So, I am getting the trailer ready today to leave at the end of the week for Nascar in Phoenix. Running through all the appliances to see if everything wakes up from its Winter sleep. Everything is perfect until I notice my battery isn't charging. I have a trimetric meter so I can see exactly whats going on. I just put a brand new battery in so I thought maybe a wire got missed. Nope, re-did it all and nothing. Everything is working in the trailer, just not charging the battery. Hooked it up to the truck to test that way and trimetric says its charging. Unhook the truck and back to nothing. Then, a half hour later after wondering what I'm going to do, all of a sudden I look and the trimetric is reading normal charging status and has been fine ever since. Do the charger/convertors get sluggish before they go fully bad? What gives?

whats make and model of convertor??? We can only guess what you have...Convertors dont get sluggish...

Yeah. A total obvious piece of information I left out. Convertor is a WFCO 8955. Original to my 2006 trailer.

No, but wiring can be loose, and work sometimes, and then not work. Check the positive and negative wires from the converter terminals to the battery terminals.I had that same problem and found that the white wire that plugged into the terminal strip negative and went to battery negative was loose on the terminal strip.

Look on the positive cable under the front of the rig. There could be a circuit breaker. Some have a small reset button on them.

I did think about the circuit breaker being the cause but I didn't find one up front before it started getting dark outside. I will try and trace the wiring back to the convertor tomorrow to see if I can find a loose connection or circuit breaker somewhere. I guess its possible that there is a loose connection right within the convertor itself as well.

convertor/charger issue | Good Sam Community

17 Replies

Splashers3
Explorer
Mar 02, 2015
By erratic charging....it would come on for a very short time, lights would get noticeably brighter, and when it went off the lights would dim. The battery would never charge to full, and was charging less and less..as measured by the 4 lights on my control station.

I have a separate battery charger that would always charge the battery back up where all 4 lights would lite.

As soon as I installed the PD converter the battery (Trojan) retained its full charge, and the lights have not dimmed since.

I also didn't mention all the troubleshooting I did with a volt meter in several different configurations before removing the 8955 converter...the key measurement was watching the converter trying to charge the battery (unsuccessfully).
64thunderbolt
Explorer II
Mar 02, 2015
maxum1989 wrote:
Splashers3 wrote:
My WFCO 8955 only lasted 6 years - and the last straw before it died was the erratic charging (and lack of) of my battery.

My new PD works and charges really well. I also carried it as a spare that last camping season.

You might want to start searching for a replacement.

By erratic charging, do you mean sometimes not at all or less voltage and amps than normal?

When my 8955 went south the voltage would jump all over the place. I replaced it with a powermax boondocker direct replacement into the wfco panel. Call Randy @ Best Converters. I gave the wfco to a member on here that works on them. I'm pretty sure he told me it had 2 bad caps in it. He had it going in a few min. But I don't do that kind of work so my new one works really well.
drae0814
Explorer
Mar 01, 2015
c
maxum1989
Explorer II
Mar 01, 2015
Splashers3 wrote:
My WFCO 8955 only lasted 6 years - and the last straw before it died was the erratic charging (and lack of) of my battery.

My new PD works and charges really well. I also carried it as a spare that last camping season.

You might want to start searching for a replacement.

By erratic charging, do you mean sometimes not at all or less voltage and amps than normal?
Splashers3
Explorer
Mar 01, 2015
My WFCO 8955 only lasted 6 years - and the last straw before it died was the erratic charging (and lack of) of my battery.

My new PD works and charges really well. I also carried it as a spare that last camping season.

You might want to start searching for a replacement.
maxum1989
Explorer II
Mar 01, 2015
smkettner wrote:
Typical WFCO. If you will be charging by generator you may as well replace sooner than later with a three stage converter that actually works properly.

I agree the WFCO isn't the greatest charger/convertor but I have always had decent luck with this one. Its never boiled my batteries and I leave it plugged in all the time. Until today, its pretty much been trouble free in nine camping seasons.
maxum1989
Explorer II
Mar 01, 2015
Water-Bug wrote:
Some chargers need to sense several volts on the battery befor they will charge it. If a battery is completely flat, the charger will do nothing. Connecting your truck put a small charge on the battery. Once the onboard charger sensed a voltage on the battery, it started to charge it.

The battery was a long way from flat. If fact I am guessing it was around 85% charged. That's what my trimetric meter was telling me anyways.
time2roll
Nomad
Mar 01, 2015
Typical WFCO. If you will be charging by generator you may as well replace sooner than later with a three stage converter that actually works properly.
Water-Bug
Explorer II
Mar 01, 2015
Some chargers need to sense several volts on the battery befor they will charge it. If a battery is completely flat, the charger will do nothing. Connecting your truck put a small charge on the battery. Once the onboard charger sensed a voltage on the battery, it started to charge it.
maxum1989
Explorer II
Mar 01, 2015
enblethen wrote:
Look where the umbilical cord from truck battery cable and wire to the converter come together. It is inside a metal box in some rigs.
There should be a circuit breaker or fuse to protect the wiring in the rig from possible high amperage over load.

I do have a box like this inside my pin box. I will take a look tomorrow at this as well.