The Saga of the Furnace has Ended!

And I’ve made changes to the battery pack.

The new Dinosaur Fan 50 Plus Pins control board works as advertised until the voltage gets too low. So if the furnace fails to fire, it now tries again and usually lights. But if the batteries get low and the furnace faults out on the sail switch sometimes the furnace shuts off and sometimes it doesn’t. I can live with that.
My solution to the lack of power issue has been to change out the batteries. I started with a brand new pair of WalMart deep-cycle group 27 batteries. I changed out my vintage converter and put aside my manual battery charger for a brand new Progressive Dynamics 9260C Intelli-Power converter and smart charger. And I’ve added four used GC-15 6V deep cycle batteries that when new delivered 75A of current into a load for 120 minutes (2-hours for the math challenged.) When I read the fine print on the WalMart batteries I saw them rated at 1A for 115 hours. In the beginning I said 115 time 2 equals 230 amp/hours. At 7.5 amps, the furnace running for 10 hours draws 75 amp hours. I’m good to go! When I started waking up cold and running outside at 0 dark :30 to start the generator well, then I did the research I should have done in the beginning.
I’m an old toolmaker and I should know better to trust what someone says without checking it out myself. Two group 27 batteries were for the intended purpose of this RV — providing housing on the road and for a couple weeks a year while plugged into the utilities at a campground. The original converter wasn’t a charger and was only designed to keep the batteries from discharging at the campground, while plugged into utilities. The group 27 batteries were meant to be charged by the main engine while en-route to the campground and to provide power for a quick lunch while on the road.e
The new GC-15 golf cart batteries (GC – Golf Cart do you get it?) wired in series for 12V and in parallel for capacity along with the still in place group 27s soak up the entire output of the power converter when charging with 28A going into the group 27s and 10A into each pair of GC-15s. Well, I took the measurements after installing my new 100A-100mv shunt from Best Converter the same place I sourced my 9260C. I installed the shunt into the line from the converter since I have batteries at both ends of the RV for the time being and took my measurements before I bought the second pair of GC-15s. My original measurements were 28A into the group 27s and a total of 38A with one pair of GC-15s added. I don’t think the second pair of batteries was in as good a state of charge as the first and I inferred that the converter was at full 60A output by voltage measurements. I still need to run three wires out from the shunt so that I can measure the current flowing through the shunt without digging out the bunk where all of this power stuff is installed before I’ll measure current flow again. I only wanted to confirm that there was enough capacity in the converter to charge all four of the GC-15s. Posted with the intent to revise.

About Art

55 years old. By training, ability and experience I am a master toolmaker. My most recent projects include designing and building a process to grind a G rotor pump shaft with four diameters and holding all four diameters within plus or minus 4 microns of nominal. This was an automated process using two centerless grinders refitted to my specifications using automatic load and unload machines plus automatic feedback gauging. I also designed and built an inspection machine to check for the presence and size of a straight knurl on a hinge pin using a vision system for non-contact gauging.
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