Power seat and refrig wiring

Electrical issues, both 12 volt and 120 volt
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Mgittrich
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B190 Year: 1993
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Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by Mgittrich »

In preparation for adding batteries under the couch and upgrading the converter I was reviewing the existing wiring and verifying it with a 95 owners manual someone was kind enough to post on this forum. The diagram below appears to be consistent with my 93 b190.
Power seat and fridge wiring diagram
Power seat and fridge wiring diagram
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Here's an actual picture of what this looks like under the couch
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So the power seat and fridge are NOT fused circuits off the converter but are powered directly from the battery connection on the fuse board which is why I assume airstream has added two circuit breakers to this circuit. There are plenty of open fuse positions on the circuit board which makes this circuit seem a little odd since they could have used them to supply power to seat and fridge thus avoiding the circuit breakers and messy wiring.

The only rational for not using the fused circuits that I can think of is if the power seat and fridge each draw more the 20 amps which is the limit on the fuse board. From what I've seen on this forum the fridge draws 10amps. The power seat amp draw is unknown as I can't find any information or posts which contains this information.

As an aside, I think it's kind of strange to power the seats off the house battery and not off the starter battery. I can't think of a reason as to why airstream would do this. Others in this forum have mentioned it before.

So I'd kind of like to clean this up a little by removing the circuit breakers and creating a 15amp circuit for the fridge and a 20amp circuit for the power seat. Here's the diagram showing the modified circuits.
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Has anyone done something similar to this? Has anyone determined the amp draw of the power seat and fridge?

I appreciate any information, feedback or thoughts on going in this direction.

Thanks for the help!

Mike
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Planck
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by Planck »

I have never seen an Airstream wiring diagram. Would be nice to get that whole thing posted on this forum. I also have a 93 and never noticed those circuit breakers. The seats I think are added by Airstream, so possibly the original E350 chassis was not wired for power seats. I do have the E350 manuals and will try to remember to check this out. I think the fridge relay is to cut off power to the fridge when the engine is off and the fridge is set on 12v mode. That way the house battery does not get run down and put a big load on the engine alternator to re-charge it. So it would be good to keep that in the circuit coming off the fuse panel, if you want to do that. What would be the advantage to switching over to fuses?
Mgittrich
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by Mgittrich »

Planck, I agree with you about keeping the relay in the fridge circuit. In a couple of days I'll get out my clamp ammeter and see if I can get a amp draw reading on both the power seat and fridge. I'll post the result here. Hopefully I can separate the circuits and move to the new fuse board I'll be installing when I upgrade the converter and remove the circuit breakers.

I wish I could tell you I have wiring diagrams for the b190 from any year, but I don't. The only thing that provides any information in this area is what's posted in this forum for the 1998 b190 in the manuals and brochures section b190.com/manuals/1998%20B190%20owners%20manual.doc. I did exchange emails with airstream about a month ago asking them if they had wiring diagrams for the 1993 b190 and they said they did not. I think each unit may vary slightly which explains why they do not exist.
Last edited by skater on Fri Dec 09, 2022 8:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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skater
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by skater »

I would consider putting self-resetting circuit breakers in if you can find them - that way, the seat won't be stuck if it temporarily overloads or something.

I always considered doing something like this with mine but never got around to it. The way you're doing it makes sense to me.
1991 Airstream B190 - bought, 2005; sold, 2011; bought 2017
1995 Airstream Excella 30' trailer

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Mgittrich
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by Mgittrich »

Skater thanks for the reply. My assumption is that the circuit breakers airstream used in the existing circuit are automatic reset. My goal is to eliminate the circuit breakers and and utilize open fuse locations on the fuse board. This isn't something that has any advantage over the use of the auto reset circuit breakers. It' just cleans up the wiring space behind the converter which I intend to use for mounting a shunt, negative bus bar and a couple of power posts for adding 2-3 batteries under the seat.
Mgittrich
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by Mgittrich »

For all of you wondering what the amp draw is for the power seat here's what I measured.

To move the seat the draw is 2.5 - 4.0 amps. However, when the seat moves all the way forward or backwards to the point it stops the motor strains and the amps spike to around 18 amps.

This is so close to the 20 amp fuse limit I don't think its possible to remove circuit breaker and wire directly to the fuse board.
EverAfterRanchMotors
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Re: Power seat and refrig wiring

Post by EverAfterRanchMotors »

This is fantastic! It's hard to say how much money this thread just saved us. Thanks!
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