The Nomad
Free Member
Truma S3002 gas heater problem: battery ignition starts ticking when fire heats up....
On our year 2001 Benimar Motorhome we've got a Truma S3002 gas fire. Gazillions of these heaters are in use in motorhomes and caravans all over the world.
Ours is the basic model, which just operates on gas (it doesn't have the optional electric heating element inside the front cover.) I'll try to attach a stock photo of our model type of heater below.
As owner of these heaters know, you can operate it just as a convection heater, or you can use the fan, either on constant velocity or automatic, to blow warm air from it through ducts around the motorhome.
But we have a slight problem with ours.
It always starts erfectly, first “tick” of the battery ignition.
On convection only (no fan), if I set its temperature dial (which goes from 1 to 10) to anything above 3, then after the fire heats up....maybe after 10 minutes or so...the battery ignition begins constant ticking. If we turn the fire off, it stops ticking immediately. If we let the fire cool down, then re-ignite it starts and runs perfectly until it reaches whatever is the “ticking threshold temperature” then starts ticking again.
If I set the temperature dial at 3 or below, it'll run like that all day – but of course it doesn't give out so much heat, as the thermostat cuts it back from full burn to just tickover sooner.
We get the same problem if we use it for blown-air round the Motorhome via the auto fan. We set the fan speed to 5 (max) and the fan setting to Auto, so the fan increases in revs as the fire warms up.
If we set the temp dial to above 6 (out of 10), then eventually after maybe 20 minutes or so, we get the constant ignition ticking happening. Turn off, allow to cool, start again and all's fine for a while again.
But if temperature setting is at 6 or below, it'll run all day. But not very warm.
Our workaround this is of course just to keep the temperature settings below the “ticking threshold” dial settings.
This is fine, but there are times when we'd like to make the fire work a bit harder, to get the temperature in the Motorhome a bit higher.
I spoke to a motorhome dealer about this a while ago and he just replied that “ yes I've heard a lot of them do that Sir”.
So........for others who have ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED the same behaviour from their Truma S3002 (or S5002) gas heater, what did you do?
Continue to live with it?
Remove the battery compartment and fit instead one of those piezzo push-buttons, connected to the ignition spark wire?
Break into the existing circuit from battery to ignition spark terminal and fit a simple switch to allow battery to be isolated after ignition?
Whilst I know this is a really helpful group; I reckon it would be best if specifically only those people with a good technical knowledge of this exact gas heater and/or who have actually experience this exact issue could advise, rather than everyone else offering well-meant guesses as to what it might be.
Many thanks.
On our year 2001 Benimar Motorhome we've got a Truma S3002 gas fire. Gazillions of these heaters are in use in motorhomes and caravans all over the world.
Ours is the basic model, which just operates on gas (it doesn't have the optional electric heating element inside the front cover.) I'll try to attach a stock photo of our model type of heater below.
As owner of these heaters know, you can operate it just as a convection heater, or you can use the fan, either on constant velocity or automatic, to blow warm air from it through ducts around the motorhome.
But we have a slight problem with ours.
It always starts erfectly, first “tick” of the battery ignition.
On convection only (no fan), if I set its temperature dial (which goes from 1 to 10) to anything above 3, then after the fire heats up....maybe after 10 minutes or so...the battery ignition begins constant ticking. If we turn the fire off, it stops ticking immediately. If we let the fire cool down, then re-ignite it starts and runs perfectly until it reaches whatever is the “ticking threshold temperature” then starts ticking again.
If I set the temperature dial at 3 or below, it'll run like that all day – but of course it doesn't give out so much heat, as the thermostat cuts it back from full burn to just tickover sooner.
We get the same problem if we use it for blown-air round the Motorhome via the auto fan. We set the fan speed to 5 (max) and the fan setting to Auto, so the fan increases in revs as the fire warms up.
If we set the temp dial to above 6 (out of 10), then eventually after maybe 20 minutes or so, we get the constant ignition ticking happening. Turn off, allow to cool, start again and all's fine for a while again.
But if temperature setting is at 6 or below, it'll run all day. But not very warm.
Our workaround this is of course just to keep the temperature settings below the “ticking threshold” dial settings.
This is fine, but there are times when we'd like to make the fire work a bit harder, to get the temperature in the Motorhome a bit higher.
I spoke to a motorhome dealer about this a while ago and he just replied that “ yes I've heard a lot of them do that Sir”.
So........for others who have ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED the same behaviour from their Truma S3002 (or S5002) gas heater, what did you do?
Continue to live with it?
Remove the battery compartment and fit instead one of those piezzo push-buttons, connected to the ignition spark wire?
Break into the existing circuit from battery to ignition spark terminal and fit a simple switch to allow battery to be isolated after ignition?
Whilst I know this is a really helpful group; I reckon it would be best if specifically only those people with a good technical knowledge of this exact gas heater and/or who have actually experience this exact issue could advise, rather than everyone else offering well-meant guesses as to what it might be.
Many thanks.