Kirk W

Quite an experience! And here in the D/FW area we are complaining about a temperature of 15°!

2 hours ago, DanZemke said:

IMO, the root cause is probably that they don't want your business.

Are you saying that banks don't want the business of those who live in an RV, or just his? His is a very common problem for people in the RV community with no real property address. 

5 hours ago, Mark Noakes said:

Looks like they're still going strong.

I have several friends and relatives who farm that have addresses of a route number and box number. 

9 hours ago, stevekk said:

Do you Think sometime in the future and redesign of EVs/ hybrids would make this all at least possible? 

The catch is in the size of market that a modification like that would be willing to pay extra for. A good example of the size issue for the towing world is the fact that Remco has discontinued the manufacture of all of their towing modification equipment due to low returns on investment. For that reason, I don't expect to see it happen unless it is for some other reason than the RV dingy towing market.

35 minutes ago, kb0zke said:

Didn't see anything about volunteering,

When you get to the Escapade, once you have been parked in your site you will need to go inside and register. Near the place that you register will be the hospitality desk and there you will find a list of activities that need volunteers to help out. Each person who volunteers for 3 hours or more will then receive a special souvenir pin that can only be gotten by volunteering. There are many areas that seek volunteers to help. Usually the first thing to fill is that of driving the stretched golf carts that roam the campgrounds and activities areas to provide transportation to and from events. There are always several other areas and exactly what is there varies from year to year.

Security always needs volunteer help and that is how I got involved with that and eventually became security team leader. Of the 3 Escapades where we volunteered, I found security to have been the most rewarding and that was the reason that I accepted a position on the staff. Volunteers do things like checking for attendee badges to enter the activity areas and evening entertainment. At the entertainment there are seats reserved for the security team and the volunteers are released to those reserved seats just before the show starts. In some cases the volunteers help with traffic control at the entry gates and such, but you are never expected to be a policeman or to do anything of that sort.  After 10 years with the security team I have retired from the staff but it is some of my fondest memories.

On 1/9/2024 at 10:04 AM, Mark Noakes said:

I'm sure someone out there has figured out how to get around of this.

If you were in Livingston, TX you would find that pretty much all financial organizations understand the law & related banking regulations, and they work with fulltime RV folks on a frequent basis. Unfortunately, the reach of the Escapees seems to be pretty limited in distance because we are too small a part of the the financial market. Polk Co. TX is a rural area with a small population so the Escapees are a very significant market there.

Quote

Section 326 of the USA PATRIOT ACT requires all financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account or changes an existing account. This federal requirement applies to all new customers and current customers.

7 hours ago, stevekk said:

 I have a Chevy Bolt EV and its has regenerative braking.  Would be neat if I could tow it and charge the EV battery at the same time.

If you could somehow cause the brake of the Bolt to apply with your motorhome braking, like an auxiliary brake system, that would make use of some of that wasted energy. Dragging the regenerative braking all of the time would burn extra fuel. 

Is it sheltered from the wind, as that should help?

Why not put the propane bottle for the lower furnace into the space that is protected? When we were in Maine at an NWR they had the heating oil tank and the 250 gallon propane tank both inside of a heated space with temperature set to 50°.

I went back and added the windchill chart from the link to my post, for those not familiar with the effect. Having lived in Cheyenne, WY for 18 years, I'm quite familiar with it but others may not be. The chart does agree with your original post. I was pointing out that your expected high temperature for the day is -14° and the expected low is -29°! Add a 10 mph wind to the low and you get a -58°.

Your weather makes us glad to be in TX but it still feels cold to us after living here so long. 

7:00 am, Mesquite TX    temperature is 33° F

1 hour ago, ThomasLM said:

BUT IT STILL DOES THE SAME THING.  Any ideas

That is a very common symptom and nearly always indicates that the ignition probe has failed. The same probe that supplies the spark to light the furnace also detects the heat of the burning propane. If it does not send a signal back to the circuit board that it detects the heat from the burning propane, it will try 2 more times and then go into safety lockout. If you turn the furnace off and after a brief pause turn it back on it will repeat that same sequence. Over the many years that I have had an RV and also helped others repair their RV furnaces, I have probably seen that issue about 20 times and nearly all of them were the ignition probe.

If you do not have one, you can download a copy of the Suburban Service Manual from this link. On page 7 of that manual the troubleshooting guide addresses your symptoms. 

If you are thinking of 2024 models, none of the towing guides that I'm familiar with are out for 2024 yet.  I'm wondering where you read that? I found the following from Edmonds.

But if you're looking at the current fourth-generation model, only the hybrid and plug-in hybrid models are towable. Finally, the vast majority of states require most vehicles being flat-towed to be equipped with auxiliary brake systems that work in tandem with the motorhome's brakes. ~ Nov 30, 2023

This is an Australian unit and the "mains" to the lower right side are 240V0-ac. Notice the power plug, It connects to 230V but I am pretty sure that the circuit board converts that supply to 12V since all other voltages are labeled as 12V it does show both a 12V heating element and also a ac heating element so that probably is 230V

58 minutes ago, vermilye said:

scammers are using photoshopped images to make it appear that it is his device.

As I look at those pictures again, you may well be right. It would be interesting to know if he is aware of this. After doing a little digging I was able to find this one.

The claim: Elon Musk developed a heater that reduces electric bills to $0   

It seems that I was too quick to buy into the Musk connection. 

1 hour ago, Wrknrvr said:

Without a diagram I cannot follow along.

Dometic RM7401L Wiring Diagram

Quote

Elon Explains it a little better,
"It's all about the electronics inside. Normally it takes a lot of electricity to create heat. Without this tech, on the space shuttle we would run out of energy, or in your home, the power bill would go way up like it usually does in the winter."

"The materials we use in Alpha Heater are the best conductors in the world. Normally you have to force electricity into heat, but since our proprietary conductors have the electrons(electricity) moving so fast on an atomic level, as soon as they hit the heating plates they instantly turn to heat since they have carried more energy with them."

Elon Musk Reveals the Secret to Heating Your Home This Fall And Winter... All While Cutting Your Heating Bill to Basically $0.

Elon's latest scam?

5 hours ago, Wrknrvr said:

 There is a drawing that shows they both should test positive.

The red is positive and the brown is negative. If you look at the full schematic from my link you can see that they supply the 12V heater, with the red positive side passing through the circuit board.

1 hour ago, melon said:

Based on the above, do you have an inkling as to what the problem might be?

While it is only a guess, at this point I would suspect that something was wrong with the way you changed the wiring and that something on the circuit board has failed, but that is only a guess. Additional information on that refrigerator seems to be nonexistent, other than I did find the installation and operation manual online. If I could examine the circuit board I might be able to figure out at least some of the operation to know what to check. The red wire from the terminal block should have 12V as it then goes to the circuit board, in on x103 and out on x104 to the heater and the is return side back to the terminal block. There is something on the circuit board that turns that power on and off as called for. The fact that nothing on the circuit board is lighting up tends to support my suspicion that the problem is on that circuit board. In all probability, a qualified Dometic service tech could probably repair the refrigerator for less cost than to replace it, but that too is only a guess. I'm afraid that this is the best that I can do. 

While there are state banking laws, the regulations coming from the Patriot Act are federal laws and they apply to all financial institutions in the USA, no matter where they are located. As Mark previously stated, there is provision for an alternative address in the banking regulations but it can be difficult to get the people you are dealing with to use the provisions. 

1 hour ago, melon said:

I'm using this model multimeter

I looked over the meter specs and it should be just fine for trouble shooting what you are.

1 hour ago, melon said:

There is 13.2v reading at the terminal block, and at the violet/black wires where they are connected to the circuit board.

That shows that your problem is not the power supply. That is exactly what you should have.

1 hour ago, melon said:

I'm not sure yet how to test voltages across the circuit board - when i hold one tip of the meter to the negative post on the terminal block, then hold the other tip at various points across the circuit board, most points read 13.2v. Except some points on the very right hand side, where the reading drops down to 4 or 5v.

That is the proper way to measure the voltages. The problem is that we do not know what the circuits on that board are so can only guess at what the voltages should be. To do more you need information about the circuit board and what it has on it. We need a service manual or a circuit board schematic and I am unable to find either of them. 

If you are a member of Escapees RV Club and using their mail service, let me suggest that you call the business office (Phone 936-327-8873) and get help & advice there. Changing what you call your box number will do nothing for you as businesses use a USPS data base to verify all addresses and no matter what you write down the bank will know that you use a PMB andare trying to hide that. There is an alternative allowed in the baking laws that set address requirements and the Escapees have dealt with that many times. As an alternative, you could change to the TX Escapees address as the businesses in the Livingston area are very familiar with those alternatives and have no problems dealing with them. 

10 hours ago, melon said:

Current situation is, even with 12v being supplied to the ignition circuit (tested both via battery eliminator, and a newly installed leisure battery that is running a few other 12v circuits perfectly), nothing on the control panel is lighting up - switching to gas does not trigger the ignition sound, and switching to 240v does not cool the fridge.

To me it sounds like something that you did when rewiring the refrigerator power has caused a failure somewhere internally but that is only a guess. Since we do not have a schematic for the circuit board, it is impossible to know what voltages should be where other than the terminal block shown in the schematic and I suspect that the white terminal block in the upper left of your picture is what is on the schematic. You might be able to figure out the layout of the circuit board by tracing the foil paths on the back of the board in your picture. As to the fuse, 1.5 ohms is probably just poor meter quality or poor connection as a fuse will normally read 0 ohms when good. Did you remove the fuse from the circuit when you tested it as that must be done for the reading to be accurate. It would not be a bad idea to try a new fuse as Vern has suggested since we are really just guessing. If it isn't the fuse and if there is 12V supply where shown on that terminal block, my next guess would be that the circuit board is bad, but that too is only a guess since I have no service manual or data on the circuit board so have no way to do any valid testing of it. 

On 1/5/2024 at 12:11 AM, melon said:

I've tested the fuse on the back of the control board, it's fine.

How did you test the fuse? The only way to be absolutely sure is to check it for continuity with an ohm meter. If you didn't do that, at least replace the current one with a new one of the same ratings. 

3 hours ago, melon said:

Would a reading under 12 indicate an issue with that particular point?

The first thing that you need to understand is that the voltage from your battery is not always 12V, even under normal conditions with a good battery. A fully charged battery will supply as much as 12.6V when fully charged and can be as high as 13.6V if recently charged. As the battery is depleted it is normal for the voltage to slowly fall. Most RV appliances will operate down to 10.5-11V supply. If you measure between the + and the - on the schematic you do need to have at least 10,5V. Other points on the circuit board could be quite different depending on where you are reading in the circuit. Just what you should find at any point depends on where in the circuit that point is. 

Anything supplied by the mains supply should be at or near 240V but that voltage is alternating current and probably would damage the device that you are using. 

I strongly advise you to at the least, get a cheap multimeter and learn to use it from the instructions that will come with it because there is simply no way of knowing what is wrong with the refrigerator that you have without one. If you are rewiring things in the RV without the use of a reasonably good meter and a basic knowledge of electricity and RV electric systems, I am not surprised that things are not going well. People are not often seriously hurt by 12V systems but it does happen and the 240V mains is very dangerous. The problem with your refrigerator might be something as simple as a bad fuse or a poor connection, but it is also possible that the circuit board or other electrical components have been damaged or destroyed. If you plan to continue to work on the RV and refrigerator, you should take the time to read "The 12V Side of Life" parts 1 and 2. Doing so will not make you an electrician but it will give you some basic knowledge of how things work.