Stupid question
What is the first sign that your converter is going bad
Forum Discussion
- The converter is a glorified battery charger, nothing more.
So how would you know a battery charger is bad.
But on a side note, if the converter is a WFCO, its bad ! :) - Moved from Forum Technical Support
- Why do you ask?
- My BILs battery was not charging. When the converter was on shore power the battery read 11.5v. When the battery was disconnected the converter output read 13.3 v.
- Everyone's too technical here. What symptoms are you experiencing? Dim lights, flickering lights, converter making a LOT of noise, converter getting HOT, pulsating lights, blowing fuses? No power at all? Actually, if any of this is happening, you're probably having converter problems and its failing.
rtaylor0830 wrote:
What is the first sign that your converter is going bad
The batteries not being properly charged and/or the lights dimming during use.- If you want to measure closer to the converter/charger chassis look at this typical WFCO 8900 series power distribution unit setup... You may have to remove some panels to be able to get to these DC connections...
If you would supply the model number of the converter/charger unit we can probably find an actual photo from google images of your particular setup.
Roy Ken - The best place to measure it is across the battery terminals. The battery will read 12.6VDC if it is fully charged and you do not have shore power connected. When you connect to shore power then the DC Voltage across the battery terminals will read 13.6VDC telling you the converter/charger is working.
This of course is if the cables from the converter/charger is connected all the way to the battery terminals.. i.e. no fuses blown...
You can a good idea what is what just by looking at the ceiling lights inside your trailer.
Without shore power ON your ceiling lights should be lit up just using the battery by itself. when you turn on shore power the ceiling lights should brighten up a tad... Both shore powered converter/charger and your trailer battery feed the same 12VDC Power distribution panel where the 12VDC fuses are located.
Here is a simplified 30AMP Electrical Configuration of a typical trailer...
diagram from google images
Roy Ken RoyB wrote:
Only way to know for sure is to turn it on using your shore power and measure the DC output with your multimeter. It should read nominal 13.6VDC...
Roy Ken
Where do you measure the voltage is there just a positive and negative terminal on the converter itself- Only way to know for sure is to turn it on using your shore power and measure the DC output with your multimeter. It should read nominal 13.6VDC...
Roy Ken
