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apackard18's avatar
apackard18
Explorer
Jul 26, 2015

Burning Smell and super hot lights

Hi all, I have just purchased a 1980 Ford E-350 FAN motor home. This is my second purchase of an oldie, but they seem to do me well for the local camping trips I frequently take.

As with the first one, I took the RV to the local KOA for a night to test all of the systems and make sure I have no major issues. This time I did.

First, the back story:

The coach battery has been dead since I bough the unit, so I have been plugging it in at home via a standard 110 outlet when I work in it. (It's nice having A/C while working in it.) The unit is a 30 Amp system as was common with the old guys, but my adapter is a 15 amp adapter for my 110 outlet. The other day I decided to just leave the system plugged in all day and night. The next day after getting home from work, I popped the hood and noticed that the coach battery was super hot and boiling.

Fast forward to my trip, I stayed in a KOA with 50amp hook-ups. Again, I elected to use my standard extension cord with my 15 amp 110 adapter. Knowing the battery overheated the last time, I disconnected it. Everything seemed to be working fine. Then it got dark and we powered on the lights. 15 minutes later we noticed a bad burning odor. It smelled like melting plastic. We pegged the lights as the culprits. They were super hot.

I guess the question here is, does this sound like a grounding issue or a problem with the inverter? I did pull the cover off the AC breaker box and noticed 1 of the two wires leading out (black wire) looked like it may have melted a little. I also noticed that the fan on the inverter doesn't seem to coming on anymore since the battery incident.

One more note, I did switch from the standard incandescent bulbs to the plug and play LED's in between the battery incident and this trip. That said, the few left over incandescent bulbs were getting just as hot if not more then the LED's.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
Class C

7 Replies

  • Harvey51's avatar
    Harvey51
    Explorer
    Jul 30, 2015
    I wouldn't charge a nice new battery with that converter without very carefully monitoring the voltage it puts on the battery. If it is too high and you don't want to replace the converter now, you could shut it off (breaker) and use an ordinary battery charger.
  • tenbear's avatar
    tenbear
    Explorer
    Jul 27, 2015
    While you are at it, get a multimeter and learn how to use it. Check the voltage at the lights and battery as other have said. A meter can cost as little as $5 on eBay.
  • apackard18's avatar
    apackard18
    Explorer
    Jul 27, 2015
    Awesome! Thanks for the advice. I'll get a new battery, get the connections checked and swap the bulbs again. Yes they were cheap cheap Amazon specials. 10 pack for $20. Seemed like the smart thing to do to save battery power when I eventually get one.
  • Artum_Snowbird's avatar
    Artum_Snowbird
    Explorer
    Jul 26, 2015
    I would start with putting in a good battery. Your converter is trying to charge a dead battery, and working extra hard. The battery got hot because the voltage coming from the converter did not encounter normal charged battery resistance, and just kept pumping amps through the dead battery.

    Then I would take your screwdriver and tighten every single wire you can get to in your breaker panel box, and that includes all the negative and positive wires everywhere you can get to. Even the heavy wires can be reached by removing a panel cover. Do this while disconnected from AC.

    Now, running 12 volt lights off a converter that is putting out maybe as high as 15 volts to charge the battery is like a 125% over voltage situation. The lights are bound to get hot. You might use the incandescent lights when on plug in power, and the LED's while on battery only. Even the incandescent lights get hot too.

    Get those connections tightened, and a good battery in there, and then see what happens.
  • newman_fulltime's avatar
    newman_fulltime
    Explorer II
    Jul 26, 2015
    sounds like you bought cheap Chinese led bulbs if you look at them the ledsolier is melting out of them
  • TucsonJim's avatar
    TucsonJim
    Explorer II
    Jul 26, 2015
    It sounds like you have a defective converter (not inverter) that is providing much more than the required DC voltage to charge your battery and run your light bulbs. If you have a volt meter, check the voltage at the battery terminals with everything plugged in and turned on. If the voltage at the battery is much more than 14VDC, it's probably time for a new converter with smart charging technology.

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