E 1284 Vintage Way, Auburn CA 95603, , fax ,

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1 s ke' i M eer in g n E 1284 Vintage Way, Auburn CA 95603, , fax , EngineerMike@Vagabondwater.com Alpine Coach Model Year Fuse/Relay Vehicle Electrical Centers (VECs) Early model Alpine Coaches by Western RV (WRV) of Yakima, WA, used analog chassis wiring throughout with a only few exceptions (e.g. gauge signals are mixed digital & analog). WRV ordered VECs, located on the firewall facing the passenger's feet, from Bussmann, now CooperBussmann, assembled to WRV's specifications. These assemblies were proprietary, and are no longer made. Replacements could be obtained from a junk yard if necessary. However most repairs can be made using basic inline fuses & relays. VECs contain only fused wiring & standard relay functions (nothing programmable). So if a particular function burns out, it can be clipped out of the assembly at its input/output wires in the connectors to the VEC, and appropriate fuse(s) & relay(s) spliced into the clipped I/O wiring to replace the burned circuitry. Here is an example Accessory VEC, cover off, with a burned Hi-Fan fuse socket in the top line of fuses: Note the Hi-Spd Fan relay is the middle, left OMRON brand relay, and the intact 20A Fan-Sw (fan switch) fuse in bottom row. Page 1 of 5 pages

2 And here is the Accessory VEC schematic (ver. 2/2000) for the proprietary assembly in the above photo, wherein you can see all functions are simple in/out fused lines or fused lines running thru a standard Bosch type 4 or 5-pin relay (on this VEC all relays are simple on/off functions for which a 4 or 5 pin relays are interchangeable; only a few VEC relays are A/B switch functions): There are 5 connectors, two feeders at Bottom labeled Connectors 5 & 6, and three along top with inputs &/or outputs Labeled Connectors 1, 2 & 4 (no Conn3). There are 5 relays shown but the 2nd from left has a BLANK fuse above it, and in the photo you can see only 4 relays. Also note the physical layout of the fuses & relays is not like the photo above. So the schematic must be read as indicative of the circuit lines only, and not diagrammatic of the physical assembly layout. So we can replace the burned fuse socket & Its relay by pulling the fuse so it won't cause Any more damage, we could pull the Hi-Spd Fan relay (or not), clip the Blower-Hi & Blower-Rly I/O lines from Conn2, and we have disabled this function from the VEC. Now we can add a relay w/fused On/Off line & reuse the Conn2 clipped lines to re-install the function to the vehicle. We will need a source of +12V that is active w/ignition (or Ign & Acc) ON, and a ground. We will reuse the Blower-Hi as the output from our new relay, and the Blower-Rly input as the switched signal to tell the relay to power the heater fan. If you are new to relays, standard Bosch type relays have the following pin meanings : 30 = power in (good practice is to fuse this wire), 87a = power out Normally Closed or NC, 87 = power out Normally Open or NO, 85 & 86 are coil hot & ground to switch the power out from 87a to 87 and can be either hot/ground or ground/hot (it is also good practice to fuse the coil power wire, a 3A max, 1A min fuse will work). Standard relays are occasionally used with power in on 87a &/or 87, power out on 30, but power in on 30 is the most common. So we can take a 25A fused Ign-Hot source to pin 30 (power in) of the new relay, Blower-Hi to pin 87 (switched power out), and Blower-Rly to pin 85 (coil hot, this is the switch signal), and ground to pin 86. Good practice is to label this new relay as to its use (it was labeled in the VEC, so I recommend removing it there or marking it Defunct or Not Used when left in the VEC to eliminate future confusion), and to zip-tie it securely someplace it won't flop around or interfere with other components. Ground can be found for many circuits on an Alpine Coach as a black wire labeled Page 2 of 5 pages

3 Here are schematics (2/2000) for the other two VECs. Ignition VEC (with Terminal Strip shown): Battery VEC: Page 3 of 5 pages

4 Here are earlier (8/98) versions of the VEC schematics, Battery: Accessory VEC v8/1998: Page 4 of 5 pages

5 Ignition VEC w/terminal Strip v8/98: Some additional VEC notes: All VECs have 2 input connectors w/2 wires each, 4 total, 3ea +12v and one Ground (circuit wire 1435). Accessory VEC's 3ea +12v inputs are all provided thru the Accessory relay powered off the Ignition Switch. Battery VEC's 3 hots are always hot, supplied off the large Positive Stud on front firewall. Ignition VEC has two +12v inputs on Conn6 that are always hot, plus one +12v input on Conn5 that is switched on by the Ignition Switch. Where a fused VEC circuit is run thru a relay, fuses are found on the output side of relay; replacement circuits can be fused on either the input (pin 30) or the output of the relay (usually just pin 87, but possibly 87a also in a few cases). WRV used pin 30 as VEC relay input always, pin 86 as Coil input & pin 85 as coil ground. Outside the VECs, relay pin configuration may have varied, the tech is cautioned to check in each case. Chassis wiring schematics for Alpine Coaches are available in paper form from Vagabondwater.com at the above address, phone & . Page 5 of 5 pages