power inverter

[dripley]

i just got my 5th wheel out into service again. first time it has been out in alittle over a year. when i used the 12 volt lights all was good for about 30 minutes. then the lights started flashing on and off rapidly and continued to do this until i turned them off. i have had them on several times since with the same results. i never had to work on this system before and am not sure where to start. any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Mopar1973Man]

What's the condition of the batteries? Where you plugged into 120 VAC?

[flagmanruss]

Tell us more about the system in your trailer. Lights are pretty simple & not generally demanding... should run on just the camper batteries & that is where I'd start. Are the batteries connected (check for dirty connections), charged... holding a charge?The lights on & off sounds like a thermal circuit breaker, going off & resetting... could be on the 12 V side... or on the 120 V side heating up a thermal protect breaker on the charging system... I would think this more likely if the battery was not connected/bad connection throwing the load onto the charger. Record breaking heat wave does not help. I would probably quickly check the voltage across the batteries with a simple multimeter. 12V or so (no charger), over 12 volts when charging. This will give more data & ideas of where to look. I would probably rule out the AC power coming to the trailer. I think if you had a bad power cord (the camper cords are pretty rugged, extension cords not necessarily), could be dropping the incoming voltage. A bad cord would probably trip the breaker on be building supplying the trailer. I have a camper polarity tester... plugs into an AC outlet... useful to detect wiring faulty in the AC supplied to the camper.Hope this helps,Russ

[Mopar1973Man]

IfI remember right Edcasey is a RV mechanic at one time you might try and get a hold of him...

[dripley]

What's the condition of the batteries?

Where you plugged into 120 VAC?

i'll check the battery when i get in to night. when i set up the trailer sunday evening i ran the landing gear down on battery power with no problem. those things have been slow on both my 5th wheels and this one is heavier than my first one. might have been a little slower than normal but have not done it in awhile.

i plugged the trailer in shortly after that. went inside and turned some lights on and all was working well for about 30 minutes and they started flickering. turned them off for while and then turned them back on and they worked fine for about 30 minutes and started flashing again. it was late i i just turned them off and used the 120volt lights.

--- Update to the previous post...

Tell us more about the system in your trailer.

Lights are pretty simple & not generally demanding... should run on just the camper batteries & that is where I'd start. Are the batteries connected (check for dirty connections), charged... holding a charge?

The lights on & off sounds like a thermal circuit breaker, going off & resetting... could be on the 12 V side... or on the 120 V side heating up a thermal protect breaker on the charging system... I would think this more likely if the battery was not connected/bad connection throwing the load onto the charger. Record breaking heat wave does not help. I would probably quickly check the voltage across the batteries with a simple multimeter. 12V or so (no charger), over 12 volts when charging. This will give more data & ideas of where to look.

I would probably rule out the AC power coming to the trailer. I think if you had a bad power cord (the camper cords are pretty rugged, extension cords not necessarily), could be dropping the incoming voltage. A bad cord would probably trip the breaker on be building supplying the trailer.

I have a camper polarity tester... plugs into an AC outlet... useful to detect wiring faulty in the AC supplied to the camper.

Hope this helps,

Russ

the light s will run on just the battery. i only have one. it is connected. the connections are clean and tight. i have not had it disconnected long enough to see how long it will hold its charge. i will check the battery tonight if it is not to late. it does act like it is some sort of thermal device, but i am used to something like that just trip and having it either auto reset or manually reset. thes light are flicering 5 times a srcond. it is quite odd.

all the 120 volt stuff works fine. the AC, washer, dryer, water heater, and lights. dont think it is there. i have a bug for checking polarity and gfi's.

[dieselautopower]

have you done a LOAD TEST on the batteries?BTW I saw a 2500/5000w inverter on amazon for $115. modified sine wave. A smaller one will work for most people, but my 1000/2000 would not run a blender without shutting down.

[dripley]

i have not done a load test on the batteries. cant seem to get home early enough. i believe i got this backwards. the problem i am having is with the power converter not inverter. AC to DC, not DC to AC. still had the same problem last night. lites flickering or not working at all on the dc systems. AC system seems fine. except for what happend next. my air conditioning went nutty last night. the breaker was tripped and i reset it, it came on ran for a few minutes and then the motor that runs both the fan for the exterior coil and the blower for air ditribution cut off, the compressor kept running until the breaker tripped. went up top and uncovered the ac unit and the motor was hot though i could hold my hand on it for a short while. spun the fan and it spun very freely. the motor should have some sort of thermal protection on it and i would suspect that. i have 120 volts coming in to each side of the main breaker, have 118 volts at the breaker for the ac. it was late and hot and dark so i did not try opening up the connections at the unit to see what i had at the unit. that will have to wait until next week. i swapped my power source with the space next to me and turned it back on and it ran fine for a bout 10 to 15 minutes then did the same thing. so now i am hot a sweaty it s 10pm and igave up. turne it on a couple more times and just stood under one of the vents trying to cool off a little. the third time i started it i just let it run and it ran all night coming on and off with the tstat. could the temp drop outside have affeted this?it did drop about 5* in the 2 hours i spent on it. it was working fine when i left theis am. just in case you cant tell by my post electricity,120volt ac or 12volt dc, is a very weak point for me. you kinda have to dumb down for me to understand.

[dieselautopower]

Ok, I don't think it has anything to do with your batteries or power inverter/converter (12->120 to run off batteries or 120-> 12 to run your 12v system when plugged in to shore power.)I think you are overloading the 120v circuit at the source. ie you (or everyone else at the park) are using more energy with the Air Conditioning system than can be supplied. I have also seen this with extension cords or plugging into a 30amp service when a 50amp is needed. even with 8gauge extension, adding some extra feet like +20 feet would sometimes make Air Conditioning work or not work.You might try a different power outlet to plug it into, or turn off all other 120v accessories and see it that works, or if in a park ask them to turn theirs off for a little to see if yours then works.

[dripley]

Ok, I don't think it has anything to do with your batteries or power inverter/converter (12->120 to run off batteries or 120-> 12 to run your 12v system when plugged in to shore power.) I think you are overloading the 120v circuit at the source. ie you (or everyone else at the park) are using more energy with the Air Conditioning system than can be supplied. I have also seen this with extension cords or plugging into a 30amp service when a 50amp is needed. even with 8gauge extension, adding some extra feet like +20 feet would sometimes make Air Conditioning work or not work. You might try a different power outlet to plug it into, or turn off all other 120v accessories and see it that works, or if in a park ask them to turn theirs off for a little to see if yours then works.

i talked to and electrician on my 12 volt issue he is going to help me with that. i had 120 voltson both sides f the main breaker. that was with out the ac runnig though. ill check it with it on and see if i am loosing voltage. i was plugged into a 50 amp and swapped the other source which was a 30 amp and it ran awhile longer but eventually shut down. the park is only 30% full so unless he has a really bad system idont think that is it,but you never know. i have had experiance that before in a really full park, it is like a brown out, but everything still worked. my cord is either 6 or 8 gauge probably 8 and is at least 20' long and weighs a ton. just gonna have to do some more trouble shooting when i get back. it is supposed to be a little cooler next week.

[dieselautopower]

I am not a tech, but what I had mentioned I ran into a lot when I was buying and selling Travel Trailers. Hope you get it figured out.

[dripley]

I am not a tech, but what I had mentioned I ran into a lot when I was buying and selling Travel Trailers. Hope you get it figured out.

i appreciate the help.

[flagmanruss]

OK, here's my thought. The lights ought to run just fine as long as the battery lasts. Separate the 2 systems DC from AC. Shut off the charger/inverter. The battery powered lights should still work fine on battery power for a considerable period of time. I went off the grid for 10 days. We were sparing on the loads, did not use AC. We ran the fridge on propane. The lights should run a whole night on 1 battery. My Dad's sloop (sail boat) was on a mooring... we could run lights a couple of nights and still get the aux engine (Universal Atomic 4 flathead) started. OK, you've checked the voltage on both sides of the main fuse & swapped supply outlets... it does not seem to be AC supply.If the lights work fine on just battery, it has something to do with the interconnect (charger/inverter). If NOT, it's on the battery side. Question. Are the lights all on one circuit? Unlikely to have more than one bad breaker (and a breaker would not reset itself). My thinking is that the battery is NG. The inverter is carrying the load. These really short on/off/on/off cycles are like AC current cycles. From here, my guess is the inverter has failed.

[dripley]

OK, here's my thought. The lights ought to run just fine as long as the battery lasts. Separate the 2 systems DC from AC. Shut off the charger/inverter. The battery powered lights should still work fine on battery power for a considerable period of time. I went off the grid for 10 days. We were sparing on the loads, did not use AC. We ran the fridge on propane. The lights should run a whole night on 1 battery. My Dad's sloop (sail boat) was on a mooring... we could run lights a couple of nights and still get the aux engine (Universal Atomic 4 flathead) started. OK, you've checked the voltage on both sides of the main fuse & swapped supply outlets... it does not seem to be AC supply. If the lights work fine on just battery, it has something to do with the interconnect (charger/inverter). If NOT, it's on the battery side. Question. Are the lights all on one circuit? Unlikely to have more than one bad breaker (and a breaker would not reset itself). My thinking is that the battery is NG. The inverter is carrying the load. These really short on/off/on/off cycles are like AC current cycles. From here, my guess is the inverter has failed.

it appears that i have good power to the trailer. i am thinking just by unplugging the ac power and turning on the lights it will be on battery alone and if they work for 30 to 40 minutes that would narrow it down to the converter. i have about 10 circuits in the rv. all run thru a fuse box very much like our trucks. two prong plug ins. battery is negative ground i am leanig towrd the converter my self. i am home this weekend and will be headed back tommorow. if the ac is running i will check some of it out. if not i guess i will worl on that instead.

[Mopar1973Man]

Here is what I got in my RV... Really good power converter / battery charger...

[dripley]

is that one of thowe invisible attachments? gotta go back to the rv in a little while and deal with it tommorow. got my new fp gauge in and working today. i spent about 2 1/2 hours chasing a leak and the truck not starting. turned out to be fuel coming from #4 injector that i had cracked open to resart the truck. the AD had pumped fuel all the way to the injectors but would not start. turns out the one and only me forgot to plug the vp back up.

[Mopar1973Man]

Opps my bad I thought I pasted the link... :banghead: http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/product/inteli-power-rv-switcherconverter/1768

[dripley]

according to the manufacturers web site flickering lights is a sgn of the coverter being overloaded.i did find my battery to be bad. checked it out last night and it had about 3 volts when disconnected. it also had about 3 oz of water in it:doh:. buying a new one today and see if that might not sove the problem. i did get the ac to work last night after i refilled the battery and took out all but two of the fuses. i think the battery was the overload problem, but i will sart reinstalling the fuses this evening and wee what happens.

[flagmanruss]

Camper batteries with automatic chargers are pretty easy to boil dry and short out. They tend to get "neglected"... I don't think we appreciate what having the charger "on" all the time can do to the battery. The lights are obiviously not too much load so I think you are right an internal short on the battery is.This is a good lesson... all the rest of us will go our & check the water in our batteries today!My bro had an alternator fail, burned up the battery. You could smell the battery before he even shut it off. He showed up at the boat yard shop with it, popped the hood & we cut the cables off with bolt cutters. We left the battery sitting on the ground and 24 hours later was still too hot to handle.

[Mopar1973Man]

Here you go...

[dripley]

thats a pretty nice set up there Mike. maybe if i put my battery in the iving room i might remember to check more often. i noticed that your batteries are Trojans, are encased in rubber by any chance?:lmao: