Suspected Converter Problem

BFL13 wrote:
Please clarify-- first you said that for the 28" wires through the wall for converter-battery you could tug on them and that tugging would be seen on the other side of the wall.

Now you say something was loose by the wall, indicating the wire was not all one piece from converter to battery. Is that true of both pos and neg wires? What is the actual situation, two 14" wires each via some sort of junction at the wall?

Clarifying that would help with understanding what might be going on here.

I was just getting ready to post.

Seems all the wires were bundled together behind the access panel, so tugging was moving everything.

I believe the wiring is as you originally suspect. Upon closer examination, the converter output does NOT go directly to the batts. It disappears into a very large harness going aft. I suspect it is running to the DC panel, as you earlier suggested.

There also appears to be what appears to be a "return wire" coming from the same bundle. This wire connects to the positive batt terminal after passing through a ShortStop circuit breaker.

If this is true, it means the wire running from the converter to battery is making more like a 40'-50' trip, rather than 3 feet.

The neg wire from the converter goes to the frame about 3 foot away. There is another 8 AWG wire connected to the same frame bolt that runs up to battery negative.

This seems like a bad setup. What about running 4 AWG from the converter directly to the ShortStop and also from the ShortStop directly to the batter terminals (other terminal of breaker so there is still protection, of course)/? Then hook the DC panel "feed" wire and "return" wire also to this terminal. In a sense, I'd then have 2 "feed" wires to the DC panel.

And of course, replace the neg cables with similarly sized 4 AWG.

BTW, I do suspect that cable resistance is the culprit. Now that I believe the bulk charging is done (and current therefore lower), voltage has rebounded a couple tenths of a volt.