Did I kill my link-10?

[camperdave]

I pulled my old Link-10 battery monitor out of my trailer and installed it in my motorhome. Something went wrong... When I first powered it up, all the digits lit up with 0000, but no lights came on, and no buttons did anything.

I feared a stray wire may have crossed over when I connected to the device, as it was in a tricky position and I struggled a bit with getting the wires in the slots.

I disconnected the battery and re did all my connections making sure they were good. Now when I power on the battery, I get nothing. 12v is verified at the back of the monitor.

The manual is not helpful on trouble shooting.

Anyone know if there's an internal fuse I may have popped? Neither of the 2a fuses on the power leads blew. Any idea on what went wrong? I know it is hooked it up correctly. And I know it worked when I removed it a few weeks ago.

[camperdave]

Welp, I solved the problem, :B





I jumped some temporary wiring to verify, but the Link 10 was dead. I'm pretty sure I shorted something when trying to wire it in the motorhome. :S

Anyway, the cheapest way to get going again was to install a Trimetric TM-2030A in it's place. Since I already had the shunt and all wiring in place, I only had to buy the meter and it was a simple drop in (after making a round hole into a square hole).

[camperdave]

It's new wiring, but I am annoyed with myself as I used 16awg. It's way too big to connect up to the meter. I ended up trimming off half the strands at the meter end of each wire so I could get them into the back of the monitor.

I did check that both 12v wires are getting power, which I believe verifies the continuity of both powers and the ground. I have not checked continuity of the twisted pair shunt leads, but I believe the monitor should still power up without them. Not sure about that though.

I was super mad yesterday, I spent the better part of two afternoons getting this all wired up and looking clean. Only go have it not work. I'm over the frustration now, and just need to figure out what I did wrong. And how to fix it!

As of now, I cannot get anything out of the monitor. As stated I fear I shorted across screw terminals on the back of the monitor itself. I'm worried this may have been a fatal mistake, even though the wires are fused on the battery end (2a).

All the RV systems are working fine, so the basic wiring of the shunt is ok. I added one new cable from the battery (-) to the shunt, then connected the factory cable that was on the battery (-) to the shunt. No change at the ground point of the cable.

[TurnThePage]

I had a similar problem with my TM2020 a couple years ago. Turns out a wire broke about an inch back from the connection I was trying to make. The wiring was about 10 years old and apparently got a little brittle.

[BFL13]

Perhaps the problem is at the shunt end so it is not reading anything.