a high amount of current when closing to keep the contacts clean. This is also why the unit has such a issue with contact resistance to begin with, we rarely actually close the solenoid with the minimum current to actually properly clean the contacts.

This is really exasperated with Solar, or driving around with a bunch of short trips, being plugged in at home, etc. I suspect that in some way this was the real reason for the start assist mode, as it would connect when there was a high demand current.

-greg

[Glider]

Originally Posted by daveb

I once hit it with a wrench when the thing was stuck. Worked fine for quite a while after that.

That sounds like a very functional solution. Unfortunately, being a member of the fairer sex, I am incapable of hitting things (or using four letter words).