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NeverEasy

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  1. 1. Slip a pared down popsicle stick between the contacts to let them cool for awhile, then quickly change with the plastic plunger. OR 2. Put an on/off switch on the 12 volt wire. (Not ideal but should work). Carl, I agree that you should open the old breakaway and see if the plastic plug is melted. Just consider this: The original electric magnetic brakes used about 12.6 AMPS via the house battery(ies) to engage the brakes. Read that, 4 brake magnets each have a resistance of 3.4 ohms. Those in parallel work out to close enough to 1 ohm. 4/4 =1 Therefore, the AMPs required to engage those brakes are just about equal to the battery voltage I=E/R or 12.6/1 - 12.6. Ok, that's enough to generate heat if the contacts in the breakaway do not create a dead short across the contacts. On a system using electric brake magnets, it would be good to put some contact cleaner on your popsicle stick and push it in and out a few times. Now, consider your system on Electric/Hydraulic. The controller for that system only requires enough current to operate itself. I have that system on my rig. My testing shows no more than .8 amps (yes, 8/10s of an amp) when the brakes are fully activated. .8 amps is not enough heat to melt that plastic. An annual cleaning of the breakaway contacts still would not hurt.
  2. Carl, Yes the wires connected together would be the same as pulling the plastic plug. Of course, disconnect when complete. I have had breakaway plugs get stuck in a couple of trailers in the past. Both appeared to be welded to the contacts by the 12 VDC. Appears something got in there with enough conductance to cause enough heat to do the welding. I can't explain it. Those two black wires run into the connection box under the hitch. One goes to the 12 volt battery source (usually red) and the other goes to the trailer brakes wires (usually blue). I say that here because it is tempting to cut the black wires and splice in the new breakaway when it is pretty easy to connect the new ones directly into the connection box.
  3. Yep, concur with Jim. Clamp on a DC clamp on meter on only one of the two black wires at the breakaway switch. Like Jim said, 3 amps per wheel if you are electric brakes. From my experience, you only get .8 amps if you are running an electronic over hydraulic setup.
  4. This is how it works for me: Go to this website: RV.NET: Photo Posting (is-great.net) Do what it says. Copy the link it gives you. Open "Other Media" at the bottom right on your posting. Click on "Insert image from URL". Paste the link that you copied above. You must delete everything between the square brackets and the square brackets at the front and end of the URL you pasted leaving only a valid URL. Then click on "Insert into post".
  5. Here is an interesting post of how to connect batteries in a four-battery configuration. For an equal charging and loading, hook the positive to the center left battery and the negative to the center right battery. How to Configure a Battery Bank – Windy Nation Inc
  6. I plugged in the 1800 watt inverter into the wire size calculator. Using 3/0 cable, you are good out to a 3-meter cable run with an acceptable loss of 3% voltage. Stay under a 3-meter positive cable and 3-meter negative cable and you are good. Also, you might want to look at using a chassis return. Note the button (Include return?) below and what it says next to it. Both tables shown below. With chassis return, cable size could drop to !/0,
  7. Carl, I have seen where the recommendation is to hook both + and - connections to the center most point of the batteries. However, I don't see the need if the batteries have a good connection to the bus. Question, what size inverter (watts) will you install. For a true calculation of current, add 10% to that for the internal workings of the inverter (overhead). Use that to calculate the amps with the formula Current equals watts divided by voltage. I = P/V. I have found that most installations max out the size of the inverter due to cable size needed to support anything bigger than 1500 watts.. I = 1515/12 volts = 126.26 amps. The length of the cable run is very important. Mount the inverter as close to the battery source as you can. You must calculate the length using both the positive cable length + the negative cable length. Measure in meters to use the following chart. This is a good site to calculate cable size needed: DC Cable Size Calculator | Fabhabs. As an example of using anything bigger than a 1500 watt inverter, let's say you are going to install a 2400 watt inverter. The max current is 202 amps. Put that in the above chart with a 1 meter cable length and the chart will show you that there is no cable big enough to support that installation. At one of the Kansas HDT rallies, I was asked to look at a 2400 Watt inverter install. I found that the installr used a 4-AWG 2 meters (4 meters total) away from the batteries. To protect the cables, a 40 amp fuse was put inline thereby effectively limiting the output of the inverter to (P=I x V) or 40 x 12 = 480 watts. The size of the inverter than became a 480 watt inverter. Shit!
  8. I am now certain that the issue is in a bad ground or hot wire to the dash. I drew up this schematic and discussion. It should be noted that the lights on the dash going out is the prime reason that the big cables are not an issue AT THIS POINT.
  9. For the record, there is more to starting the trucks than the big cables running between the starter and the batteries. The recognizable sign is that the dash lights go out when the key is turned. That indicates a high resistance connection on either the 12 Volt or ground going to the dashboard. The electrical theory is a high resistance will permit the low amperage lights to work like it was an open circuit. Any larger amount of current (I = E/R) causes a large increase in the voltage drop across the bad connection and that resistance becomes a large resistance in serial with the dash lights and the lights can not get enough voltage to work. I can draw up the schematic for such a problem if anyone wants to challenge my theory. This simple rig up may show that there is a high resistance connection to the dashboard. Hook something like a lamp cord (14 AWG or better), one positive to the battery bus, the other end of that to the CB radio positive post. One wire to the battery negative bus and the other to the CB negative post. I have asked you to do this non-invasive test before but you have yet to say , "I tried it". Why not? If you don't do this test, you are wasting time and resources chasing big cable problems that may or may not exist. I have fixed more than one truck with this simple work around. Chet
  10. Where I can, i use stainless steel star washers. I am looking for the best contact possible. On your fuse holder, I would put a star washer on the stud, the cable, another star washer and then the nut. And then I spray with battery terminal cleaner and follow that up battery terminal protector. Even though the connection is not at the battery, the electrolysis that causes the green corrosion is still there, more prominently on the positve side. Before you start connecting things up, spray the components with terminal cleaner and see where the acid is waiting to cause problems.
  11. jRefuzn, Would you look at the cover for your fuse panel and see if there is a relay marked as start relay? Chet
  12. Would not matter. 150 amp blows first. No amperage through the system. 400 amp fuse is doing nothing. Would not know why both positive and negative are fused.
  13. The starter solenoid must be mounted on the starter. The amount of current passing through it is too high to be remotely located .
  14. Go to this link: http://photoposting.is-great.net/?i=1 Drag and drop a picture as it says. I link to the picture will appear. Copy that link. Open Other Media in the bottom right. and paste it to the URL to "Insert Image from URL. The delete leading and trailing [ just leaving a bare URL. Then clicck Insert IN Post.
  15. A new starter is a big leap in troubleshooting this problem. I sent you electrical schematics. I can't be sure that they apply to your truck, yet, so some caution is necessary. Print pages 7,8, and 10. Those are sheets AA, AB, and AD. I tell you that so you can trace out your system via the labels on where wires go to another sheet listed by Alpha Characters and position indicators. How it works. The relay on the starter is shown one AD. The ground side is attached to the starter's ground. When energized, that simply sends a ground to (Volvo Engine box on schematic) Relay RLY40-pin 85 inside the truck. RLY40 is energized if the transmission is happy for the truck to start and the ignition key is turned on. Whichever transmission you have will send 12VDC on Wire 284 to close the RLY40 on pin 86. With RLY40 closed, it sends 12VDC to the starter solenoid to start the truck. Note that the schematic shows Wire 285A coming out of RLY40, pin 87. it points to schematic sheet position AB:3B. Going to sheet AB and running across to position 3 and down to position B, you will see that the 12VDC comes from XP2 Power Stud. That is one of two Power Studs that gets power from the batteries via fusible link wire. Now, where does that take us? If this schematic is relevant to your truck, I would pull RLY40. Meter pin 87 for 12VDC. That comes directly from XP2 which is battery voltage. With the transmission in neutral and ignition on, use a 12AWG wire and manually connect RLY40 pins 30 to 87. The starter solenoid will get 12VDC and the starter should start the truck. That is as close as you will come to bypassing a lot of transmission, ECU, and ignition problems.
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