[Wesleyp777]

Hey guys, trying to get my head around a new issue that has come up on my 2004 Newell coach.

When plugged in to mains power, everything works as normal however Aqua hot heater (Electric side) is not working, light comes on next to the switch in the panel above the microwave, i can hear something click at the rear of the coach when switched on but does not get hot at all.

Along side this when i try to run the generator it starts up but then immediately turns itself off. Someone mentioned to me this could be related as the generator has a safety feature and wont run if the invertor is not working?

Possibly related, I had a driver driving the coach for a few weeks on a tour, he was running the invertor 24/7 while driving and at one point he lost all dash lights while driving, could this all be related and if so what does it point towards?

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Richard]

Ok, let’s separate this into three problems.

Aquahot. The switch above the microwave controls whether electricity is used for the AH or for the Air Conditioners. You can’t have both. It’s summer, so I have to ask, is the switch on Heat ON, or Heat OFF? The click you hear in the back closet is the relay that the switch activates. The relay controls the power to the AH OR the Air Cons. If the switch is on heat, have you checked the AH breakers in the bedroom closet.

Generator shutting off. Can you be more specific? Does it crank? Does it run long enough to produce any power, as noted by watching the meters above the driver? When it shuts off, does it die like you turned the switch off, or does it stumble and quit? As far as I know the inverter does not have such a feature to turn the generator off.

My inverter has been on 24/7 for years. It has nothing to do with the headlights shutting off. The headlights are on a self resetting breaker. That breaker is tripping because you have too much wattage on the lights, OR you have a wiring problem.

[Wesleyp777]

Hey Richard, thanks for your reply.

I thought i would list all the issues incase related. 

So with the AH yes its the heater is in the on position and red light is on, left it alone overnight to heat up but no joy. 

Generator cranks over as normal and runs however when you take your finger off the button it turns off straight away.

3rd issue is the dash lights not the headlights, he lost radio and dash board lighting which tells me the batteries were dead while driving (These all work just fine now since its been hooked up)

[Wesleyp777]

Also something to note which i found interesting ( i am here in the uk) i believe the coach was converted to take 240v hook up here and then distributes 110/120v to the coach as it still has original fridge/microwave etc which is 110.

Usually this coach needs 35amp single phase hook up minimum when the agua hot system is on, in the past when plugged into 16amp hook up it pops the fuse on the hook up instantly. 

Now the aqua hot isnt working i can hook up to 16amp and doesnt pop the fuses, so that tells me it is not drawing the big power needed for the AH system.

[Richard]

Only thing I can say on the AH, is put a voltmeter on the terminals for heater element. And work from there. You can trouble shoot forever, but if the element is burned out, the effort is wasted. So see if the element is getting power. If it is not, then we can work upstream through the thermostats the AH uses for the electric element, the overtemp thermostat, and back to the relay in the closet.

I don’t reach the same conclusion you do about the batteries being dead while driving. If the batteries were dead enough for the lights to go out, the engine and transmission computers would have shut down.

On some generator sets, the engine will not stay running if the generator head is not outputting power.

I am checking grounds for the dash board systems, Newell was fond of daisy chaining the grounds. It may be as simple as a loose connection.

Just for grins have you put a voltmeter on both your engine and house batteries?

[Trainer]

On the front wall of the Aqua Hot bay is a grey covered relay. The input to it is ground, neutral and 2 out of phase legs. Remove cover and check for 240 vac between the legs. The signal to latch the relay and turn on the electric elements, one 120 vac and one 240 vac is a 12 vdc signal routed through the control thermostat. When the relay is latched, the 2 legs go straight to the 240 vac High Limit thermostat. There is a resettable red button on that thermostat that you can check to see if open, popped.

The 2 thermostats are located above the burner behind a cover. There are 4 thermostats in there. The 2 on the left with push on connectors are for the burner. The 2 on the right are for the elements. The top one with a wire on each side is control stat and the bottom one with five wires is the high limt with the red reset button.

With a volt/ohm meter, follow the power, voltage till it stops. There is your problem.

When plugged into a 240 vac source, the elements pull 37 amps. This will never work on 16 amps at 240 volts. But will work on 30 amps of 120 vac power.

On this side of the pond, a single hot leg, 30 amp, 120 vac power does not energize the 240 vac element so only a current draw of 14 amps and no blown 30 amp, 120 vac circuit breaker.

Hope this helps.

[rheavn]

Concerning the genset not continuing to run: If the blower in R-1 does not start running, the genset shuts down.