Cause of Compass Connect Failure?

[reubenray]

I started another post being my other post developed into how to getting the slides in manually. I am trying to figure what could have caused this. There was a bad storm and a lightning strike hit close by. The campers close to be had no issues. I have a surge protector and nothing else was damaged except for the Compass Connect. Why?

My other concern is a comment the Lippert tech mentioned. He had me do a major reboot which involved the killing of the main power at the pedestal, turning off the solar disconnect and turning off the battery disconnect for five minutes. After this did not help he got me to check my battery strength. It was 13.44ish and increasing. He asked what type of battery which I had just recently installed a lithium battery. His comment was this was not enough strength to operate Compass Connect. I mentioned that it has worked great for 10 days with no issued. After I mentioned the storm he wanted to remove the CC panel and check the connections with a multi-meter. I told him I could not being I don't have one and I don't know how to use one. Yes, I need to learn. Is the battery strength an issue? My converter is a Progressive Dynamic PD9360 converter. This has to be manually changed to Lithium, but my converter is unaccessable under the stove. This forum and another one said this should still work OK along with the solar setup. Could the battery strength be the cause? On the way home my truck got the battery to full strength and the CC still would not work.

 

[Soundsailor]

It would be surprising if battery strength were the cause of your issue. The lightning strike seems way more likely.

 

[reubenray]

It would be surprising if battery strength were the cause of your issue. The lightning strike seems way more likely.

It does seem that way, but why did the strike not affect anything else?

 

[traveldawg]

It does seem that way, but why did the strike not affect anything else?

Simple answer - because electronics are fickle and lightning doesn't care how it gets to things but usually finds the easiest path.

If there was a 12v surge, then all bets are off as to what electronics survive.

We all think we have protection since we use various sorts of EMS things on our incoming 120v power. But lightning can also find its way in on cable connections and associated grounds, through the ground and into the metal frames we have, etc.

and, having said that, I think Ill look at lighting suppression for campground cable connections and individual 12v circuits...

I've heard disconnecting power to the One Control clears things up. Sorry to hear it didn't in your case.

Your battery sounds fine. As does how it gets charged.

 

[reubenray]

Whatever happened I am hoping the warranty covers it. I just bought this last November and this was my third trip. It would be nice if there was a way from preventing it from happening again. This has been my worse RV issue I have had in my 12 years of rv'ing. My wife was about to throw in the towel if we were unable to get help to close the slides in.

 

[traveldawg]

I hope this all works out for you.

In the meantime I am looking at one of these and may start using it at campgrounds. It's the one place I can think of where some bad current surge can get to the ground circuits in an RV, even if those are only the coax connections.

I figure my EMS keeps that nasty stuff out of my other electrics, including the ground in the rig that is common to both the 120V and 12V circuits.

Not sure why this has never come up before (cable entry surge protection).

 

[reubenray]

I hope this all works out for you.

In the meantime I am looking at one of these and may start using it at campgrounds. It's the one place I can think of where some bad current surge can get to the ground circuits in an RV, even if those are only the coax connections.

I figure my EMS keeps that nasty stuff out of my other electrics, including the ground in the rig that is common to both the 120V and 12V circuits.

Not sure why this has never come up before (cable entry surge protection).

I did have a satellite dish setup, but it was not affected. How would a cable surge get into the compass connect unity board? At home at the base of my ota antenna pole I have this. It is connected to an 8' ground rod.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XF125BH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[traveldawg]

I think it is time to just consider the failure an 'early life' failure probably not associated with any other interference.

When it comes to lightning and failures I fall back to my original thought: because electronics are fickle and lightning doesn't care how it gets to things but usually finds the easiest path. There is no explaining why one electronic device would survive while others don't. It just part of electronics and lightning.