11 amp draw, where? New owner, perplexed Please help

[Dirkdaddy]

Forgive cross posting, I posted on my thread about buying a used trailer and had some good suggestions and information.

I have a 27 BH 2006 in good shape but prior owner unknown. First hookup trying to go camping today!!

Quick question!!

Got a spare battery and was hooking it up, I noticed more than expected sparks. I had opened up the front box and assured I had correct polarity and remarked the unmarked wires. I used ohm meter and tested and got less than 2 ohms resistance - nearly a dead short. I changed meter to amps and tested 11 amp draw. Hmm...

Everything was off, even lights.
I disconnected the 115 v power, no change. I disconnected the Tow vehicle. No change.
I pulled every 12v fuse in the box, still drawing 11 amps.

When all else fails, I looked at the owners manual and didn't see anything about unexpected circuits.

I'm now going to disconnect some of the things connected to the positive battery junction box to the wire nut with the positive lead.

Is there a 115v inverter that comes on automatically when you connect power? I guess there is but I don't see a switch for it.

Advice?

I've take apart the huge wirenut with positive wires and found two that had been drawing current. I disconnected them and then since none of the wires had visible markings did a test to see what worked after replacing fuses and hooking up the battery (zero draw on those circuits). Nothing worked, none of the lights, the water pump, didn't test fridge but unexpected as there were two large gauge wires hooked to the battery and they didn't do anything. Clearly one of the disconnected wires goes to the 12 fuse panel. I guess I"ll have to disconnect the fuse panel from the cabinet and remove the power feed wire and go directly to the fuse panel or something. Not sure what is drawing 11 amps but it would kill the battery in a hour and not sure what its doing. Getting frustrated!


NOte: I realized as I got into it the sun had bleached the red wire white, all wires white on outside except underneath.

[BigJohnD]

Converter is on it's own circuit usually, plugged into the power center. It does come on and serves as battery charger / converter when on shore power.

One thing to check, that I'm sure you have, is the emergency break away. If you pull that out, brakes set, and you will draw some amps. Not sure how much though.

I'm at a loss outside of that.

[Dirkdaddy]

Oh...yea, there was a separate lead for that and I didn't connect it yet, but it tested out as open circuit. I noticed the load center thing looked like it had an inverter built into it, not sure how to turn it off going to google the IOTA load center. Ok read up on it, maybe it has a problem...? Going to jury rig the thing to provide lights but have to research it more when I have time. ONly thing I need is lights and pump for water.

I have it pulled out of the wall cabinet. Wish it had more clear markings on what is what on the wires and stuff.

[BigJohnD]

I'd have to look at mine, but I'm offshore now. This is the first trailer we've had where the converter was built in. All others, the converter was separate, and the load center had a plug on the back for the converter, and its own breaker. Even built in, converter should have its own circuit, you would think. I'm not familiar with the IOTA as we've just had WFCO and PD, but they should be kind of similar. Keep us posted, now you got me curious.

11 amps is quite a draw for everything I can think of that might have a closed circuit.

[Dirkdaddy]

I'm fixing to jury rig the lights and pump and come back to it later. It doesn't appear to have a inverter built in. hmmm.. too bad I need to button it up!

[Grumpy]

Is the break away switch pin pulled?

[wwsmith111]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Is the break away switch pin pulled?

Just when I thought I knew everything I learn something new.

[BigJohnD]

See earlier posts. Break away was checked.

[RoyBraddy]

I was going to say same thing about checking brake pin. Bumpy beat me to it hehe... Each brake magnet pulls 3AMPS with 12VDC applied. That adds to four brake magnets...


Worth a check... Actually pull the plunger out and put back in. It will make a loud snap when it goes into the right position... Leaving it on all this time may do damage to the magnets. Hopefully you OK there...

The only other thing that might draw 11-12AMPS is your ceiling lights all on. Each incandescent automotive bulb will draw 1 AMP. Each ceiling light fixture will have two of these bulbs...

Roy Ken

[Mustang65]

You may want to pull all your fuses, and with the battery disconnected take your ohm meter and check each of the fuse holders to ground and see if that will show you which circuit the LARGE drain is on. With the main 12Volt fuses out you can put the meter on the Battery Charge controllers source to ground, to see if that is bad.
OR
If you have a volt/ohm meter that allows you to measure Amps (greater than 10amps in your case) you can pull all the DC fuses, plug in shore power and measure the amps across each fuse holder to find the culprit.

Just my thoughts,

Don

[Dirkdaddy]

Hey , thanks for tips so far. I pulled each of the white wires from the buss bar on the IOTA box, the negatives are attached through the fuses, to wire leads that are permanently affixed to the box, joined to the trailer harness black wires.

I've rewired houses and cars, but this thing is a bit backwards and I'm not sure exactly how its setup, I have no wiring diagram on the Jayco instructions and having to do a lot of troubleshooting.

I've one at a time used the meter to check amp draw though every wire on the trailer at the circuit box. One made a clunk noise when connected and drew some power...turned out it was something from the water heater. I just capped that off with a spare wirenut. That maybe normal, I am newbie I have no idea but seems odd to have it drawing power just to run the propane water heater. I found the one that had a 11 amp draw and capped it off and marked it. Jayco made their own harnesses so the wires are not color coded or marked on the white side.

I have tried taking the IOTA box out of the equation as I think the charger is causing a current drain. I used short wires to connect all the whites that did not draw power to the power lead from the battery one of which is a 10ga white wire which was connected to the wire bus on the box, and the lights and stuff still didn't work. I thought the black wires went to a ground, but I can't find one to test. This is a bit odd. I'm still messing about. I took a long wire to the battery to test but not really making a lot of progress except for finding what appeared to be the current draw.

[Dirkdaddy]

OH.....DUH! I recalled (creaky brain gears squeaking and starting to turn) these are wired like HOUSES not CARS and white is GROUND not Positive. OH.... that explains some have to do more looking now. (slapping forehead!)

[eldermike]

Spare battery? Are you hooking up a new battery in parallel to another one? Or just hooking up a single battery?

[Dirkdaddy]

It didn't have a battery. Had a box, three leads with bolt lugs. Two heavy white wires, one smaller black wire that I had sort of ignored as it was wired to the E brake and had a sort of hokey splice which looked like it went to the tow harness.

I am now almost sure, that both whites are BOTH grounds and the black (although this doesn't make tons of sense as its only about 10 ga) is the positive. (slaps head!) I had seen one of the white wires go to frame, and the other went back into the trailer, and I had assumed that since both were same size that one was + and one -, the frame was the negative. Big doh. I doubt there was anything wrong with the whole deal, just user error!! Going to test.

[eldermike]

Understood. RV wiring is it's own thing and color codes don't seem to show up. DC 2 wire positives should be red and the grounds should be grey or green. RV's tend to use AC wiring color codes. So the rule is check everything with a meter.

[Dirkdaddy]

oh the problem is solved thanks guys it was just a rookie hooking up the battery I can't believe I made that mistake but there was no markings on the wires I would have thought the two heavy wires would have gone to either post of the battery. Its working fine now. at least I know NOW more than most people about the wiring system on a Jayco travel trailer!

[norty1]

Give Thanks!

[RoyBraddy]

Sounds like it may take a few years to re-hookup everything you have disassembled haha...

What I always do on the battery is find the stamped word NEG on the battery case and make sure this is the terminal going to frame ground regardless what the color is..

RV Trailer wiring codes is BLACK for +12VDC and WHITE for -12VDC Frame ground.
Usually any solid WHITE wire with a stripe color on it will be POS +12VDC.

Of course the automotive world has the RED Wire as +12VDC and the BLACK wire as -12VDC frame ground.

Since the battery is used in both worlds (RV and AUTOMOTIVE) you can find a mix of color schemes. Your JENSEN AM/FM RADIO comes out of the box with RED for +12VDC and BLACK for -12VDC. SO right away you will find a RED wire on top of a BLACK wire at the first junction strip.

makes us old timers roll over in our graves haha...

Roy Ken

[Bassdogs]

My training in problem solving is to work backwards from anything you might have done or changed. Since you have found the problem, this would have gotten you to the problem as it sounds like do to the color issue you had crossed the wiring to the battery. Have done similar things myself and its kind of like proof reading your own document. You can look right at something you did and not see the mistake. Letting someone else trouble shoot [proof read] the problem and they may have seen what you couldn't.

On the color code issue, I just installed a 600w inverter in my White Hawk using black #2 wire for both leads to the battery. To avoid crossing the connections which would have potentially blown the inverter, I did a meter test to match up the ends of each cable so I could mark cable 1 ends and cable 2 ends as they were the same color. Once this was done, I took a 2" piece of red garden hose and secured it to the ends of cable 1. From that point on I was protected from a brain fart that might have resulted to a cross connection at the time of implimentation or down the road when I was switching out the inverter or the battery.

[Dirkdaddy]

Yes, USER ERROR!!!

How flippin' embarrassing. OH well. I had only removed the whites from the inside TT terminal bus on the charging unit, so it was simple to reconnect. I only had to reconnect the battery properly. I do have one bathroom light that doesn't work. I had most trouble with the stupid fuse connectors being stiff and un-forgiving, hard to get them back in, so that's the first place I'll look on that one. And just use a meter now that I know how they are wired using home wiring color codes.

Seeing how there is about two 8 or 10ga leads from negative battery to the negative bus on the charger, and only a crappy looking 12 ga looking wire with a bad looking splice on the positive, I'm going to invest in some additional wire (red LOL) to go from the battery to the charger/fuse box - as it makes no sense to have such heavy wires only on one side.

OTOH, I was able to camp and use my pump and lighting and cell phone charging w/o any assist from Thursday night through sunday by just jury-rigging two 12x8" solar panels I got surplus from a electronics parts wholesaler. It was putting out under load .3 amps which wasn't too shabby and while on the light side of charging kept things going. I need to check if they have diaodes - I just disconnected at dusk - but they worked. I'd like to get a bit bigger one or just add the 3rd one I have and mount to the roof...but that's another project. I have a ebay solar charge controller but after reading I think its designed to have more amps driving it, as it itself adsorbs some power. Anyway I like the idea of having LED lights showing charge status but will have to test it at home with my battery first.

Anyway guys and gals, I got that figured out. I'll have to post a picture but that would involve hosting a site somewhere to load it and then get link usually on these forums.