Bad Converter (me thinks)

[freebird]

They missed the mark there. Not a converter for sure.
Looks like just the housing for the AC/DC Load Center.
Guess they could have tried to confuse you even more with one of their Power Centers like WF-8965 that is a Load Center + Converter in one.

What gets me is the parts guy called me on my cell. He wanted to verify that it was the one in a metal case. I told him yes with the 120v power cord hanging from it. He acknowledge he had the right part. This fails on all points.

[freebird]

Looks like someone reviewing the orders at GD smelled an error and the call I got was to confirm his suspicions. Although he didn't fill me in I got another package late yesterday with the correct part. Installed and working. Back to being a happy camper.

Nice save GD

[JColeman]

When in doubt, consult the magic circle, it never is wrong. I=Current V=Voltage R=Resistance P=Power

Attachment 19564

This is beyond my education and therefore of the devil.

[29roadster]

I found that the converter was not working, no 12 VDC to charge the battery or run any of the 12 VDC lights, radio, etc. I checked fuses, the battery disconnect switch, no luck. Figured the converter was bad but didn’t want to have the drag the trailer back to the dealer (about 2 hrs) so I did some more investigation.

I always leave the hot water heater 115 VAC breaker OFF unless the heater tank is filled and I am hooked up to AC power (don’t want to fry the element if someone turns on the WH power switch). I made sure the WH switch was OFF and cycled all of the breakers. When I turned the WH breaker ON, the converter came on and the ceiling lights and radio came on. I was relieved that the converter was okay.

I pulled the cover off of the power center and discovered that the hot water heater and converter shared the same circuit breaker. I separated the WH and converter power wires and moved the converter power wire to the breaker for the microwave.

[Country Campers]

I found that the converter was not working, no 12 VDC to charge the battery or run any of the 12 VDC lights, radio, etc. I checked fuses, the battery disconnect switch, no luck. Figured the converter was bad but didn’t want to have the drag the trailer back to the dealer (about 2 hrs) so I did some more investigation.

I always leave the hot water heater 115 VAC breaker OFF unless the heater tank is filled and I am hooked up to AC power (don’t want to fry the element if someone turns on the WH power switch). I made sure the WH switch was OFF and cycled all of the breakers. When I turned the WH breaker ON, the converter came on and the ceiling lights and radio came on. I was relieved that the converter was okay.

I pulled the cover off of the power center and discovered that the hot water heater and converter shared the same circuit breaker. I separated the WH and converter power wires and moved the converter power wire to the breaker for the microwave.

Great catch and thanks for posting your findings. Glad it was something simple. I think in our unit we have a separate breaker for the converter but will check that for sure.

Also I see this is your first post , Thanks for joining us and welcome to the group.

Brian

[howson]

I found that the converter was not working, no 12 VDC to charge the battery or run any of the 12 VDC lights, radio, etc. I checked fuses, the battery disconnect switch, no luck. Figured the converter was bad but didn’t want to have the drag the trailer back to the dealer (about 2 hrs) so I did some more investigation.

I always leave the hot water heater 115 VAC breaker OFF unless the heater tank is filled and I am hooked up to AC power (don’t want to fry the element if someone turns on the WH power switch). I made sure the WH switch was OFF and cycled all of the breakers. When I turned the WH breaker ON, the converter came on and the ceiling lights and radio came on. I was relieved that the converter was okay.

I pulled the cover off of the power center and discovered that the hot water heater and converter shared the same circuit breaker. I separated the WH and converter power wires and moved the converter power wire to the breaker for the microwave.

What a great first post--thanks for contributing! Out of curiosity, what rig do you have? (And may I suggest you fill out your sig line? Look at Brian's and mine as examples.)

[2825Matheny]

Had my maiden voyage and shakedown cruise this weekend at a local camp ground by the ocean. Went through and tried and tested everything. Was thinking I was one of the lucky ones that got an absolutely perfect unit. That ended the first night at about 3:00am when I woke up to use the toilet (yeah uninterrupted sleep ended a long time ago) and discovered I had no lights. Some quick checking and I realized my battery was dead.

In the morning I ran home to retrieve my charger and brought the battery backup. Disconnected the charger and ran everything as normal and sure enough after about 6 hours battery was down again. Killed the shore power and pulled the fuse panel out. The converter was visible as it is mounted near the shoe cubby. I unplugged it from the fuse panel and plugged my receptacle tester. Tested good. The fuses looked good but hard to reach. Looked like the type that light up when bad and neither was lit up. As a last step I disconnected the battery and plugged the converter into an extension cord I ran directly from the pedestal. No 12v output from the converter.

At this point I'm pretty sure the converter is not working for whatever reason. Bring it in for warranty you say. Yeah but the dealer is 180 miles away with city traffic and tolls. The cost in terms of gas, tolls, vehicle wear and my time far exceed the $139.99 with free prime shipping for a new converter. If I had a list of additional issues it would be more worth it but like I said everything else checks out.

The only difficulty is just accessing the converter, other than that it's a trivial swap. The panel in the back of the shoe cubby would seem to be the way to get sufficient access. I'm thinking I don't need to be concerned with damaging this panel during its removal as it's hidden and a good improvement would be to replace it with a screen to allow ventilation (overheating being one of the concerns by the manufacturer). I'll try contacting WFCO to see if I can warranty it directly with them. If not I'll just purchase and replace. If they don't warranty for me another upgrade might be to go with their bigger 75 amp converter.

Testing the converter is a matter of disconnecting the load wires and then testing the voltage output of the converter with a volt-meter.
You should expect 13.6-volts out of the converter with no load on it. Anything else and it's not working.
Remember, a battery will only use what power it needs to recharge itself from the converter. You cannot "push" power into a battery with a computer controlled converter. The battery will only "take" what it can effectively absorb. I did downsize my converter to 45-amps and I moved the converter to the front compartment to be next to the batteries.
I have two "high-end" 12-volt power meters. One monitors the output of the converter and the other monitors all 12-volt power consumed by the RV.
Several times I "exercised" the system by shutting off the converter to run off of only the batteries. After about 24 hours the voltage had dropped to about 12-volts. Then I turned the converter back on. Even though the batteries were exhausted the converter only put out 40-45 amps for the first 10-15 seconds after it was first turned back on. Then the voltage and total power out of the converter started to trim down as the battery started to store energy. This would be the same if I had a 75-amp converter. So a bigger converter is not better or needed by my RV.
We are connected to shore power or hitched 99.9% of the time so almost all of the 12-volt power consumed by my RV comes from the converter instead of the batteries. Matter of fact I could do without batteries except when operating the hydraulics to move the slides, to level the RV or when starting the GenSet. It's only during those high load times does power come out of my batteries. The rest of the time the converter is sending only 10-15 watts to the batteries to keep them topped off due to internal losses inherent to all lead-acid batteries.
During the day and normal use, the amount of 12-volt power used by my RV is only 75-120 watts and all of that power comes from the converter. This 75-120 watts is normally consumed by fridge controls, water heater controls, AC controls, the entertainment system, and lights. My point here is that most of the time the converter is loafing.
The Progressive Dynamics converter is a very good choice for a replacement converter.

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[29roadster]

You have to make sure the converter is getting 115 VAC input power - nothing in, nothing out. I thought mine was bad until I found out it wasn't getting the 115 VAC input power. Not sure how to verify that, will look at it later today.

[howson]

You have to make sure the converter is getting 115 VAC input power - nothing in, nothing out. I thought mine was bad until I found out it wasn't getting the 115 VAC input power. Not sure how to verify that, will look at it later today.

First and foremost--be *careful* working around powered circuits. I don't know your experience level, so if you are unsure of what is powered and what isn't, remove all power from the trailer including turning off the battery disconnect.

On the back of the circuit breaker panel in my 315RLTS the converter actually plugged in (it has plugs just like a normal 110v appliance). The front panel circuit breaker controls whether power is on this outlet.



If the breaker is on and the converter is plugged in...highly likely there's power there. Testing is simple. Turn off the Converter breaker and unplug the converter. Plug in a lamp or another small appliance and turn on the circuit breaker. Does the appliance power up? If it does, the outlet works.

Checking the output of the converter is simple, too, as the 12V wire connections are easily accessible for multimeter leads.

[Chiefblueman]

You have to make sure the converter is getting 115 VAC input power - nothing in, nothing out. I thought mine was bad until I found out it wasn't getting the 115 VAC input power. Not sure how to verify that, will look at it later today.

One of these is your friend.
https://www.amazon.com/Sperry-Instru...N3AJD6CS9FV69G