Intellitec Trouble Shooting

December 26, 2020, 02:08:18 pm

Hi Everyone. I've posted regarding Intellitec issues we've had with our 2007 Intrigue 530 in the past. Last night about 2 am all the lights and Intellitec Controlled devices started randomly turning on and off. Lights, water pump, steps, step cover, etc.

EDIT: THis is a follow up to my previous post regarding Intellitec issues. Scroll down to ******* to see the background of the post.
After I got the Intellitec System working, I got a call from Rich at M&M RV Repair in Ohio City, OH. M&M RV Electronic Repair|About Us|Our Services. Rich helped me a lot in understanding the system. Some important points about Intellitec. First, the CPU rarely, if ever goes bad. More likely a switch pad will go bad or a relay box will go bad. Intellitec System Programming is specific to each individual coach. The CPU isn't what is programmed. Its the relay boxes and the switch plates. I asked Rich if it would make sense to buy a CPU as a spare or switch plates as a spare and he said no, because the CPU almost never goes bad and each spare switch plate or relay would need to be programmed (which you cannot do on your own) before it was installed. Rich suggested that when we have some down time, to take out our switch plates and relays and sent them to to him. He would "read" the programming from each of the components and store that file. That way, if we had a component fail, he could program a new component and ship it to us overnight. We will probably take him up on that offer. Country Coach, I believe, had the programming files on all of their coaches, but I think that Winnebago threw that all away.

The last issue Rich raised was that, in his experience, when things like this happened, it was usually because of RF (Radio Frequency) interference via the 12volt system. Usually, but not always from an inverter going bad or wobbly, a transfer switch, a battery charger or a flourescent light on the system. I deduced that on my coach, a likely first place to start were the flourescent fixtures over the sink and in the Master Bedroom closet, which co-incidentally is where the Intellitec CPU is located. I'm in the process of replacing the fixtures with LED fixtures from M4P.com. Since the problem is rare, occurring every 2-3 years, it may be years before I find out if replacing the fixtures makes a difference.

*****************
This has happened before - in 2018 or so and we thought it was due to bad power. Disconnecting from the pedestal and running on inverter power seemed to clear it. Where we are staying has great, stable power, but nevertheless, I disconnected from power to be safe. That did not clear the problem, so I pulled the fuse for the Intellitec CPU (12 VDC Fuse Block in the bathroom/Silverleaf Cupboard) and went back to sleep.

This morning, the problem continued. I suspected, in order:
- A bad ground.
- Bad Power coming from the Inverter/Batteries.
- Failed CPU (because ALL of the lights, not just one group, seemed to be affected.

I checked the power coming into the CPU from the coach. Rock Solid at 13.1 VDC - matched what Silverleaf was telling me.
I checked the power going to the sub-modules. In this case the power was about 9 VDC. I'm not sure why this was, but suspected it was a sign that the CPU was dying.

Nevertheless, I read on forums that a bad module (which are spread out throughout the coach) can "feed back" and create problems within the whole system. So I decided to rule out a bad module.

In my coach there are 4 modules:
- One, next to the CPU in the left lower side of the bedroom mirror door closet.
- One, below the rear portion of the dinnette, in our coach, on the drivers side living room slide (The A-Slide), below the table, bottom rear cabinet, below the floor of the cabinet, the carpet square just lifts out. NOTE: Country Coach denotes their slides A,B,C,D - starting behind the driver, and working clockwise to the passenger side living room slide (B-Slide). Bedroom Pass. Side (C-Slide) and Drivers Bedroom (D-Slide).
- One, in conjunction with a relay that controls a DC Motor (door steps, step cover, fresh water drain, fresh water fill) over the drivers seat, in the map cabinet over the left hand window, behind the plastic and netting map pocket.
- One, over the Passenger Living Room Slide (B-Slide), in the rearmost upper cabinet, behind a marked cover.

I disconnected the CPU from power at the CPU. I then disconnected the power to all 4 modules AND the relay. THen I re-energized the CPU and waited 5 minutes. Then I re-energized (plugged in) each of the 4 modules, one at a time, starting with the one next to CPU and moving to the A-Slide, Drivers and finally the B-Slide.

I plugged in the rear module next to the CPU and turned on all the lights controlled (fused) by that module. They stayed lit for 20 minutes, so I left them on and moved to the next module and repeated plugging it in and turning on the lights. I repeated this for each module, waiting for 10 - 15 minutes between modules.

So far, its been a couple of hours and everything has remained lit/working. I'm crossing my fingers.

Here are my thoughts. Anyone who has more experience than me (I have about zero) in working with Intellitec, please weigh in.

Simply de-energizing and re-energizing the CPU, either via the salesman's switch or the fuse at the silverleaf panel or at the CPU itself, did not clear the problem. The CPU would reset and the problem continued.

Shutting down the whole system, including all of its component modules and relays and then slowly re-energizing each component seems to be working for now.

My guesses are:
- There was some sort of transient problem that started a feedback loop into the system. The CPU was firing commands to all components because of some feedback coming from one of the components (a module, switch, relay or load). Once power was cut off from all components and then turned back on by slowly plugging everything back in, in order, the feed back was interrupted and the system reset itself.

My questions are:
- How does the CPU communicate with each module?
- How does the programming work, and would it make sense to know how to reprogram the system is the CPU failed?
- I'm a former pilot, I carry spares for mission critical items. I'm thinking it might make sense to buy a spare CPU and a spare module - provided I could either pre-program the CPU or have a way to program it up if I needed to swap it out. Has anyone done this and how difficult is this? Is special equipment needed - I see it has an RS-232 / RJ45 or RJ6 jack. How can I do this?

Having this happen on Christmas Night - with a potential wait of weeks to a month with little to no lighting while waiting for replacement parts and programming - reinforces the need to be prepared.

I also post on the forum as a way of documenting what I fixed / worked on so I can go back an refer to it by googling.

Re: Intellitec Trouble Shooting

Reply #1 – January 15, 2021, 02:22:33 pm

I just had a similar event happen a couple of nights ago where my galley and living room ceiling lights went on and won't turn off. I emailed Brian from Brian's RV you tube channel and he called me. It seems as though the box in the bedroom closet is going bad so he is going to send me a new one. I asked if you have to program it and he said that the dip switches are what "programs" those boxes but I do know for a fact that you need to program the switch panels because I've had to replace them. You for sure need some sort of cable for this an it seemed like you need the source code or mappings from Country Coach but that is just my impression.

I do know that there are the switches on the front of the box where these units sit that will manually power the overhead lights by bypassing the intellitec units.

I'm not sure if this answers any of your questions though, lol.

Re: Intellitec Trouble Shooting

Reply #2 – January 16, 2021, 04:35:01 pm

Thanks for posting about your coach problem and what you did to troubleshoot issue. Always appreciated!

Country Coach Owners Forum Country Coach Motorcoach Forum