Alde touch screen won't come on

jkjenn

Wow, both the fan and the Alde? Wonder if something was up at some point t whe you plugged in?

Sharon_is_SAM

Not sure, but everything works except the Alde now.  

N7SHG_Ham

The Alde control panel not coming on can't be the power cord to the Alde, it is 12v and should come on regardless of presence of shore power. That ONLY affects whether you can heat the water on 120v.

If the two or single depending on model Alde fuses are good, it might be worth a reset, unplug ALL power from Alde and reconnect and then check all wiring harness plugs on main board under the black Alde cover. If still no joy it is likely either main Alde board, the contol panel itself and I suppose possibly the wire from Alde to control panel is bad or disconnected on back of control panel.

N7SHG_Ham

Also I think there is a blade fuse in the fuse panel for the Alde also, make sure that is good. There is also a Alde breaker for ONLY the shore power operation of Alde, wouldn't be your current issue with the panel, of course if you aren't running on propane, worth a check too so when you get panel going you can run on 120v if you want

Sharon_is_SAM

@N7SHG_Ham Thanks.  Circuit breaker intact, all fuses (Alde and blade) changed.  No joy.  Emailed Alde US.  We’ll see.

Bayliss

@Sharon_is_SAM, as far as I know (at least on my 320 S), the ceiling fan and Alde are on the same circuit.  I am not sure if it is different with your CSS.  I wonder if there is an intermittent short somewhere, or a bad ground along that circuit?  Best of luck in resolving the issue without too much grief.

Sharon_is_SAM

@Bayliss, Yes, our A/C fan, Alde, and ceiling fan are on the same circuit.  We discovered the blown circuit fuse first.  We will take a better look at home.  

Sharon_is_SAM

Well, the plot thickens.  While on DC all night, we found our ARB frig temp up to 54 degrees!  ARB control panel lit, but no cooling.  But, towed home and found that it cooled enroute on DC.  Then found that the 10 amp circuit fuse blew again and the Alde negative fuse (the one on the left) also blew again.  Does that tell us anything?  Everything under the bench seems fine - all ground wires connected to the bus bar, nothing loose, etc.  Tomorrow we will raise the tongue and get into the junction box.  Have an email into nuCamp repair.  I hate electrical issues!

Bayliss

Hmmmm, @Sharon_is_SAM, adding the ARB to the mix definitely adds to the mystery.  I do not have any brilliant suggestions, especially since the ARB is presumably on a separate circuit.  It seems unlikely that the battery has anything to do with it (because it appears to be providing power), but just in case, have you double-checked the battery connections and wiring, including the wiring to the battery fuse, for any frayed wires or loose connections?  Some tracing of the wiring may be necessary to see if there is somewhere that the lines cross paths. 

Hang in there.  Electrical issues can both be interesting to resolve if you like being a sleuth, but very frustrating in the process.

jkjenn

@Sharon_is_SAM how do you power the ARB from the T@b? Did you install a 12v outlet outside for it?

Verna

@Sharon_is_SAM, seriously, it sounds more and more like a grounding issue. 

Do you remember it took a couple of years for nüCamp to figure out the ground wasn’t good enough for the Alde and that is why the glass fuses blew so easily?  My new-to-me very well used boat trailer has had a multitude of lighting issues....the frame ground wire finally broke—I’m replacing all of the wiring. 

If you were willing to run a temporary wire from the ground bar to the battery negative side, that would be enough to prove or disprove this theory. 

Sharon_is_SAM

@Verna - do you mean run a wire from the negative bus bar mounted to the TaB floor just behind the fuse box to the battery?  Would nuCamp then rewire the bus bar?

Sharon_is_SAM

@jkjenn - I think our ARB is on it’s own circuit.  They wired both a 120 v and a 12 v connection.

BrianZ

This is from page 9 of Alde 3010 service manual..

Maybe "safety fuse" refers to the hard-wired (soldered-in) fuse shown as F2 in this schematic on page 12..  Might be worth checking..

I don't know what the rating of this hard-wired fuse is, but guessing it takes a power surge =/> the 10A circuit fuse to blow it.

ScottG

Somebody (@ChanW, I think) did a write-up a while back about checking/replacing that safety fuse.

Sharon_is_SAM

@BrianZ  - I think we can see that Area when we remove the Alde cover.  I will take a look.  After that, it is beyond our pay grade😀

Verna

@Sharon_is_SAM, yes, that bus bar. If the ground is not making a good contact, yes, Austin and group would rewire it. 

@BrianZ, that fuse blew without warning on my T@B S Max 6 months into ownership, and also last October On my than 18 month old 400. nüCamp’s choice is to replace the entire circuit board. I replaced the first one, and chose to have Austin replace the second one. 

Why did it blow? Absolutely no idea other than Alde gremlins. I always turn the panel off first before doing anything else when leaving camp, although I think the grounds are better now than in the 2015 to 2017’s 320 type models. And I’m careful to go through my checklist before turning the Alde on when stopping. Gremlins!

pthomas745

The Gremlin, of course, was one of the few characters ever to defeat Bugs Bunny.

Sharon_is_SAM

We can see the Alde thermal fuse and there are no obvious issues.  Our junction box was equally pristine.

Bayliss

@Sharon_is_SAM, whenever I am troubleshooting an issue like this, one thing I have learned is to look back at what I was doing, or if anything changed, just prior to the issue popping up.  It sounds like you are diligent in going through your standard procedures for electrical connections and disconnections, so that is all good.  But, looking back, is there anything you can think of that you did differently?  Have you made any recent electrical changes to your trailer?  Do you have a resettable fuse attached to your battery that may be defective?

Additionally, just to throw this out there for consideration, there is a ground wire (white) that connects between terminal #7 (far right terminal in the photo below) and a ground lug located just outside of the lower-left corner of the junction box (yellow arrow in the photo.)  I tried to obtain an explanation from nuCamp as to why there are two ground points on the trailer (the other being inside the trailer, but connecting to the trailer frame below the floor), they could not provide me with one.  All they told me was that the trailer is wired to code for an RV.  I was informed by @klenger that the purpose of that particular ground wire connection is to make the chassis the same "voltage potential" as the negative side of the battery.  He informed me that no current actually flows through that outside ground, because the common ground point for all 12V (DC) systems is the inside ground bus bar.

Honestly, I still do not fully understand what @klenger was describing, but I have read similar explanations on Internet posts.  Regardless, that particular ground connection is exposed to the elements and ground water being kicked up while towing during rainstorms.  Therefore, I have wondered what would happen if that ground became faulty (e.g., rusty), or disconnected.  If anyone can better explain the purpose of that particular ground connection, I am all ears.  I think a clear understanding of that ground connection would be very helpful for all T@B owners.

Best of luck in getting the electrical issue resolved in a timely manner. 

Verna

@Bayliss, I wonder if that ground wire is the second ground wire I was told about?  

I do know that the newer T@B owners don’t seem to blow the small glass fuses on top of the Alde as often as “we” (owners of 2014 to 2016 T@B’s) did. 

I cannot remember if the “voltage potential” was a telephony term at the phone company or if I was given this term for the extra ground. I have heard and used the term before. The memory is the first to go......or was it.....??

Sharon_is_SAM

@Bayliss, we brought the TaB out of storage to dewinterize and everything was fine including the Alde control panel.  We returned it to storage.  The second time we retrieved it from storage, we turned on the battery and the MaxxAir fan light started blinking and the vent would not operate.  That’s when we discovered the blown 10 amp fuse in the fuse box.  We replaced the fuse, the fan worked,  but never tested the Alde until we arrived at camp and found it inoperable. Then we found the 10 amp blown again and the Alde negative fuse blown. Then we went home, before we plugged in to shorepower, we again found both the 10 amp fuse and the negative Alde fuse blown.  So the mystery is, if the Alde circuit board is dead and we have not turned it on, what else is blowing that 10 amp fuse?  Waiting to hear from nuCamp.

Tampakayaker

Verna said:

@Bayliss, I wonder if that ground wire is the second ground wire I was told about?  

I do know that the newer T@B owners don’t seem to blow the small glass fuses on top of the Alde as often as “we” (owners of 2014 to 2016 T@B’s) did. 

I cannot remember if the “voltage potential” was a telephony term at the phone company or if I was given this term for the extra ground. I have heard and used the term before. The memory is the first to go......or was it.....??

Voltage potential is why you usually have 1 ground rod at your house that the various utilities connect to.  They should all connect to one common rod (usually the power companies) so they all have the same ground potential.  Cars have the same thing.  There is usually a ground strap somewhere on the body to the frame besides the normal ground point of the system.

Verna

Thank you, @Tampakayaker.  Obviously, I do remember a few things I learned in almost 40 years at the phone company!  I remember in the 70’s when there was a new push for a common ground, and bonding all the grounds together on the key telephone and PBX installations, in particular. I’m sure this was the first time I heard “voltage potential”!   

It’s amazing how 10 years away from telephony puts certain things in long term memory storage areas of the brain!

tabiphile

With that sequence of events it is entirely possible that there has been damage done to the wiring (think rodents) that is causing a wiring short somewhere. You might want to begin following/tracing the wiring point to point with your VOM to see if you can find an obvious cause. Fuses blow for a reason, not always an obvious one but there is always a reason. The place to start is with the wiring on the MaxxAir circuit and out from there. You might also want to consider doing a deep dive into any spaces were critters might have decided to reside.

Bayliss

@Verna, it probably is the "second ground" you have heard about.  I brought this up a while back.  I discovered that ground lug while mapping out the electrical connections in the junction box.

When I wrote to nüCamp back in November 2019, this is the response I received about the ground wire connection (from "Quality Control" and their Foreman, per Creed):

"The copper wire is only for the 110 side. The only ground to the chassis on the 320 is out of the junction box to the chassis.  Small white wire.  The bare copper wire from the converter to the frame is the main ground, as all 12-volt assemblies run thru the converter."

I am still confused by that explanation, because the response initially states, "the only ground to the chassis" is the one adjacent to the junction box.  However, it goes on to explain that "the bare copper wire from the converter is the main ground."  Thus, there really are TWO grounds to the chassis.

"Chassis" is just another word for "frame" on a vehicle/trailer.  Thus, their response was not completely helpful.  I gave up after several back and forth messages, because it did not appear that they actually understood why there is a ground adjacent to the front junction box.  (My suspicion is that it was added as a safety measure (presumably, by electric code for RVs) to eliminate/minimize the risk or danger of "hot skin voltage" being present on the trailer exterior.  Hot skin voltage can be caused by improper grounding of an RV.)

BUT, the response did help me in understanding that the bare copper wire that exits the WFCO Power Center/Converter and connects under the floor to the chassis, is the true main ground point.  I could be wrong, but as far as I can tell, the bus bar in the compartment with all the other 12V electrical connections is not screwed into the metal chassis/frame.  Instead, I believe the bus bar itself is grounded via a wire that leads to that bare copper wire at a connection inside the WFCO Power Center.  I have not come across any discussion posted by someone who has unscrewed that bus bar to see if the screws only go into the flooring.

(Unfortunately, all this interesting information is likely to be lost for future forum searches, because this particular thread title pertains to the Alde display screen.)

BrianZ

Is the "main ground" for 120V, as opposed to the junction box ground for 12V?

Sharon_is_SAM

Thanks @tabiphile.  We found another members experience with the Alde Control Panel failure.  He checked with Spencer from Alde US.  A way to check the control panel is to “unplug the white DC power plug (between the two green fuses), then watch the control panel screen as you plug it back in.  If the screen briefly flashes from black to white, the screen is getting power, but the board in the panel is bad. So, we tried this and the screen flashed black to white, so apparently the control panel board is shot.  But, does that explain the blown Alde fuse or the 10 amp fuse?

Unfortunately, we are not talented VOM users!  But, maybe we have made Austin’s job easier.

Bayliss

@BrianZ, my reading of nüCamp's response is that the bare copper wire is the main ground for both the 110V/120V AC and 12V DC systems.  I suppose there is no reason why a single wire cannot create the ground connection for both systems, but based on my limited knowledge, I cannot say that is 100% true.  Again, the response from nüCamp was a bit vague, but if @klenger's explanation of the purpose of the ground adjacent to the junction box is accurate, then it is not the ground for the 12V DC system.

Therefore, IF I am reading the nüCamp response correctly, then I believe that the white wire at the left end of the bus bar in the photo below (red arrow) is what is grounding the bus bar.  I have never opened up the WFCO Power Center to confirm that, but my guess is that the white wire connects to the bare copper wire in some fashion inside the WFCO, thus making the bare copper wire connection to the trailer chassis the MAIN ground for both the AC and DC systems.  The two black arrows in the photo reference the screws that hold down the bus bar.

I admit that I could very well be wrong about the ground connections, so if anyone on this forum knows otherwise, or has a better explanation, I am happy to be set straight on my assumptions.  (Sorry that the printing inside the red arrow is so small.  It resulted from reducing the photo size after I labeled the larger version.)

Sharon_is_SAM

Yippee!  The Alde Fairies heard our plea!  After John got the Alde control panel to wink at him by unplugging then replugging the DC power plug, I later went back and just for kicks turned on the panel and Shazam it is now fully functional on ac and dc!  Maybe we just didn’t wait long enough to let the Alde reset.  We tried the AC fan, the MaxxAir and the Alde (all on that 10 amp fuse) and nothing blew so we are good to go.  Very Happy Camper here