Dexter Combination Door Lock Keypad

[bgermane]

Yesterday our keypad worker just fine. Today, nothing. There's 5.7 volts to the keypad, but I have no idea if that's correct. Dexter's website has zero info on the lock or keypad. Does anybody know what the voltage is supposed to be?

Thank you

[MadDad]

Mine works off the 12 volt battery. Don't know if yours is the same.

[bgermane]

Spoke to Dexter today. It most definitely is 12v and there should be a full 12v to the keypad. Scratching my head trying to figure out why there would be less than 6v to it. The coach is on shore power, so battery voltage shouldn't be an issue.

[nascar64]

I had the same problem. Before taking the motorhome back to the dealer, unscrew the keypad and gently pull it out and check all of the connections. Sometimes they vibrate loose. I really do not believe that the voltage is an issue.

[reitrof]

I believe the keypad works off the engine battery and not shore power. If the rig is sitting for a long time I use a smart charger hooked up to the engine battery.

[bgermane]

Power to the lock is provided by the house battery. I discovered this when a fuse blew a year ago. There's a fuse block at the base of the battery-disconnect relay in the battery compartment. One fuse is serves the stereo and combination lock, and the other serves the signal side of the relay. There may be other items served by these fuses, but those are what I have determined.

I now have only 3.7v. Whatever the problem is, seems to be deteriorating. Both Dexter and Jayco tell me to look for a bad ground. Jayco feels that the ground should be terminated somewhere close to the door because they don't like to run the wire any farther than they have to. Scary because most of the ground connections I have seen under the coach are pretty poor looking.

[nascar64]

Not sure what the voltage should be, but take the push button panel off and make sure that all of the connections are on and tight. They have a habit of coming off because of using the door makes the connections come off.

[bgermane]

I did check all the connections at the keypad. They are solid and the voltage to the keypad matches what I have at the door post. The problem seems to be upstream of the door frame contacts. Ultimately, the voltage dropped to zero. Now it's come back to about 6.5 volts. I need to spend some time investigating it, but I have been trying to sort out more important problems.

[bedrck46]

one way to find out if you have a bad ground is to take a jumper wire and hook it to the ground wire at the keypad Then take the other end and hook to the neg terminal at the battery If your voltage goes up and everything works than I would say you have a ground problem.

[bgermane]

bedrck46 - good point. Thanks. An easy check that I didn't even think of yet.