Category: Mods & Enhancements

There are often ways to improve on your RV.

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DC power management, replacement.

The Problem

I’ve mentioned in other posts the problems we’ve had over the years with the DC power panel located (in the 32SA) in the passenger rear compartment, next to the batteries.  This panel has the main battery cut-off switch, the Inverter DC power switch, four DC breakers for distributing power to various parts of the RV house and a hidden component the battery combiner relay.

The primary problem with this panel is the Inverter fuse which is a 1 by 1 by 3/4 DC power panelinch block mounted between the battery buss (leaving the main switch) and a buss bar that bolts to the back of the Inverter Switch.  Apparently, this bolt that holds that fuse between the two busses isn’t torqued properly and the design is such that heat builds up and the fuse insulation fails (adding to the problem).  As the fuse gets  hot, heat conducts up to the inverter switch and melts part of the switch until it fails.  There was even one report in facebook of this panel catching fire.

Recall

There is an NHTSA recall for this problem for various 2019 to 2022 models.  I personally don’t like the solution as covered in the recall.  If you have a 2000 watt inverter, the solution is to install a cable between the fuse and inverter switch (which won’t pipe heat directly up) as well as check the torque of the fuse bolt.  If you have a smaller inverter, they just check the fuse bolt torque.

I consider this panel to be a total fail.  In order to pull the panel to work on it, the only safe way is to disconnect the battery (usually recommended anyway) beause the support bracket comes very close to the main battery buss when removing the panel.  Fuses shouldn’t be buried behind panels.  The design of the fuse depends on a thin plastic insulator which fails as the fuse heats up which results in the bolt shorting the two busses which means there is no fuse.  Finally – the four DC circuit breakers are poorly supported and heavy wires are connected to them, also not supported/restrained, so sometimes just pulling the panel out and putting back in causes one of the breakers to physically break (happened to me once and also happened to a tech at Red Bay while he was replacing this panel).

The Replacement

The following describes MY solution.  I’m not recommending this for everyone.  It requires significant expense, tools and expertise most RVers would have issue with.

I designed a “replacement” for the
DC power components Tiffin/Lippert DC distribution panel.  It is all based on discrete components and thus takes up a lot more room.  It is amazing just how much stuff, Tiffin (Lippert) stuffed into that tiny panel – and not amazing why parts of the original panel failed so often.

Note:  some who are familiar with my story might say – you installed Lithiums and that overloaded the panel.  Nope.  Right out of the gate on our first trip, with the original Lead Acid batteries and original Magnum Inverter, anytime we used the inverter for a significant load (like the microwave), the inverter had fits and often shut down and the Spyder system rang a low voltage alarm.  We ended up using the generator any time we needed to cook.

When we started out with the lithiums – I checked the alternator rating: 150 amps.  I never saw the batteries charging from the engine more than 90 amps.  I believe this is because the lithiums were never mostly discharged.  We often used the generator when boondocking rather than the engine to charge.  One night we spent boondocking behind a restuarant.  We hit the road very early in the morning while still dark out after running the batteries down to below 40%.  As we took off, I looked at the charging rate and it was 120 amps into the batteries.  Add in headlights, heater fan and anything else – we had to be pushing the generator on the engine to its limit for the first hour.  I didn’t like pushing it that hard.  My solution was to install a Victron DC to DC battery charger.  This will limit the engine to house batteries to 30 amps, which is fine because we rarely need to charge up the house batteries quickly with the RV engine.  It should keep me from pushing the engine alternator so hard.

The Tiffin battery connect solenoid links the house and chassis batteries any time the engine is running or when the battery linking switch on the dash is depressed (also maybe when generator is running).  I didn’t want it connecting when the engine is running – the DC to DC charger takes care of that by monitoring the chassis battery voltage to determine when the engine is running.   I disabled the Tiffin logic by putting a switch between it and the solenoid.  Thus I can flip the switch and still use the dash switch to connect the batteries.  My inverter has a trickle charger to keep the chassis batteries topped off so I don’t need the generator function either.

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2019 32SA Mirror vibrations, NVR, Starlink, toilet seal, etc. etc. etc.

It IS getting hot. But this is central Illinois, so it’s only hot, not HOT, HOT, HOT like say Texas.

We are hanging out near home, getting a flurry of medical checkups done, doing some work on the RV – which is primarily the topic of this post as well as some work on the house. The RV air conditioners are working well and this park has decent power (we are closest to the power poles). We have reflectix in the worst sun facing windows. We also add a small floor fan to move air around so we can run one AC or the other, depending on which end of the RV we are inhabiting at the time so as to avoid some of the noise.

I installed the battery to battery charger back in the winter, but I didn’t fully enable it because I was trying to figure out the Tiffin battery cross connect relay. The switch by the driver sends a signal back to a mysterious board under the closet which operates some unspecified controls relating to the slides as well as the actual relay. I tried to get more info from Tiffin and Lippert but didn’t get a full explanation of what the board did and how it worked. So not wanting to mess up its other functions, I chose to put a switch to enable/disable the relay itself, back in the battery compartment. Now my DC power systems look like this:

Power diagramDC power components

We replaced our Ring doorbell with a Eufy. The ring started complaining about the battery going bad (we had it hard wired to a transformer). A replacement battery was almost half the cost of a new Ring. When I took it apart, there was also some water penetration/corrosion. We chose Eufy because we already had several Eufy cameras. We use Eufy primarily to let us know when someone is close to the RV and one inside so we can look in on the puppies. We also installed a Reolink NVR with POE wired cameras and let it record 24/7 but without notification, at least in this park, because campground traffic and dog walkers are simply too close and keep triggering motion alerts.

Starlink/Internet

Starlink is working well. I added magnets to the mount feet and cut 4×4 inch steel plates, painted white and stuck them down with Dicor. I added a safety strap to the base as well, but I don’t believe it is needed. My plan was to add another set to the front of the RV roof so we had some flexibility where to place the Starlink MountStarlink Magnetic footantenna. We plug the Starlink into a Pepwave Max Transit Duo router – and they don’t play well as there is a speed negotiation failure. I have to set the Max to a manual 100Mbps ethernet to get it to work. We are waiting for one or both of the companies to send out new firmware to fix this. We also have a legacy Starlink, rear of RV and weather stationAT&T sim and up until today, had FMCA T-mobile hotspot. But FMCA and T-mobile went their separate ways and the replacement service from FMCA is AT&T, so not of any use to me.  If there is HEAVY RAIN – like 1 inch per hour type storm, Starlink will drop out for a few minutes.  Otherwise, it has run well.  I ran the cable out through the box I installed the Pepwave antennas on. I’ve purchased the waterproof connectors so I can cut the cable there, but havn’t done that work yet.

Mirrors

So, Mirrors. This RV has Velvac mirror. A couple of trips ago, the driver-side, top mirror started vibrating. So much so that it became hard to see through it. I have no idea why and neither Velvac nor Tiffin seems to explain – but they have anti-vibration clips to fix it. And as I found out, these mirrors are made, in the factory, to have anti-vibration clips installed. They just weren’t installed at the factory. Go figure.

The clips are inexpensive. I ordered two sets (in case the other mirror has issues) and they were quickly delivered from Tiffin. The installation process goes like this. 1. Pull down the clip on the bottom of the top mirror. 2. Use putty knife etc, to carefully pry the mirror off its backing. There are four somewhat sticky pads, one in each corner so it’s not too hard. 3. Carefully disconnect the  

heater wires from the mirror. You don’t have to do this if you are willing to let the mirror dangle by the connectors – but the connectors are not well bonded to the back of the mirror, so hold them down while removing connectors if you do. 4. Remove four screws that hold the mirror backing to the motor mount. 5. With the backing loose – slide in the four clips. 6. Reverse the above steps.

Oh, and item 0. Watch for wasps!!! A small family of paper wasps were living in behind my mirror backing. I hate wasps. I managed NOT to get stung this time, but whenever your RV might be sitting for a while during the summer, they can move into mirrors, under door handles, inside your gas fill compartment – any place out of the weather and often right where you might reach in.

These clips just reach out and rest on the inside of the mirror housing, and thus reducing any vibration movement.

Just to keep us from getting bored, the toilet started to not hold water. I tried all the usual remedies and eventually replaced the seal. No joy….. What happens is the ball sweeps and seals against the bottom of the rubber seal. Water wets the bottom of the seal, then dries, leaving hard deposits bonded to the seal which eventually causes it to leak. But a new seal should fix that, right? I pulled the seal out, looked it over very carefully and found a seam – from the molding process right across the seal area. I had ordered another seal prior to starting this process (I always want a backup) and looked it over carefully – no seam. Once installed, all is well with the toilet.  Oh, and I’m so glad that when I had to pull the toilet out during the winter of 2020 I added a water shutoff valve behind the toilet!!!

And – rear AC fan started to go bad down in Texas – I replaced that one too (front fan motor failed last summer).

Such is life in an RV.

Mike