Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
 


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
 
Old 09-28-2015, 07:29 PM   #11
Site Team
 
daveb's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Turlock Ca
Posts: 10,407
Garage
Re: No Power to Penthouse

Every Surepower I had got hot to the touch when engaged. I think it's a normal operation but better to just change it out if it's one that had issues (see the sticky).

Xantrex, Trimetric, Victron are just a few who offer gauges. There are a few cheaper models that work well that don't have all the bells and whistles. To tell the truth I find myself only using the amp and voltage features and that's enough if you understand battery resting voltages.

__________________
2006 Ford 6.0PSD EB-50/E-PH SMB 4X4 Rock Crawler Trailer

Sportsmobile 4X4 Adventures..........On and off road adventures
daveb is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-30-2015, 06:53 AM   #12
Senior Member
 
Scalf77's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Beaverton, OR
Posts: 2,490
Re: No Power to Penthouse

I agree heat is always a byproduct of the surepower being closed, as it is a continuous duty solenoid. Any internal contact resistance would also generate some heat. If you started your van the surepower should have closed and gave the 12 volt system enough juice to power the actuators. Obviously a couple things could prevent it from closing.

I didn't see how old your battery is, so it is hard to make a judgement on what happened there, but the capacity of the battery will drop as it gets older and used.

Dave listed the more common Battery Monitors, as he said the voltage and current are the primary things you look at. Most will have a shunt so you can measure current going in and out of the battery. Another good feature to look at is cycle count, and depth of cycle. Many will display the average depth of discharge, and also store your lowest discharge. The number of discharge cycles will be a good indicator of battery lifespan, it will be determined by the number of cycles and the normal depth of discharge. If you routinely take your battery to down 80% capacity you will get less cycles then if you routinely take it down 50%. So I would say history data is also a big option I look for.


-greg
__________________
-greg
__________________________________________________ ______________
"Goldilocks" 2020 Ford Transit High Roof Extended 3.5 EcoBoost AWD Homebuilt
Scalf77 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-03-2015, 03:37 PM   #13
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 53
Re: No Power to Penthouse

Update

The shop where bought the 4D put a handheld tester on it and declared it OK, for a two year old battery.
There seem to be special specs for an AGM tester, so back home, put a coonass load test on it with my multi-tester: i.e. separator disconnected, unplugged shore power, engine not running, and ran the microwave twice for a minute. Voltage stayed above 11.5 and recovered soon to 12.7.

New SP 1315-200 arrived today. Installed, it appears be opening and closing properly both ways.
The new one shows the same ohms: ~7.5 across the bottom rear terminals and ~3.2 across the top lugs. The solenoid action noise however, is more solid and, after about an hour in use, it seems to run about same temp as the old one- too hot to touch for more than a second.
Old one will eventually be torn down and cleaned up for a spare, but what if it's the logic circuit at fault, and not dirty contacts ?
__________________
seasmith

2007 E350 Ford V-10
SMB Transformer Mod

All guts, no glory
seasmith is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-03-2015, 05:59 PM   #14
Site Team
 
daveb's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Turlock Ca
Posts: 10,407
Garage
Re: No Power to Penthouse

Quote:
Originally Posted by seasmith
Update

The shop where bought the 4D put a handheld tester on it and declared it OK, for a two year old battery.
There seem to be special specs for an AGM tester, so back home, put a coonass load test on it with my multi-tester: i.e. separator disconnected, unplugged shore power, engine not running, and ran the microwave twice for a minute. Voltage stayed above 11.5 and recovered soon to 12.7.

New SP 1315-200 arrived today. Installed, it appears be opening and closing properly both ways.
The new one shows the same ohms: ~7.5 across the bottom rear terminals and ~3.2 across the top lugs. The solenoid action noise however, is more solid and, after about an hour in use, it seems to run about same temp as the old one- too hot to touch for more than a second.
Old one will eventually be torn down and cleaned up for a spare, but what if it's the logic circuit at fault, and not dirty contacts ?
Throw it away. If you can clean up the contacts fine but unless it's easy to change out why reinstall (even if you're away from home) something that might fail again and damage your house battery system? When mine failed I went to the nearest shop and purchased manual high amp battery switch but it's easy to jumper out a separator.
__________________
2006 Ford 6.0PSD EB-50/E-PH SMB 4X4 Rock Crawler Trailer

Sportsmobile 4X4 Adventures..........On and off road adventures
daveb is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off

» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3
Disclaimer:

This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sportsmobile SIP or any of its affiliates. This is an independent, unofficial site.


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:55 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.