Seneca Power Shuts off

[Rino-JAY]

I was dry camping this last Thanksgiving week and twice I had all the power suddenly shut off to the RV. (2019 Seneca 37HJ). The power would stay off for about 10 seconds then the coach would reset and power itself back up completely and seem to work fine. The first time I was on the house diesel generator and the second time it was running off my Honda 7000w generator. Niether time did it shut the generator down they kept running fine it was just the coach blacked out and reset and then I could hear the generators come under load again 10-20 secconds or so later and power up normally. I am sure it is an auto reset main breaker just curious why it is tripping. It happend twice last week in the evening. No AC or heavy load just normal lights on with gas heater. This has never happened before and would like to get it fixed so it does not start to happen more frequently. Has anyone else had this problem? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Robbbyr]

Did the lights and furnace shut off when this happened? If so that means your 12-volt side shut down. Was it as if you shut off the house batteries then turned them back on? Does your unit have one of those newfangled touchpad control systems for the coach?

If it was your transfer switch cutting out you shouldn't lose lights. Do you have an EMS wired into your system perhaps after the transfer switch?

 

[Rino-JAY]

Hello Robby and thanks for the reply. The first time it happened the lights all shut off with the house generator running and the furnace was not running due to the thermostat. The second time I was taking a shower with a hair full of shampoo and the lights and water pump stopped. I just finished a long ride with the kiddos and thought Uggg this is not happening right now. It is a hard question because everthing in the Seneca runs except the AC on battery but it was on generator. It seemed like you killed the house batteries but everthing should have been powered via the generator through the transfer switch then to convertor to charging the batteries. I just don't get how for a 10-20 second period of time the whole rv had no battery or generator power then reset itself. No touch pad. I am not sure what an EMS is but I do use a surge guard when pluged into any pedestal and my transfer switch is the Progressive Dynamics DC model with surge protection. I switched that stock transfer switch out some time ago as the stock one was not realistic to have running under your bed. It was so loud you could not sleep. I was thinking a loose ground problem but we were parked camping. My wife and kids always have the house generator running with the ac and TV's on when we are driving and never had a power interuption. Stumped??

 

[SloPoke-TC]

Hello Robby and thanks for the reply. The first time it happened the lights all shut off with the house generator running and the furnace was not running due to the thermostat. The second time I was taking a shower with a hair full of shampoo and the lights and water pump stopped. I just finished a long ride with the kiddos and thought Uggg this is not happening right now. It is a hard question because everthing in the Seneca runs except the AC on battery but it was on generator. It seemed like you killed the house batteries but everthing should have been powered via the generator through the transfer switch then to convertor to charging the batteries. I just don't get how for a 10-20 second period of time the whole rv had no battery or generator power then reset itself. No touch pad. I am not sure what an EMS is but I do use a surge guard when pluged into any pedestal and my transfer switch is the Progressive Dynamics DC model with surge protection. I switched that stock transfer switch out some time ago as the stock one was not realistic to have running under your bed. It was so loud you could not sleep. I was thinking a loose ground problem but we were parked camping. My wife and kids always have the house generator running with the ac and TV's on when we are driving and never had a power interuption. Stumped??

One of the kids try out the red switch at the door?

 

[Robbbyr]

It seems to definitely be something in the 12-volt DC system since those are the items that quit - lights and water pump. And if you shut off the battery switch you kill those 12-volt accessories even if power from the onboard Onan or an external generator (or shore power from an outlet) is present. Things that run on 120-volts (TVs, microwave) will stay on if you shut off the battery, but the 12-volt-powered items will shut off if the house battery switch is shut off.

And even though the air conditioners operate on 120-volts AC, they will stop if the 12-volt power is shut off because the thermostats run on the 12-volt side of the system.

When power goes out and then comes back on did you hear the battery solenoid "clunk"? If you do that might be indicative that the solenoid is changing state. It is a latching solenoid and may be failing.

EMS = Electrical Management System. Surge protection plus protection from mis-wired outlets, voltage too high/low, missing ground, etc.

 

[Rino-JAY]

That's exactlly what it was like. That red switch says push me to the little ones and we have had them do it before. My little one pulled that trick on me our first trip out with the Seneca and I remembered the dealer warning me of this on our walkthrough and I turned it back on. I did not hear the clunk and will listen next time. I do know the TV's did turn off and the plugs behind the TV's do run off the inverter/batteries too though.

 

[Rustynuts]

In this drawing it looks like the converter 12v fuse panel is fed off a 50amp circuit breaker or fuse (drawing doesn’t say) in the battery compartment. I would have to go look at mine but if this is a circuit breaker that resets after cooling, I would suspect that this may be going bad or getting overloaded.

 

[Robbbyr]

That's exactlly what it was like. That red switch says push me to the little ones and we have had them do it before. My little one pulled that trick on me our first trip out with the Seneca and I remembered the dealer warning me of this on our walkthrough and I turned it back on. I did not hear the clunk and will listen next time. I do know the TV's did turn off and the plugs behind the TV's do run off the inverter/batteries too though.

My 2014's inverter setup may work a little differently than your newer unit, not sure. Like yours, if I am running off my inverter (because I am not running my generator or plugged in) the TV will indeed shutdown if my battery switch is shut off. But if I have AC power coming in (shore power or genny) my TVs won't flinch when the battery is shut off since my inverter's built-in transfer switch is defaulted to 120-volts coming in, even if the inverter is turned on at the control panel. But you likely have the Magnum system and it may pass through power differently causing the TV shutdown when your 12-volt side glitches.

 

[Robbbyr]

In this drawing it looks like the converter 12v fuse panel is fed off a 50amp circuit breaker or fuse (drawing doesn’t say) in the battery compartment. I would have to go look at mine but if this is a circuit breaker that resets after cooling, I would suspect that this may be going bad or getting overloaded.

My converter power panel is fed through a 50-amp self-resetting stud-style breaker, I know because I just rewired that area! The battery area wiring drawing Jayco supplied me is more detailed than yours Brian and shows it as a breaker, maybe the drawings were more detailed pre-Thor!

 

[Rino-JAY]

Thanks Rusty for the drawing and Robby for the imput. I did put in that PD - DC transfer switch under my bed (1000 times better thanks for the thread on that) and it goes right into my converter. I will check and that would make sense if the 50 amp reseting breaker is in there as the first time I was powering off the house geny (lead one) then my honda geny pluged into the RV whip (lead two going into the transfer swich then right into the converter that it happend powered off both ways. My inverter is right next to my battery bank then I believe feeds the converter so if the hiccup was there I could see why it all shut down briefly. Im going to check all connections and this breaker before we head out again.