On only my second trip out with my 2018 Mini-Lite, the water heater (the ever-popular 6 gallon Suburban) decided it didn't care for the whole propane thing and decided if I wanted hot water I'd better be plugged in. It worked the first night, we had shore power but I like to run both for quicker recovery, but the second night I got nothing but the little warning light. When we got home I did some troubleshooting courtesy of this irreplaceable forum, and determined the control board was likely at fault. I found it taped to the top of the heater tank, so I threw caution to the wind and likely voided my warranty by ripping the thing out.
I think I made the right call:
You don't need a to be an electronics expert to see the problem here. One of the transistors controlling the igniter coil had a cold solder and burned out. I thought about simply replacing the transistor but a closer look showed damage to the copper tracings. My son, who has a degree in aircraft avionics, said that was overall the sloppiest PC board assembly he's ever seen.
According to past submissions on this topic, this board has a checkered history. Fortunately the aftermarket is here to the rescue, the brand that kept coming up is called Dinosaur Electronics. I ordered a new unit, which was larger but otherwise plug and play. It took one look to see the huge improvement in quality of manufacture, and the price was even cheaper than a new garbage factory board. I had it installed in no time using screws instead of tape:
I could barely hear the igniter before, the first time I fired this up I could clearly hear the spark snapping away.
I know I probably could have gotten this covered under the warranty, but that would have been another trip with a lot of hassle just to get another bad part installed. For only about $70 I feel very confident that I won't be dealing with this anymore. I think the furnace uses a similar control board, I might make a preemptive strike and swap it out before I'm stuck boondocking some night in a Wisconsin winter!
Linear Mode
