How much should a converter put out?
Bought new batteries. Before I install them and I need to confirm which cable is pos and neg. So I plugged into 110 A/C and with a volt meter probe at cable ends. I'm getting a reading of 17.3...
Forum Discussion
Op here…..
Thanks for all the help. So many postings go unanswered or the Op never responds back. Lots of postings I wonder what the final fix turned out to be. I still don’t have final answer but will post when I do.
Thought I would give a run down on how I messed up. And as you can tell I don’t know much about elec. (and can’t write worth a darn either.) I’ve rebuilt a couple RV’s over the years. And I can say with any hesitation the elec is my weakest point.
When leaving on snowbird trip… When we were closing down everything around the house and using our checklists… When I got to checklist on class C and “disconnect batteries”. I thought I can’t disconnect batteries yet. I have to start the class C and move it to where trailer is, as there is more protection from the weather in the trailer parking spot. So I pulled the trailer out to the street and moved class C over and “disconnected batteries”. Lifted the hood and removed battery cable and closed the hood. OK, that’s done “batteries disconnected”. (See where I messed up?) House batteries in class C never got disconnected, only the starting battery got disconnected.
Back home...7 months later…and discovered house batteries are dead. Tried to charge them back up, no luck. Pulled the batteries to replace. Batteries are in a tight place. When removing them I could see a red plastic collar and thought to myself, great cables are marked pos and neg. Went and got new batteries. Then when re-installing them I discovered that all cables have a red collar at the top of them. OK, no biggie to find pos and neg I’ll just follow the cables back to see which one is grounded (NEG) and just to confirm the pos I’ll plug into 120 and take a volt meter reading before I risk putting batteries in the wrong way. Plugged into 120 and with volt meter probes discovered 18 volts were coming from converter. Then made sure volt meters (3 of them, but all cheapies) were reading OK, I put new 9 volt batteries in volt meters. Tested again and same high reading of 18 volts coming from converter. Went over to trailer and did the same test with batteries removed and got 13.6 volts. But trailer has different brand of converter and don’t know if that makes a difference or not. Called Parallax help line, left message as directed, still NO RESPONSE. Cleaned up battery tray and painted. Then today put on second coat of paint that is drying as I type this.
Just wanted everyone to know how I ended up in this spot and will post final results when paint gets dry.
Thanks for all the responses.
Thanks for all the help. So many postings go unanswered or the Op never responds back. Lots of postings I wonder what the final fix turned out to be. I still don’t have final answer but will post when I do.
Thought I would give a run down on how I messed up. And as you can tell I don’t know much about elec. (and can’t write worth a darn either.) I’ve rebuilt a couple RV’s over the years. And I can say with any hesitation the elec is my weakest point.
When leaving on snowbird trip… When we were closing down everything around the house and using our checklists… When I got to checklist on class C and “disconnect batteries”. I thought I can’t disconnect batteries yet. I have to start the class C and move it to where trailer is, as there is more protection from the weather in the trailer parking spot. So I pulled the trailer out to the street and moved class C over and “disconnected batteries”. Lifted the hood and removed battery cable and closed the hood. OK, that’s done “batteries disconnected”. (See where I messed up?) House batteries in class C never got disconnected, only the starting battery got disconnected.
Back home...7 months later…and discovered house batteries are dead. Tried to charge them back up, no luck. Pulled the batteries to replace. Batteries are in a tight place. When removing them I could see a red plastic collar and thought to myself, great cables are marked pos and neg. Went and got new batteries. Then when re-installing them I discovered that all cables have a red collar at the top of them. OK, no biggie to find pos and neg I’ll just follow the cables back to see which one is grounded (NEG) and just to confirm the pos I’ll plug into 120 and take a volt meter reading before I risk putting batteries in the wrong way. Plugged into 120 and with volt meter probes discovered 18 volts were coming from converter. Then made sure volt meters (3 of them, but all cheapies) were reading OK, I put new 9 volt batteries in volt meters. Tested again and same high reading of 18 volts coming from converter. Went over to trailer and did the same test with batteries removed and got 13.6 volts. But trailer has different brand of converter and don’t know if that makes a difference or not. Called Parallax help line, left message as directed, still NO RESPONSE. Cleaned up battery tray and painted. Then today put on second coat of paint that is drying as I type this.
Just wanted everyone to know how I ended up in this spot and will post final results when paint gets dry.
Thanks for all the responses.
