2017 13' Scamp electric problem

[Bob Greene]

Twice in the past year a 20 Amp fuse (second from the top) has blown and at the same time it appears that the battery on the Scamp did not charge after going hundreds of miles The circuit with the blown fuse controls the fan, cabinet lights andrefrigerator(?). One night (before I reaized the fuse had blownl) I disconnected the Scamp from the car and left the fan and refrigerator running till morning which completely drained the battery. Could this have blown the fuse?

[Boler77]

fuses do wear out, they become weak and do give out.

[Bob Greene]

I understand that fuses can wear out but the trailer is less than 2 years old and has not been used thst much. Laso the replacement fuse was from an rv repair shop so I woukd like to think that fuse was not that old. All this makes me think something else caused the fuse to blow twice.

[Boler77]

Hi Bob, fuses are cheap, age of the fuse does not mean it was faulty and ready to blow, if not you have an adventure in locating the short.

[buff30]

One possibility to consider, as the fridge pulled the battery voltage down the amps would increase to keep up with the demand. I suppose it is possible that it got to the point where the fridge pulled enough amps to blow the fuse. Remember ohms law. If the fridge draws 10 amps at 13 volts that is 130 watts. 130 watts at 10 volts will now require 13 amps. Not 20 amps yet but I have no idea what your fridge draws in the first place. Just used 10 so I could do the math on my fingers and toes.

[WizWid]

Originally Posted by Bob Greene

Twice in the past year a 20 Amp fuse (second from the top) has blown and at the same time it appears that the battery on the Scamp did not charge after going hundreds of miles The circuit with the blown fuse controls the fan, cabinet lights andrefrigerator(?). One night (before I reaized the fuse had blownl) I disconnected the Scamp from the car and left the fan and refrigerator running till morning which completely drained the battery. Could this have blown the fuse?

Am I understanding you are running the fridge on DC?

Then you accidentally left it on all night and flattened the battery.
Then you plugged the car to charge it back up?
Is that when the fuse blew?
Lots of amps to charge the battery and run the fridge maybe?

When did you discover the blown fuse?

[Bob Greene]

First of all, I really appreciate ever response and I'm always totally impressed by the knowledge shared on this. Second, I think it is being all to kind to say I "accidentally" left the refrigerator on all night. In fact, I also had the Fantastic fan running at the same time. I guess you could say it was an "experiment" to see if the battery would last the night. Yes, it is after this "experiment" that I found the fuse had blown.
I'm not sure if that blown fuse also prevented the car from charging the battery on the camper as well. Once the fuse was replaced, however, the car was able to recharge she battery on the Scamp. Again, any and all feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
One final note, to test this hypothesis, I was actually considering doing another experiment. That is leaving the fan and refrigerator on and seeing if the fuse blows again.

[buff30]

I would avoid running your battery down that far. If it was a true deap cycle battery it should never be taken below 50% depth of discharge. Dual purpose rv/marine are even less hardy. At a minimum I would install a volt meter if you don't have one so you can at least have some idea about state of charge.

As far as the fuse blowing I don't think you have a problem if it is not blowing under use. And discharging your battery to below 10 volts is not normal use.

[Bob Greene]

Thanks once again.