1997 Fleetwood Discovery 37ft (Jan 2021)
NOTE – Display configured to show Celsius
Intellitec ECC failing
irv2 and its contributors have been a valuable resource for people like me who own an older motor-home. In particular, I want to do a special thank you to Waiter21. Its people like him that make irv2 the valuable resource it’s become.
I’m getting ready for a trip in a few weeks, but having problems with my A/C and furnace, They come on and run for no reason, and are totally unreliable. It got to the point where I was turning the circuit breakers on/off to run the units manually. I need to get this fixed before my trip
Searching through posts on irv2, this seemed to be a common problem with older Intellitec ECC control systems. Waiter21 chimed in and offered several things to get the system working, cleaning the switches and sliders, look carefully at the circuit boards for corrosion and bad solder joints especially where the connectors plugs are. He gave me his phone number and we talked on the phone. Everything looked ok, but when I tested it, there wasn’t any change He suggested calling Intellitec, they may be able to repair my boards, and also check with Fleetwood, they may have some new boards in stock.
He then said he had one other option that I might be interested in. He does electronics and computers as a hobby, and had been working on a replacement for his Intellitec system. He had so much documantion that he put together a dedicated web site just for this (he does web sites as a hobby also). I wasn’t expecting a lot but went there as a last resort just to see what he had done.
www.waiterecc.com
WOW – This is AWSOME
After talking to Intellitec and Fleetwood, I called Waiter21 about what it would take to get one of his systems. (his real name is John) He said he doesn’t offer these for sale because he’s still tweaking on it, and the market is so small its probably not a viable commercial product. He said he’d let me have one at cost, but I needed to review all the installation, operation, and technical stuff on the web site, install and operate it, then report back any problems or suggestions for improvement. He called it BETA testing.
He sent me a system, circuit board, operator panel, temperature sensor, and some custom wire bundles. It took about 2 hours to install everything. When I turned it on, IT WORKED.. I followed his recommendation to do a calibration of the original temperature sensors, they were within 1 degree.
As I operated the system over the next few days, I had two questions for him. The AUTO COOL seemed to operate a little differently than the original Intellitec. (I like the new way). He said several others had suggested changeing how the blower operates in AUTO. Everyone likes the new process, when A/C reches the set point, blower turns off about 30 seconds after the compressor turns off.
The other big one for me was the temperature display. I live in Canada and we do things the correct way, in Celsius. When I called him, he said “DARN, I never even thought of that”. That afternoon, he calls me back and says to check my email. He had made a change to the software so you can configure it to either display in F or C. He then walked me through how to upload this change to my system.
This whole experience has been absolute awesome, If it hadn’t been for irv2 and Waiter21, I probably would have spent a thousand dollars to fix the old system. Instead, I now have a modern system that has all kinds of neat features, at a small fraction of the cost. Again, Thank you Waiter21, you have some really neat hobbies.
If you’re having problems with your Intellitec system, and it looks like its not repairable, take a look at what Waiter21 has put together. Visit his web site and check out his system. Contact him and see what it would take to get one of these for you motor-home. www.waiterecc.com