New guy with converter trouble

[komiller118]

Hey folks. I am new to RV dot net but have been camping for a long time. My beautiful bride and I currently own a 2009 Puma 25RS Palomino. On our last camping trip lighting started to dim. Now I had just about every light inside on along with all the running lights. Well I checked the battery voltage and it was very low, thought battery was bad.... less than 10 volts. Never had issue before. We made it through the week and came home. I pulled the battery and put on a charge for several days, took it to local NAPA where I bought it and it tested good. So I started poking around. I pulled the panel/converter cover and started checking wires. With the battery connected, I have battery voltage at the converter output wires, with the battery disconnected, I have 13.7 volts at converter output wires. All this is with NO load. With battery disconnected and a load, I have only 6~ volts at converter output wires. The converter is a WFCO 8955 PEC. I called WFCO, they suggested checking voltage with battery disconnected and a load and if voltage was less than 10 volts, there was probably a fault in the circuit board. With all that being said, what say you the experts........?
Thanks in advance for your input and help....

[fallsrider]

Good deal. Hopefully that will solve your problem.

[komiller118]

I sent randy an email but have not heard back. I talked to tech support at WFCO and did some of there testing and two different techs say it is a bad converter. I ordered a replacement from amazon.

[fallsrider]

komiller118, I am in the midst of a dead converter myself. A new one is on the way. (see my post MagneTek 3240 replacement)

Have you talked with Randy at Best Converter yet? Apparently he is very knowledgeable. I went with his recommendation to buy a new PowerMax Boondocker for our TT.

It certainly sounds like you might have a dying converter. Not that I'm an expert now, but when mine first started showing signs, the lights would dim. Turning off a light or two would cause it to stop at first, but within a couple days, it died quickly.

Yours showing a significant voltage drop with only one light turned on sounds similar to mine.

[komiller118]

Bump

[Midnightpumpkin]

Ask Randy at Best Converters.

He is the man to ask.


ask Randy

John U

[komiller118]

Well, I have considered possibly a bad ground from battery, but have a small lake under the camper, so I haven't crawled under it yet....., but at the panel and at battery, I have not had any issue using ground to check current draw and and using test light and multi meter.....

[hawkeye-08]

That would indicate one of two things, either bad converter or very loose wire somewhere.

[komiller118]

I do have 13.7, but as soon as I turn on even one light, output drops to less than 10 volts. all of this with battery disconnected.

[donn0128]

Dead converter.
If your reading less than 13.5VDC across the converter output with the battery disconnected then it has failed