2007 Winnebago Vectra House Batteries Draining on Shore Power

[Sharimerrill]

We have our RV on shore power. The battery charge on 5 month old batteries is 8V. The dimension inverter has no power. The ATS 503 has power. The AC only blows hot air now. Have reset all breakers, disconnected batteries unplugged shore power for a hard reset. Still no luck. Now we have our house battery on a charger. But why are our batteries draining? What are we missing?

 

[RayIN]

It might be the inverter/charger fuse is blown or the inverter is simply turned off and not powering the charger.

 

[creativepart]

There have been complaints from others with 10-20 year old Dimensions inverter/chargers that the charging portion of the inverter has failed.

There are few options for repair and usually replacement is the considered the best approach to solving the issue.

Inverter technology has come a very long way since yours was installed in your motorhome. And pricing has come down in the past 15 yrs as well.

Obviously, there’s no way to properly diagnose your issue via a forum post, but we have seen a number of posts describing these same issues that have turned out to be inverter/charger failures on older Dimensions inverters.

 

[Morich]

If not checked, the owners manual seems to indicate breakers, etc. directly on the inverter charger. Maybe worth a check there as well as normal breakers.
But a point to consider is what the book says about leaving the inverter off to avoid what you are seeing.
When it is left on, you run the risk that if you loose AC power which seems to be the main problem, you then risk also running the battery totaly down befor enoticing there is a a loss of AC power.
In this case I suspect the main problem is NOT the inverter as you have also lost AC power to the air conditioner. Those will not be running off the inverter and leads me to expect a problem further back toward the source, possibly the transfer switch.
When extremely hot, it is not out of the question for the campground power to be a problem, so I would start with checking that with a meter as montiors throw in extra thing to question.
What bothers me at times is the way campground power can get a hit, the auto start on generators may try to start and switch. If the timeing of those different auto features hit at the wrong time we can see the transfer switch take a beating as it tries to follow the short term glitches and that leaves them doing lots of arcing at the
contacts!
Loss of air, does not say inverter problem to me as AC power passes more directly to those units.

Does power get from cord get to load center on both legs/breakers of the AC at load center? Would losing one of the 50 amp feed kill the input to inverter but leave it to run down the batteries if left on?
I suspect a problem back toward source if air is not running but fan blowing.

 

[Morich]

This is the note in the manual that has left the batteries to run down as you may have missed the point when the AC power was lost as the inverter then let you continue to use the AC power it was making during the loss of commercail power!

Many often do not use the inverter in this way but it can let you lose the normal power and not spot it until also losing the battery power! If you use the inverter as a "backup" for when normal is not available, it helps to avoid almost total loss of power!

 

[Morich]

If this is still a problem, can you give us a few more details?
When you say the ATS 503 has power, what do you mean by that? You mean the trasfer switch, correct? But do you mean it has power going in or power out at some point?
There should be two legs of 50 amp 110 power going in as well as out but that can get confused if one of those legs fails and the other is still good. Some AC power items may work while the one next to it may not!
Since you seem to have lost the charger portion of the inverter charger, we might guess that is due to losing AC input there and it was using battery to provide AC, until the batteries got too low. But at the same time, if the Air units are not cooling, that would seem to say they have also lost AC power!
A bit of guess until tested but loss of both those points tends to make it look like a problem getting one or more of the two 110AC power legs out of the ATS.
Whether it is actually the ATS or loss of what should feed it, is still a question, though.

Do you have a meter on hand to test voltage at a few points?

 

[Sharimerrill]

This morning the charger on the house battery says 11.6V after charging overnight. Now the ATS board inside says check battery probe with a red light. The inverter still does not click on now plugged into shore power. The A/C is running blowing cold air but the dimension inverters fan is not running and my board inside says inverter off. Any clues? And yes there is power both in and out of the ATS 503 transfer switch.

 

[Morich]

The batteries were extremely low , so it depends on size of charger how long it may take to charge but they should be higher if charger still connected and running as you should see the charge voltage going in to fill them!
But that point is not the major problem as the charging portion of the inverter charger should be working if power is getting to it!
So if the air uis running we can say power is getting to the part I marked in green!
Some other point to checked may tell if more is working or not. Look this drawing over and see if some of those items have lights or places where outlets can be reached without tearing the RV down! Any of the blue marked items working?

OR
If those items are hard to test, it may be easier to go straight to the inverter panel and test there?? Your choice but I suspect the power is NOT getting to the ionverter. But we don't know where it is failing.
There is the main inverter breaker in the main panel, thewiring and switch and then another main breaker at the inverter panel. If breakers and switch are on, power should go in one the main inverter breaker and out on all the smaller breakers to much of the rest of the RV! Even if the inverter portion of the inverter charger is not working, there is a switch setup inside which still should pass the cord power it gets on out to the RV!
If power gets to the inverter main but does not come out, there are things to check on the inverter unit itself back in some compartment.
I will do some checking on what you might expect to find there and be back shortly!
Good luck on the chase??

 

[Morich]

No help on parts listing for what model inverter you have and things get changed. So does this look like what you have? Is this a switch or breaker that might need reset. etc.? Maybe worth checking the back side of whatever you find for anything like breakers, fuses, etc.?

Are there any brand and model numbers on what you find? In places where the equipment may have been changed it is often better to look for the info specific to what you have at the time and not depend on what may have been changed out!

Point of this is that the inverter portion may have been working as it seems to be using battery to make the AC power. When the batteries went down, it should have been passing the commercial power but if it is not doing that, we need to check that it is actually GETTING that power to pass or has it failed in some way?
If the batteries still read way low, the charging part is certainly not working but still a question of why.

 

[FIRE UP]

The Dimensions 2000W Inverter/charger was used for years in most the Winne/Itasca diesel lineup of coaches. Some of those Dimensions units failed, in more than one way, way earlier than they should have. And some of them, as in my case with our '04 Itasca Horizon 36GD with the CAT C-7 330HP, lasted just over 11 years before, the charging side of the operation gave up the ghost. I briefly, VERY briefly, dug into repairing it and at that time, pretty much ran into a dead end. I have a buddy that has one in his '05 Journey and it's still kicking in all aspects.

We got lucky due to the wifes diligent ability for searching for stuff, she'd found a 6-month-old Magnum 2012ME MSW Inverter/charger with pretty much the same exact performance specs as the Dimensions. All has been well since then. And that was oh, around 12-13 years ago. To the OP, this is where your basic VOM or volt-ohm-meter really comes into play. You take a test across your house battery posts to get a reading, WITHOUT being plugged into shore power. Then, plug into shore power and take another reading. When things are working correctly, that is the charger side of the Dimensions (or just about any Inverter/charger) you should see a rise in voltage, even if the batteries are close to being topped off.

If there's no rise in voltage after that second test, HOUSTON, we have a problem! I'm not an expert on the wiring of all diesel coaches, all their inverter/chargers or just built-in chargers, or any other wired mechanisms but, with our coach, the inverter/charger (be it the Dimensions we had or the newer Magnum) is directly wired to the house batteries via two 4/0 CABLES! Oh, there is also either a 200A or 300A in-line fuse very close to the house batteries. So, other than that massive in-line fuse, if the charging side of that Dimensions has failed or in any way is not sending a charge to the house batteries, and you KNOW the inverter/charger IS receiving 120VAC, then as has been stated, it's aiming at the failure of the charging side of that Dimensions Inverter/charger.

After I'd installed the new (to us) Magnum, I'd done a tad bit of research and found out at that time, Dimensions had been sold to Magnum. And the techs there at Magnum would in fact, if an owner of a Dimensions I/C would pay for to and from shipping, they'd go through that Dimensions, up grade logic boards, change to more modern technology and ship it back. But, that was quite a while ago and I don't think that's happening anymore.
Scott