Truma AquaGo - Reeds latest fix...

[KarenLukens]

We picked up our Goldilocks this last February and noticed that there was no yellow light on the inside switch plate known as LED3. At that time at Fall Hollow Campground, I figured that the light must come on the Comfort+ model because we went out, flipped the switch up in the outside compartment and it took off and has been running ever since. At that time I asked them about the decalcification tablets and this was the first time that it had been brought to their attention. Jason had been thrown into the Service Managers position a few days before and this was the first time that he had heard of them. But all is good and they shipped out the tablets to us today.

 

Anyway... I called Truma last week to ask them about our switch with no light and the Service Lady told me that I must have a bad switch because they all have the light. So I called Oliver and we figured that the switch must be good because the water heater was working. And it has been working fine but with a burned out light...

 

So then a couple days ago, I was taking a shower when the water went from hot to warm... OK, so it needs to be cleaned finally after 6 months and I already have the tablets in the mail and they should be here Monday...

 

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I had 6 paragraphs get lost when the tablet rebooted on me, so I'm writing it out again in sections because this tablet has seen better days :)

 

Reed

[KarenLukens]

Backing up a bit, a few months ago I talked to Jason again and he told me that they had the decalcification tablets approved and on order. Plus we had found out that in Eco mode, if you turn the hot water on for a few seconds, the sensor feels the water passing thru the water heater and turns it on... Then you turn it back off for a minute and let the water heater warm up the water to 120° before turning it on again and you have Endless hot water at up to 65psi right away and aren't sitting there watching the cold to warming water simply go down the drain while boondocking. So just turn on the hot water for a few seconds, the pilot ignitor will light the heater, turn off the water and get ready to shower because in less then 10 seconds the hot water will now be there. So basically, we never used comfort mode which keeps the water at 113° at all times because we can get hot water right away with that trick.

 

A couple of days ago after I got out of that shower, I went outside and checked and cleaned the Truma Water filter, basically it was totally clean and I couldn't find a speck of anything in the filter. I had read the manual and there is a 3 position switch outside and you simply throw it either up or down to turn it on. I was also looking at how I would be setting it up to run the decalcification process and it's pretty easy, so I threw the switch back up again and left it on while Karen finished the dishes, then turned it off and drained it again to take another closer look at a few things.

 

Now here's the kicker... This time since you can throw the switch either way, I threw it down... And this is where the new lesson starts...

[KarenLukens]

 

I threw the switch down being that both ways simply turn it on because the main board inside is the actual control board. So wherever you have the switch set inside, that's where it's at right?

 

Well this is only true if the LED3 switch is actually working.

 

Being an ex-boiler operator of 24years, I have ran systems almosts exactly the same as the Truma AquaGo, with the only difference basically being that the boilers that I worked on and maintained had fire boxes that you walked into and we're a few stories tall. So last night the water heater kept kicking on about every 5 minutes. It would run for a couple minutes and then shut down...

 

To me it was obvious that throwing the switch down was not the same and that the owners manual was wrong... Up is Eco, Down is Comfort. So I got out of bed last night and went outside and switched it back up, problem solved, the boiler only came on when we needed hot water again.

 

I called Truma again today and asked the Service Lady if I was right about the switches... And she said yes, but only if the inside LED3 switch isn't connected. So... Now we have a problem because the LED3 switch has all of the cleaning controls programmed into it and with it not working, I can't clean and decalcify the water system because there's no way to activate the cleaning cycle which basically just turns on the circulation pump. She said that there was no way for me to do it and I assured her that I could easily figure it out. She laughed a bit and agreed because this was the second time that I had brought a problem with their schematic to their attention and I do know my way around a little boiler. Basically the pills disolve in about 10 minutes and then the integrated circulation pump recirculates the decalcification toxins thru the water tube nest above the firebox. This is common and has to be done on every boiler.

 

So the problem is that now, either the switch is dead or the junction wire that runs between the hulls is broken. The water heater works fine other then it needs to be cleaned and we have plenty of hot water for dishes and can still take short showers. I called Jason today and told him that I need both a new LED3 Switch and a new junction wire... And a set of tablets and that I need them today.

 

So to make a long story short, he overnighted them and they will be here tomorrow :)

 

If it turns out to be the wire then I will clean and decalcify the system first before starting on the wire pulling and routing the new wire from the heater to the new switch. Either way it's a little work but this water heater sure is nice :)

 

I will make a complete Truma video that includes the tips mentioned above along with the actual final fix and cleaning. I'm really happy with our Oliver and Goldilocks has been put through the paces for sure.

 

The moral of this story is, if there's no yellow light on your Truma AquaGo switch inside the trailer, don't wait for the system to need cleaning before you fix it. I got lucky, I was a week ahead and from now on I will clean it every 5 months instead of 6.

 

The manual says yearly and for us, the reality is no less then every 5 months.

 

Reed

 

 

 

 

[Kayrae51]

Thank you Reed! I really appreciated your tip on saving water with the Eco mode. We have no need to use the comfort mode. We didn't get any decalcification tablets with our unit and wondered if we should have. I will give Jason a call about that. Thankfully our interior switch is working as it should. We are very happy with our choice to go with Truma.

[KarenLukens]

Truma AquaGo problem solved :)

 

The parts showed up this morning and I was able to check both the switch and the control box wire and the main problem was the control box wire. With the new wire I was able to run a quick jumper to test the switch and I now have a fully functional Truma AquaGo and... I did decalcify it today with the new wire just ran thru the window... But that was the beginning... And 4 hours later after decalcification, I still didn't have hot water, but I did now have the ability to run a full check on the complete system.

 

Last Thursday, when I was taking a shower, the water went to warm, then the fridge kicked off with a check light. So I went out and found the propane tank regulator switch valve not all of the way in position. Some how this created a vaporlock somewhere in the water heater itself because the burner would come on, but there wasn't enough gas to get a full burn. That added to not having the Truma control switch working didn't allow me to see any problems that would show up on the LED3 switch in the house. Today after decalcification and jumping the system to get all of the error codes, I was able to see that it was having propane problems. So I pulled off the empty, went down and filled it, then came back and pulled the hoses off of both tanks for a few minutes to let everything reset and empty the lines to start fresh. Then I put the regulator back into the position that it was in last week, turned everything on and everything started up perfectly, problem solved :)

 

So tomorrow, all I have to do is run a new control wire from the furnace, thru the hulls and up to the switch... So we have to empty the trailer, pull the cushions and then get what's needed to pull wire tomorrow and finish the job.

 

Then... I may be needing a new propane regulator, but we will find that out after this tank runs dry... It has issues, and really sings when I'm running the fireplace from it, so I'm thinking that with the added propane ports that the regulator is simply too small for the system and it's not allowing enough propane to run thru the lines under a full load. But that will be a future project anyway :)

 

Just another day with our Goldilocks :)

 

Reed

[KarenLukens]

I finished editing the video and put it on our blog on here. The Truma portion starts on pg10

 

http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/reed-karens-blog/page/10/#post-66175