Category: Updates

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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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Pepwave – dark waters solved.

Mixed in with all our other troubles with Rover’s engine, our Pepwave Max Transit Duo went offline.  Nothing seemed to help.  It refused to acknowledge the AT&T SIM.  It has four SIM ports and none of them would show the SIM “present”.  I went to AT&T and got a new SIM.  No change.  I went through various reboots and full power cycles – no change.  The router still functioned – it could pass Starlink and even pass the personal hotspot from my phone. 

I tried a factory reset.  That’s supposed to reset everything, right?  Well, it turns out it doesn’t.  With some devices, when you factory reset, it reloads the original factory firmware stored in some ROM.  I can understand why you might not want to do that – old broken code, etc.  

The Pep stores TWO versions of firmware.  Mine had 8.2.0 and 8.2.1 and was running the latter.  

The Pep stopped working when Rover was sitting in Ford’s parking lot – with too much electrical load running in the RV and skies were cloudy and of course, it’s fall so we get less sun into the panels.  The lithium’s dropped charge and voltage until the inverter shut off and somewhere along there, the Pep shut down too.  It is powered directly off the battery feed so it continued to run until the battery voltage got below whatever the modem’s limit was.  As crazy as things were, I didn’t track exactly when it all quit.

Service – NOT

Pepwave was contacted – no help.  They declared the router: Broken.  They also reminded me that I didn’t re-up on the $200/year warranty so – tough luck!  They have no repair service.  Even if you have a warranty claim, then just swap routers.  Of course, someone takes these broken routers and tries to fix them and put them back onto the warranty swap train – but nope, if you didn’t pay their annual warranty tribute, you are supposed to just go buy another one.  I went back to the vendor I bought it from, and they offered me a %15 off on a new router.

No way!  Unacceptable!  I even looked on Ebay and found the Pepwave modems there are running about half of list price.  Part of the reason I went with the Max Transit Duo was the ability to handle two active sims and two cell modems.  We actually used that feature for a while.  But with Starlink now as our second connection – I would buy something simpler, smaller and cheaper instead of the Duo.  

So, in desperation

I took the Duo down from the shelf and removed the cover.  I couldn’t find anything loose, smoked, melted etc.  I put it back together, booted it up and thought of one last thing to try.

Voila!

As I mentioned above, the Duo stores two versions of firmware.  I told it to go BACK to 8.2.0.  I rebooted running 8.2.0 – and came up with no config.  Apparently going back a version clears everything.  Then I told it to go back to 8.2.1 – reboot.  Then, since all the config was again gone, I searched my computer for an old config file – found one from June 2022 (prior to the big problem), uploaded it – and Voila!  Apparently, when the power went sketchy, something in the PEP got corrupted. Something not fixed by rebooting or even a factory reset.

It was working.  AT&T was recognized.  It was passing traffic.  It’s still working, months later, passing AT&T and Starlink traffic.