Propane system malfunction

Sage

Hi everyone,

We are new owners of 2018 T@B 400. We recently found that our propane system is not working as expected. The ALDE screen displays Gas Failure error about 5 minutes after turning on the system. We could feel the ALDE exhaust in the back of the trailer slightly warm up. ALDE system works  with electric hook-up. The gas stove is also not getting any propane. We confirmed that the propane tank is full and the valve is open. We replaced the regulator but the issue persists. Anyone has experienced a similar issue? Any suggestions for troubleshooting? 

We have a road trip coming up where we will be boondocking for two nights. We expect the weather to get to about 40F outside during boondocking. Is there any restriction or safety concerns with running a portable ceramic heater and an electric skillet on battery? We're very new to travel trailer / RVing so any suggestions are greatly appreciated! 

Thank you. 

Sharon_is_SAM

@Sage - unless you have a generator or adequate solar and battery capacity with an inverter, you can’t use any AC appliance. 

 

Close your propane regulator and then open it very slowly.  There is a safety mechanism that engages to prevent flow when the tank is opened too quickly.  Try that.  I believe that there is a secondary regulator somewhere downstream, but I am not sure where. Let’s see what others can add.  Have you contacted your dealer or nuCamp?

Sharon_is_SAM

Here is an article that @Bayliss posted in another thread regarding a “hung up” cylinder.
https://www.rvtravel.com/hooking-up-an-refilled-lp-cylinder-check-this-out/

Maybe replace the tank?

ChanW

That's handy info! I never knew the specifics of 'open it slowly'...

Sharon_is_SAM said:

Here is an article that @Bayliss posted in another thread regarding a “hung up” cylinder.
https://www.rvtravel.com/hooking-up-an-refilled-lp-cylinder-check-this-out/

....

Michigan_Mike

I agree with Sharon and would try another propane tank as I had a similar experience some years back and swapping out the tank did the trick.  Sometimes it does take a bit to get air out of the line in the trailer too.  Take a butane lighter at the stove, turn on the stove and let the air out while using the hand held butane lighter.  Once you get the stove to light you can try the Alde and hopefully things will operate normally.  

And as noted any high energy draw appliances like toasters, electric skillets, hair dryers, curling irons, etc. will not work off your battery.  Even if it is a small 12V DC heater or appliance it will kill a battery in short order, similarly as happens when you leave the lights on on your vehicle when the engine isn’t running.  You will need a small 2K watt generator to accomplish the above and power up the trailer and supply AC voltage to it.  

Don’t feel bad as everyone of us started out similarly and once you take a shakedown trip or two you will begin to feel more comfortable with things and the operation and inner workings of the trailer.  

Best of luck to you and enjoy!  

ScottG

There's not rally much to the propane system itself that can fail outside of the tank valve or the regulator. Of course a leak or blockage somewhere in the distribution lines could also cause a problem.

All the other mechanicals would likely be contained in the appliances themselves, so a malfunction there would affect only that appliance. 

Tampakayaker

If the stove gas was on when turning on the propane that may be enough to shut down the safety in the hose or at the regulator.  At least that will happen on a gas grill if the knob is on when opening the tank valve.

Also, are there any thermistors on the ALDE or the stove?  I have a firepit with one and if the flame doesn't hit it and make it hot, the gas shuts down thinking there is a leak somewhere.

ChanW

@Tampakayaker, yes, there's a sensor on the stove that shuts off the gas if the flame goes out.(so it's unlikely, ie pretty improbable!, that the stove gas knob being 'on' would trigger a 'leak' indication - just sayin... - heh!)    

4ncar

How did we, as children and our parents survive without all these safety features!😡🤯

Sage

Thanks for all your responses and suggestions! 

Sharon_is_SAM  
Our TAB IS equipped with an inverter. Do you know the max amp that can be drawn from the batteries?  We agree that a generator would be a good investment. Please let us know if you have a recommendation for make/model.

We have done some troubleshooting with the dealer but no progress has been made yet. As you suggested, maybe there is a second regulator down the line.. We connected our tank to outdoor barbecue and it ignited it with no issue. It doesn't look like our issue matches the hung up described in the article. Good info for future reference. We will test if opening the regulator valve slowly will solve the issue.

Sage

@Michigan_Mike We appreciate your encouragement and useful tips We will try switching the tank and see if it helps.

We tried removing the air from the lines but could not get the stove to light. We turned the position of the burner knob to the ignition indicator (small lightning bolt), pushed the knob in, and held for several seconds - up to ten or more - but no propane seems to be flowing to the burner.

When you say 'it will kill a battery', do you mean that the current draw of most appliances exceed the max limit of the batteries?

Denny16

@Sage. Then2018 TaB400 factory inverter 1200 (2000 surge) Watts Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter. Battery drain, with no load is about 1.2 amps.  Your battery is around 200 amps, so any significant appliance like a heater would drain the battery in short order.  The max load you can put on the inverter is 80% of its max load rating, or about 980 watts.  That said, the inverter in our 2018 TaB400 will not run a small microwave.  

Any appliance with a significant heating element will also not likely work.  The inverter was intended to run small appliances like a small hair dryer for a few minutes, a laptop computer, or small battery chargers for electronic equipment.
cheers

Sharon_is_SAM

@Sage - @Denny16 nicely helped out with the inverter info.  Regarding a generator, I will refer you to the “Search” box!  Enter a few words in the box and hit Enter.  Lots of discussion about generators.  Honda’s are popular, but there are many options.  If your intention is to run your CoolCat for A/C, then a SoftStart may be necessary.  Check out the Category Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.  

Another search option is Google:

 Enter the following into the Google Search box:  site:https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com Generator

pthomas745

@Sage The math for "how much can I run on my inverter" is pretty simple.  I've run a few things on a 1000 watt inverter attached to my battery.  I limited the test to 700 watt appliances: a small hairdryer and the 3qt instapot, both listed at 700 watts.  (I measured them both with a Kill-A-Watt.  Read the label on the appliance you want to use to determine the maximum wattage it might use.)

At 700 watts, the appliance will use 58 amps per hour.  (700 watts divided by 12v).  This is an approximate value, since I don't know how much power the inverter uses. 

I rounded that off to 60 amps per hour, so the math is easy:  I would use 1 amp per minute to use a 700 watt device.  The hair dryer would take care of my hair in about two minutes, not a big deal for even my stock battery.  The instapot takes about 12 minutes to come up to temperature, and then drops to a very small power use.  So, that would be 12 amps.....which, since I only have 40 amps available, is a lot. 

So, the inverters are very useful, but I'm mindful of the tradeoff:  is the convenience of being able to use the device worth the outcome and my amp hour use? (The instapot meal in the middle of nowhere was totally worth it!) Will I be able to recover the power I'm using with my solar panel?

Bigger batteries change the equation, but you still should always do the math. 

NorthIsUp

@Sage I had a similar propane issue on my 2019 Tab 400. Fix was to unscrew the hose from the propane tank and screw it back on a little tighter than normal. "Normal" is based on 50 years of propane grilling and I never had an issue. The 400 likes it very tight. YMMV. Enjoy. 

VictoriaP

pthomas745 said:

@Sage The math for "how much can I run on my inverter" is pretty simple.  I've run a few things on a 1000 watt inverter attached to my battery.  I limited the test to 700 watt appliances: a small hairdryer and the 3qt instapot, both listed at 700 watts.  (I measured them both with a Kill-A-Watt.  Read the label on the appliance you want to use to determine the maximum wattage it might use.)

At 700 watts, the appliance will use 58 amps per hour.  (700 watts divided by 12v).  This is an approximate value, since I don't know how much power the inverter uses. 

I rounded that off to 60 amps per hour, so the math is easy:  I would use 1 amp per minute to use a 700 watt device.  The hair dryer would take care of my hair in about two minutes, not a big deal for even my stock battery.  The instapot takes about 12 minutes to come up to temperature, and then drops to a very small power use.  So, that would be 12 amps.....which, since I only have 40 amps available, is a lot. 

So, the inverters are very useful, but I'm mindful of the tradeoff:  is the convenience of being able to use the device worth the outcome and my amp hour use? (The instapot meal in the middle of nowhere was totally worth it!) Will I be able to recover the power I'm using with my solar panel?

Bigger batteries change the equation, but you still should always do the math. 

Adding on here: as part of this equation, note that pthomas745 knows the number of amps available to use with their battery. This is critical information, and will vary depending on the battery you have. Your battery will list the amps on the label, but unless you have a lithium battery (doubtful unless the previous owner installed one, they are not stock on Tabs), your actual battery usage shouldn’t exceed 50% of what’s on the label. So my 105 amp battery = about 52 actually available for use. And with the 2018 400, your fridge is 12v, so you need to preserve some of that battery capacity or lose your ability to chill food.

Regarding generators, a few things to note that you may not be aware of: Many places have limits on their use because a lot of your fellow campers find the noise they produce disturbing. Those limits can be things like time of day (often not allowed overnight, but some places are extremely restrictive, such as only allowed from 10 am - 12 pm for recharging batteries), by noise level in decibels at a certain number of feet, or by the time of year—in the West, generators are often banned outright during fire season. You’ll need to carry adequate fuel, and you’ll need to be prepared to perform regular maintenance, or you’ll find yourself stuck with a generator that doesn’t work when you need it to. You also need to have room to run it—a minimum of 20 feet from your trailer and anyone else’s, with the exhaust pointed away from both you and other campers—and some method of securing it in that spot, since they’re easily stolen. They can be very helpful to have, but they are absolutely not a cure all for your non-working propane system. Definitely do the research on all this before shelling out that kind of money.

Hopefully you find the answer to your propane woes soon!

m_lewis

I see a consistent error in several messages, in this and many other threads, regarding battery capacity. That is using the term amps when the proper term is amp hours.
An amp is a unit of instantaneous current. One amp hour is one amp for one hour. 
As an example, a load might pull 10 amps of current and be on a 30 Amp fused circuit. If it stays on for 5 hours, it will consume 10A x 5H or 50 amp hours of power. This is not the same as 50 amps! If it were, the fuse would blow! 
Amp hours are a measure of how many amps a battery can supply for how many hours. It is extremely misleading to say a 200 amp hour battery can supply 200 amps, because: 1. It can probably supply several times that many for a short period, and 2. It says nothing about the amount of energy stored in the battery.
Further, a battery's stored energy is not linear with respect to discharge rate. The specifications always include a rate, usually C20, meaning the Capacity over a 20 hour discharge. So a 200 AH battery is actually rated to supply 10 amps continuously for 20 hours. It will most likely supply a little over 5 amps for 40 hours or more than 1 amp for 200 hours due to internal resistance and other losses. Conversely, it will supply less than 20 amps for 10 hours and much less than 200 A for 1 hour. (Lithium batteries still exhibit this behavior, although not as pronounced.)
For example, the 224 AH AGM battery in my T@B is rated at 224 AH at the 20 hour rate (C20), 175 at the 5 hour rate (C5), and 133 at the 1 hour rate (C1).

Some might say I'm being awfully picky here. Consider this: Would you say you tow your camper at 65 Miles when you mean 65 miles per hour? You might say just 65, with MPH inferred, but not 65 miles. It's just wrong.

Horigan

m_lewis said:

I see a consistent error in several messages, in this and many other threads, regarding battery capacity. That is using the term amps when the proper term is amp hours.
An amp is a unit of instantaneous current. One amp hour is one amp for one hour. 
...
Some might say I'm being awfully picky here. Consider this: Would you say you tow your camper at 65 Miles when you mean 65 miles per hour? You might say just 65, with MPH inferred, but not 65 miles. It's just wrong.

Not at all.  Thanks for putting out the clear explanation.  It can be a difficult subject to describe.

Denny16

Well put Lewis.  A nice reminder and good info for someone not familiar with battery ratings/usage.
cheers

Sharon_is_SAM

@m_lewis - as a former clinical educator, I knew that our students only retained about 20% of what we initially taught, so we built redundancy into our program.  So, this is fair warning - you will need to remind us of these units of measurement again and maybe more!  I appreciate you taking the time to share the info, but I think many of us think in terms of the battery being a big bucket filled with “amps” when it is really “amp hrs”.  Someone else mentioned the terminology message not too long ago.  Keep talking - it will sink in😁

pthomas745

@m_lewis So....in my story above about the use of a 700 watt appliance:  I re-read it and see that I have mixed "amps per hour" discussing the 700 watt draw, and then  "12 amps"  when I discussed how much draw over 12 minutes, and then "40 amps" when discussing my battery capacity.

So, the more consistent, more correct phrase to use would have been "amp hours" for all those examples? 

Horigan

Amps is an instantaneous measure of the electrical current in the system.  Amp hours is a measure of energy capacity used or a measure of battery capacity.  Your multiplying amps times hours to measure that energy.  So it's not really amps PER hour, per se.  For a component that draws variable amps over a period of time, you multiply the average amps over that period of time (in hours) to determine the amp hours used.

Watts is the instantaneous power used, which is generally the amps times the voltage.  So a 700W 120V appliance will drawing 5.8 amps (700W / 120V).  A theoretical 70W 12V appliance, like a 12V light bulb, would draw 5.8 amps.  

Hope that helps. 

m_lewis

@pthomas745. Yes. I understood what you meant.  Units are important, though. 

And, like @Horigan said, it’s not amps per hour. Your inverter powering the 700 watt hair dryer uses 1 Ah per minute. One amp hour is the amount of energy, per minute is the rate. I should have used a different analogy than MPH to make my point. I used it to point out leaving off the hour part of the term sounds wrong.  The two terms are not otherwise comparable. 

You offer such good advice and explanations to so many that I feel bad for correcting you.