Need some help, please.
My new 3950BR has had the intermittent breaker issue with the slides and jacks since we got it in June. Works fine on shore power, but has interruptions on battery. It's a new unit and we've been on a really hectic schedule, so this has been on the back burner a bit. I've been hooking up shore power before doing jacks and slides and that's been fine.
Today, however, things took a turn. We did a stop while driving and I went in to the rig to find out that I had no 12v power at all. This was disconcerting and I'm still trying to figure it out.
Some background. Unit has 4 6v batteries and a 2000w inverter. While the 12v system was offline, the 120v system was working via the inverter. That means I didn't lose battery power, but something in the line isn't behaving nicely.
I did a CAT scale weighing yesterday which required me to use the front jacks on 12v. That's the first time I've done that in a few weeks. The 'break' it had was pretty long, but it did come back online eventually. I think that was probably a sign of trouble though.
Looking at how it's setup, I seem to have two self-resetting breakers in series. I'm posting the picture so someone who knows electricity better than I (and that could be nearly anyone, though I am getting better) can tell me if I'm correct about this.
With the rubber covers on, I can't see the rating on the breakers and as you can see, there's a lot going on there, so I'm a little reluctant to start uncorking things.
I put my meter on the battery that has the primary leads and I was over 6v. I take that as further proof that the batteries aren't the issue. Combinations of the breakers seemed to be all over the place, but I didn't find a combination that was consistently over 2v, which seems problematic. I did this just before dinner and we were on shore power, but I wouldn't think that would matter at that point in the circuit. (Though maybe it does because it wasn't in use?)
If one of those breakers went completely kaput, I'd experience this kind of total 12v failure, right? But the inverter would still have a viable battery draw to power the 120 systems, right?
Further points. In the battery compartment I have 3 in-line blade fuses. 30a (for the jacks I think), 10a and 5a, which do something, but I don't know what. (I was tinkering with those while sweating to death in a rest area.) All three appear to be intact, though I didn't actually test them on the meter.
So, understanding that my electrical skills are nominal, am I approaching this correctly and am I right in thinking that the self-resetting breakers are likely the problem? Is there a test I should run with my meter? (If you say that I should check something behind my converter breaker panel, I might freak out...but say it anyway if it's right.)
If I replace the breakers, considering that they're in series, what amperage should I get? Two 80a or two 40a or...?
Any pointers here would be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeremy
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