Solar issues while on the road!!! Truck alternator too??

The year of the camper suggest the isolator is the older shure power. That one protects the starter battery and prevents charging the house batteries when the house batteries are lower than the voltage is required.
 
pvstoy said:
Can't help from wondering if there are fuses or hidden ones either the positive or negative wires coming off of the batteries that are blown.
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Or just making intermittent contact. Considering that neither charging source is working properly that sounds more likely to me.
 
pvstoy said:
The year of the camper suggest the isolator is the older shure power. That one protects the starter battery and prevents charging the house batteries when the house batteries are lower than the voltage is required.
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My 2004 had no camper battery hence no isolator at all.
 
So I spent the afternoon on Friday May 1 with KP at Zero Declination. I can't say that he exactly diagnosed the problem, but after taking the solar panel off the roof and putting it in the midday sun, he got 8.5V and said I think your panel is not dead but dying, and replacing it makes the most sense. He has little love for the Zamp charge controllers (no one else seems to think much of them, either). So now I have 175 watts X 2 Renology panels and the Victron 100/30 charge controller. I realize the "mystery" was not really solved, and I'm sure KP could have solved it, but it seemed to make more sense, when it was clear that the panel was not working well, to just move forward with replacement. He also told me he doesn't think my truck charging is not working, it just doesn't work optimally because of the too small gauge wire used, which others here have pointed out.

Everything worked beautifully on the rest of my journey home. Thank you guys for all the thoughts and suggestions. In the end I solved the problem by throwing money at it, and I'm happy to not be pondering all this any more. I am looking forward to our next trip (Summer Lake in Central Oregon for a breeding shore bird count at the end of this month) being free of power worries.
 
Yay! Problem solved! Patching up a old and failing system is not worth it, IMHO. Yes, time to move on. I am sure you know to bring plenty of mosquito repellant with you to summer lake. The Thermacell creates a small bug free zone you can relax in peace within.
 
We did this same bird count last year and the mosquitoes weren't too bad, but it was a few weeks earlier in the season. I'll look into the Thermacell. I've heard others here say it's effective.
 
Sagefemme said:
We did this same bird count last year and the mosquitoes weren't too bad, but it was a few weeks earlier in the season. I'll look into the Thermacell. I've heard others here say it's effective.
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Consider getting one or two rechargeable bug zappers to put in the camper prior to bed.
 
craig333 said:
Weird that one tech got 19 volts from the panels and now its under 9. Glad you got it all fixed.
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Yes. That's a little strange. One of those numbers had to be bad (or intermittent?) The solution for the truck charging issue is more $$$ being thrown. Either fatter wires, or a DCDC charger, or both.
 
Vic Harder said:
Yes. That's a little strange. One of those numbers had to be bad (or intermittent?) The solution for the truck charging issue is more $$$ being thrown. Either fatter wires, or a DCDC charger, or both.
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I still believe that the truck was not changing was due to the camper batteries were too low for the Shure Power isolator to send charge to them. Designed to protect the truck battery.

Get rid of the Sure power isolator with a replacement, DCDC or ACR. Bigger wires are always a benefit.
 
A isolator will keep both banks of batteries separately and neither the two will see each other.

The 1314A Separator thinks it has a brain and try to control the charge to you camper batteries. If the camper batteries are to low a voltage (cant rememberthe value) it wants to protect the truck battery, so no charge is allowed to the camper batteries.

Sucks as how can you bring the camper batteries up? Long jumper cables???

If you had a ACR or DCDC charge system when you panels were failing, you would have had a way to charge the camper batteries.
 
pvstoy said:
Others can chime in and get technical and suggest a replacement for the 1314A unit.
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The Blue Sea ACR is the best direct replacement, a good Victron DCDC is the best upgrade. With all three though, the real problem is the tiny wiring FWC installed from the truck battery back. It's simply too small to carry reliable, functional current for charging a house battery bank. Lithium or lead.

The Surepower in this camper could be functioning just fine, but the undersized wiring is limiting charge and causing isolator cycling due to voltage drop.
 
AWG_Pics said:
Yay! Problem solved! Patching up a old and failing system is not worth it, IMHO. Yes, time to move on. I am sure you know to bring plenty of mosquito repellant with you to summer lake. The Thermacell creates a small bug free zone you can relax in peace within.
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It seems most likely that the original panel had a bad/intermittent internal connection. When we replaced the failed panel, we also had to replace the original Zamp PWM controller with a Victron MPPT to handle the increase in PV voltage with the new solar array.
 
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