2020 Kodiak 201QB shake down Report

[kjlarson]

Just finished our shakedown trip and discovered a few things of interest or not so interesting. One was that whenever we arrived at one of our several destinations and entered the TT all the drawers were open, seems Dutchmen installers could not figure out how to install the drawer catches that keep the drawers closed so that they worked correctly???. Now I have a new project to replace all the catches. Luckily we had a plastic tub under the sink as the drain leaked , the elbow fittings had not been tightened, QA check????. The power panel has a circuit breaker labeled "General Purpose" with two leads coming off it, one supplies power to the converter (discovered by following the wire) and the other no idea what it does . Since I use a CPAP at night we had a pass through inverter installed to provide 120 AC from the batteries to run the CPAP. OOPs! When the inverter supplied 120 AC to the power panel the converter turned on and tries to charge the batteries while at the same time draw power out of them. Perpetual motion discovered? Learned real fast to turn the "General Purpose" circuit breaker off when running off the batteries. Still no idea as to what the second wire supplies. So, called Dutchmen customer support; OOPs again as they had no idea what that circuit breaker powered. There is also a switch labeled "Electrical" on the panel that turns the water pump, furnace, etc on, no idea what it does and support had no idea either. Everything seems to work even when the switch was turned off. Customer Support?????

Over all we had a good time; isn't that what RVing is all about. Flew my new drone which my wife got me for Fathers Day, played with ground squirrels and chipmunks with peanuts - got so they would come up into our laps to get one. Happy RVing this summer and stay safe.

[persistent]

I can't say for sure, but the drawer issue could be not closing the drawers firmly, or the slides were installed poorly. My drawer slides have a built in latch position. The drawer needs to be firmly pushed closed the last 1/4 inch. It then stays closed while driving. I have added this to our departure check list.

[kjlarson]

Only the three drawers under the sink cabinet seem to have the latch function. None of the others. Additionally, the cabinet opening under the frig was cut to large and the slide hardware on the drawer itself does not line up with the slides on the cabinet, had to install shims to get them to line up.

[sundancer 87]

For any new RV owner, as Julie has been known to say, 'expect the unexpected'.

[ewarnerusa]

I use an inverter for off grid camping and plug the shore power cable into the inverter AC output. As you found out, converter must be disabled when you do this or you have a perpetual load/battery draining loop! I think my "GEN" circuit breaker controlled the converter and the non GFCI outlets, but I can't quite remember. What I did was take the converter power supply off of the GEN breaker and put it into a new breaker that I installed in the panel. I shut the converter breaker off when doing the off grid/inverter thing.

[kjlarson]

The inverter needs to be separated from the converter and using a separate breaker is one way to do that. just have to remember to turn the breaker off when switching to battery power. I disconnected the inverter from the "general purpose" breaker it was attached to and spliced it into the 120 Vac input line at the pass through inverter with a 15 amp inline fuse so that the converter only gets power when connected to shore power.

[persistent]

Originally Posted by kjlarson

...
I disconnected the inverter from the "general purpose" breaker it was attached to and spliced it into the 120 Vac input line at the pass through inverter with a 15 amp inline fuse so that the converter only gets power when connected to shore power.

kjlarson,

Your post is confusing. Please explain what the device is that you connected to the 120 volt 15 amp inline fuse on the shore power line? Connecting an inverter to a 120 volt shore power line through a 15 amp fuse does not make sense.

An "inverter" needs to be connected to a 12 volt DC source. The inverter provides 120 volts AC output, but the output must not be connected to the shore power when the shore power cord is plugged into the pedestal. So a permanent inverter 120 volt output connection to shore power is out of the question unless the system has a transfer switch.

[kjlarson]

Good question. There are two types of inverters; one just converts 12 Vdc to 120 Vac (generally called a simple inverter), these generally are small (less than a few hundred watts); the second is called a pass-through inverter which is used in RV's. In a pass-through inverter the 120 Vac line (shore power) is connected to the inverter 120 Vac inputs and when the RV is connected to shore power it passes the 120 Vac to the power panel (this is why it is called a pass-through inverter), this is done automatically by a built in transfer switch. When shore power is not available the transfer switch switches to the battery input terminals and converts the 12 Vdc to 120 Vac which is then forwarded to the power panel. Pass through inverters are the type generally installed in RV's due to the need for higher wattage (generally 2K, 3.5K etc.) whereas the simpler inverters are generally plugged into a cigaret lighter socket for powering low wattage devices such as computers or charging cell phones. For a further explanation see this article: Electrical Tutorial - Chapter 9 - Inverters.