Converter Question

Primary cause of converter failure... OLD AGE. Seriously they get old and die just like people only a whole lot faster.

Secondary is lung failure.. Ok, failure of the fan that cools the electronics, Heat is the enemy of most electronics after a point and the fan's job is to keep it BELOW that point.. if the fan fails (due to age the device soon follows. And then we have dust build up..

and as some have posted... some converters were bad the day they came off the line.. but if your RV was made This Century.. Odds are you don't have one of those.

After 12 years and change I had to repaace mine

BUT.. There may be good news.

Oh, one more no-cost option... I have tripped the circuit breaker that FEEDS the converter... I have also had several loose wires (The point where they attach to the power panel, both hot and neutrals) and my converter is a plug in model.. comes unplugged sometimes.

Somewhere on your converter shoudl be 1,2 or 3 fuses, ikely 30 amp. they can also fail (or blow) failure is due to age, blow to current, but the effect is teh same, NO POWER. Mine were in a place where mounted I coudl not see it,,, but They were not blown.

Progressive Dynamics (marshall, MI) if your converter is aqlso your power distribution panel 4600 series repalces the "Guts" if it's a stand alone box 9200.. Same operationally, just a different box. Dongle optional.

Nevermind......

A few years ago I thought we had a Converter failure. It was mounted behind the rear bulkhead in the basement, so pulled the wall to check and found the plug for the Converter had work loose from it's socket (our converter was a stand-a-lone unit and just plugged into a standard duplex outlet).
Another possible issue is the Battery Cutoff switch, if in the wrong position you won't charge the batteries, or if the connections are loose you can get the same issue.
Just giving you a couple of other things to check before jumping on a new converter.

AmericalVette wrote:
Any idea what the primary cause of converter failure is?

Poorly made. Low bid supplier. Or just random. How old is it?
If it is a WFCO get something else.

X2 on checking the fuses on the back of the Converter. When ours was new it didn’t charge which we found out the day before leaving for its first trip. The dealer service tech walked me through finding it and found blown fuses. Easy fix.

Is your water heater gas/electric or gas only? If gas only and the convertor is dead there will be 0 voltage to the control board of the heater and it will not fire. I doubt if the electric side would work either as I believe that the control board controls it as well? I could be wrong on that last part.

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Cheers!

Mike

If I have a bad converter would the hot water heater not work? Even if the trailer is plugged into power from outside?

You need to use your voltmeter right on the converter output terminals to determine if it has failed or not.

In my case, the converter was putting out maximum voltage and the battery was draining away while I was plugged in. When I towed, the battery voltage was replaced.

Connect a short piece of wire first to the negative terminal at the converter, then to your jumper cable and then to the negative terminal at the battery. If that makes your lights get suddenly bright inside the rig, it is the negative connection. If not, try the same thing and this time connect to the positive terminal and the positive battery.

In my case, I found the negative heavy wire that connects to the converter terminal strip was loose in it's screw terminal. Two turns with a screwdriver and everything was fine again.

Check the fuses on the back of your converter before deciding it's bad.

They will blow for sure if you accidently hook your battery cables wrong or arc the positive post.

Some are just dogs to start with, like old Magtek series 63XX. Even their replacements, the 73XX models are not much better but at least they don't die as often. They just work lousy.