Is my converter fried? (TEAR DOWN NOTE)

ib516 wrote:
OK, so we removed the converter and drilled out the rivets and opened it up.

Further diagnosis was that with no load, it slowly ramped up from about 7V to 13.6V right on the money. However, as soon as ANY load is applied, the voltage drops to 6 volts or less causing any 12V load I apply to auto shut off. I tried using a 400w inverter with alligator clips off of the converters output + and -. Further, there are two white block style ceramic resistors that were quite warm, and have discolored the green circuit board beneath them. They measure as 1.4K ohms on the 2K ohm setting on the multimeter. Found out they are ceramic resistors. They say 10W1K5J on them.

That is a 10W 1K ohm power resistor with 5% tolerance.

1.4K measured using 2K ohm scale of a VOM is within the realm of possibility of being correct since your meter may or may not be able accurately measure that resistance on that scale.

Your resistors are most likely good and not the source of trouble.

Pretty good chance that there is some very bad electrolytic capacitors somewhere causing your problem..

Any chance of some small 10 uf - 3,000 uf caps which have a rounded top? If you find any caps which do not have a flat top those are bad..

It is an inherent problem in switching supplies, those caps get hammered and if you want to replace them you need to buy ones that are marked LOW ESR..

If you have not done so, just buy a new converter, you will be happier in the end.