converter questions

I know don, DAMON gave me one when I bought this Intruder.. In the first year, plugged in most all the time I had to add water to my Interstate U-2200's ONE time (Mother's day, bought the coach in May of it's model year, or should I say took delivery in may) and in the 2nd year likewise, long about 4 or 5 years I had to water them more often.

During those first few years there were far too many times the voltage went below 12.. I try to avoid that now.

Still the U-2200's... Got replaced earlier THIS year (9 years after delivery)

wa8yxm wrote:
There are two (Or 3) things that can pop those twin 30 amp fuses, One is batteries installed backwards, that is why we call them "Reverse polarity" fuses.

The 2nd is very dead batteries and a converter big enough to pop them, Very unlikely and Theory has it your converter is NOT big enough

Third is a shorted CONVERTER.

Suggest upgrading to a Progressive Dynamics Intella-Power 9260

The Progressive Dynamics Intella-Power is a great unit. With the built in battery wizard it is a 4 stage charging unit that will keep your batteries from being overcharged. I highly recommend them.

Remember when changing fuses to unplug and replace BOTH fuses, then plug back in,

If you replace them one at a time before you can replace the 2nd the first will be blown again.

Also, USING YOUR VOLT METER.. Verify POSITIVE voltage to ground on at least one side of the fuse.. If you see a NEGATIVE voltage,, You goofed with the batteries.

thanks everyone for the suggestions! the batteries are in right for sure. i just took them to be tested the other day and i took a pic of how they were installed. im starting to think that the fuses have been blown. but when i saw they were blown and tried to replace they just keep popping! i just bought this rig two weeks ago. oh yeah, i was messing around today and i opened a basement door with all of the solenoids or what ever they are and i checked all of them with my meter and i found one set of wires going into some kind of fuse and it had no power from one side but did from the other. something was pooped out from the middle of it so i pushed it back in and checked for power and wallah...i ran back to the generator to see if it had power and it did but still just clicking. i got a big screwdriver and pushed the big fan on the front of the gen. it was very hard to turn at first and then then it freed up. went and pushed the starter and bam, it fired right up.. i have it plugged in tonight and will check the batteries tomorrow to see if they have charged. once again, thanks for everyone making me feel welcome here. goodnight!

was anything changed or upgraded right b 4 this started happening?
New batteries perhaps?
Or have you noticed any slow change in the performance of the system lately?
Or do you not use it much?
Any chance the batteries were allowed to freeze last winter?

I agree with the poster who suggested checking your batteries first. As in pull them out, charge them with an external charger, and test them, both a load test and a hydrometer test. (poor mans hydrometer test: take the caps off, put a voltmeters neg lead on the neg terminal, and stick the positive lead in the cells one at a time nearest to farthest. Voltage on the meter should increase around 1.7 volts each cell. dead or shorted cell = no voltage increase.)

Once you verify that the magic smoke has really left the coach, call Randy @ www.bestconverter.com. He will help you fit the best, current converter for your rig and use. Great help.

There are two (Or 3) things that can pop those twin 30 amp fuses, One is batteries installed backwards, that is why we call them "Reverse polarity" fuses.

The 2nd is very dead batteries and a converter big enough to pop them, Very unlikely and Theory has it your converter is NOT big enough

Third is a shorted CONVERTER.

Suggest upgrading to a Progressive Dynamics Intella-Power 9260

Usually the main thing that blows those two 30AMP fuses is the BATTERIES are not connected properly. They are very easy to get connected in REVERSE POLARITY... I would find the word NEG or symbol '-' on the battery case and hand trace the connected cable which should go to FRAME GROUND real close to the battery. If these are two 6VDC batteries then I am referring to the outside connections not the short jumper cable between the two 6VDC batteries.
These two diagrams apply here...


Also a shorted cell in the battery can cause the converter to really have to work to try to keep up and this may blow those two fuses.. Check your battery fluid levels - The older converters are known to boil them out when left connected for long periods of time.

There is also a third possible fuse to check which is in-line with the battery and usually very close to the terminals... On the newer trailers this is usually a auto reset circuit breaker now...

I would check all of this out first before changing out the converter unit.

When everything is normal you should be able to read 12.6-7VDC across your battery terminals using a $10 multi-meter(WALMART) for fully charged batteries. Then connecting to shore power or generator then this same voltage reading should jump up to 13.6VDC. This is telling you your converter is working normal and all connections between the converter and the battery terminals are OK (i.e. no blown fuses)

My world is RV Trailers but the Motorhomes should be equiped much the same and have similar problems...

my thoughts on a couple of things to check

Roy Ken