Coleman Pop-up

[PopUpColemanFW]

I have a 2003 Coleman Fleetwood pop-up camper, I've owned it for about 3 years and have had little success with getting power to run lights and chargers, simple things if I can somehow get it to run those items mentioned as well as the on-board furnace I would be extremely grateful.
Things I have tried so far:
-100w solar panel to charge controller-->Battery-->300w inverter and plugged into the inverter was the trailers shore power 110v cord. Lights did work briefly with this set-up but was blowing the 15amp fuse.
-Shore power plugged into my garage/campsite with 30amp service. This works flawlessly, as it should.
-Most recently, 12v battery to 500w inverter and the trailers shore power cord 110v plugged into inverter. Battery was fully charged, this ran the lights about 3 times, blew the 15amp fuse, replaced fuse and could not get this to run the lights again.

I appreciate any input.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

I have a 2003 Coleman Fleetwood pop-up camper, I've owned it for about 3 years and have had little success with getting power to run lights and chargers, simple things if I can somehow get it to run those items mentioned as well as the on-board furnace I would be extremely grateful.
Things I have tried so far:
-100w solar panel to charge controller-->Battery-->300w inverter and plugged into the inverter was the trailers shore power 110v cord. Lights did work briefly with this set-up but was blowing the 15amp fuse.

Was the fuse between battery and inverter? 15A * 12V = 180W... need moar for 300W.

300W for an entire trailer is probably not adequate.

-Shore power plugged into my garage/campsite with 30amp service. This works flawlessly, as it should.

Good.

-Most recently, 12v battery to 500w inverter and the trailers shore power cord 110v plugged into inverter. Battery was fully charged, this ran the lights about 3 times, blew the 15amp fuse, replaced fuse and could not get this to run the lights again

500W inverter is still pretty darn skimpy. Your furnace blower motor is probably going to draw around 800W at startup.

 

[PopUpColemanFW]

@sunshine_eggo
Thank you for the response!
When testing I only turned 1 lightbulb on inside the trailer, that blew the 15amp fuse on my "Converter" inside the trailer.. I didn't think there was any possibility that one single bulb would draw anywhere near 500w or 15amps to blow the fuse. I agree it is probably grossly under-wattage for running the fridge or furnace but for lighting purposes this should work in theory right?

Shore power from converter--> 500w inverter --> wired directly to pos. and neg. on a 12v deep cycle marine battery with an inline fuse on the positive lead.

Should I be looking for say a 1500w pure sine inverter off the battery to shore power cord from trailers converter? would this solve what ails me and then i would look into a larger solar setup to keep my battery adequately charged.

 

[chrisski]

Recommend incandescent to LED replacement.

A 2003 trailer likely has incandescent bulbs, and the wattage on those adds up quick. Replacing with LEDs results in a fraction of the consumption. LED bulbs are not cheap. I get mine at superbrightLEDs.com.

When testing I only turned 1 lightbulb on inside the trailer, that blew the 15amp fuse on my "Converter" inside the trailer.. I didn't think there was any possibility that one single bulb would draw anywhere near 500w or 15amps to blow the fuse. I agree it is probably grossly under-wattage for running the fridge or furnace but for lighting purposes this should work in theory right?

I think there must be something else charging up whenever you turn power on to blow the fuse. U'd recommend removing all fuses except the light and then try powering the light on.

 

[PopUpColemanFW]

@chrisski

Wow, not sure how I didn't think of that. Thank you. I will give that a try for sure (pulling the other fuses out). I did switch my outdoor light over to LED and I was planning to do the inside ones as well however I do kind of like the yellowish glow that comes off them as opposed to the Bright White (at least for inside) but that may be a sacrifice.

When I plug in the cord to the inverter, the CO2 monitor turns on as well but again I just couldn't see that bulb being more than 40watts and the Co2 monitor well that's basically just a little green LED light from what I gathered but I'm also not an electrician or even close for that matter so I'm hoping to be enlightened.

 

[chrisski]

Wow, not sure how I didn't think of that. Thank you. I will give that a try for sure (pulling the other fuses out). I did switch my outdoor light over to LED and I was planning to do the inside ones as well however I do kind of like the yellowish glow that comes off them as opposed to the Bright White (at least for inside) but that may be a sacrifice.

You can get 2700 k lights that are yellow.

When I plug in the cord to the inverter, the CO2 monitor turns on as well but again I just couldn't see that bulb being more than 40watts and the Co2 monitor well that's basically just a little green LED light from what I gathered but I'm also not an electrician or even close for that matter so I'm hoping to be enlightened.

The CO2 monitors should not use a lot. If you pull the fuses, you may find one faulty line that has a bad item pulling too much. If its the Carbon Dioxide detectors, I don't know if those are fused in the fuse box or not.

 

[skyking1]

I have experience with these pop-ups. Our first RV ever was a 1986 Coleman that came with needle and thread
The furnace and lighting run on DC power from the battery, which is charged from the unit's factory converter.
On a single battery the furnace will kill the battery in no time at all, if you are boondocking. They have two fans in them.
This is why it runs great when plugged in.
I strongly suggest you abandon any thought of converting solar DC to AC to then send it to the Coleman converter. Each one of those steps has loss and it adds up quickly.
1) Go at at it from the angle of doubling the battery capacity and staying in the DC. That is what the Coleman runs on.
2) replace the house DC bulbs with new LED.
3) keep working on load shedding.

I run this 5th wheel with a little furnace action and the two 100 watt panels, and a pair of CG-2 batteries.
It has a much larger furnace but the same principle.
You can use the lighter modern batteries with that trailer to your advantage.

 

[hwy17]

Inadequate inverter equipment I think. Maybe supplying less than 110v and blowing the fuse with increased amperage.

Reconsider plans with Lifepower4 or other 48v 100Ah server rack battery, and either an EG4 3k or Victron 48v/1500w+.

If 120v shore power 15A plug works, then there's no reason those shouldn't work.

 

[skyking1]

running any inverter in this loop when camping is just sillyness. Except for what you plug in, the whole house is already DC.
Add battery to the system
Add solar panel(s) and charge controller.
Done.

 

[PopUpColemanFW]

@skyking1
I understand what you're saying, the positive and negative running from the battery on the tongue of the trailer to the converter inside is missing a connection so this was my way to bypass without tracing wires and pulling them out of the frame-rail/Side panels of the trailer. I have a good 12v battery, I have an inverter, I have a 110v plug coming from the converter, seemed to me like it should all work in theory just to get by.

 

[skyking1]

so long as you know you are chasing electrons around with a fishnet then that's OK. I'd fix what is there that is supposed to work.

 

[chrisski]

If your converter is on when you power up the inverter, that is wasteful. A pop-up might not have a separate circuit breaker for the AC to DC converter. If that is the case, it can be shut off or unplugged. Of course the can be behind a panel with no easy access.

The converter I measured used from 75 watts to 125 watts from an inverter as measured from a Victron shunt when I plugged another trailer into it for the night.

 

[littleharbor2]

The last few comments all are eluding to the fact that you can't plug the shore power into the onboard inverter. Basically you are trying to charge the battery from .......THE BATTERY. It won't work. Get the converter out of the loop and you stand a much better chance of success.

 

[PopUpColemanFW]

@littleharbor2 There is no onboard inverter, and I am not trying to charge anything at all. I'm simply trying to use the power from my battery by hooking it to an inverter.. and plugging my trailer into it. I do appreciate all the input, thank you all.
Going to bite the bullet and trace my wiring from the front tongue of the trailer, find out where the fault is and start fresh. Eliminate the inverter from the loop, use my trailers onboard Converter to power the trailer as intended.
Thanks Folks

 

[Bop]

Most onboard converters are actually a battery charger as well (to keep the battery charged up when plugged in) so by plugging the inverter into the camper, and running it off the campers battery- you are powering up the onboard charger with the inverter- so sucking power from the battery- to charge- the same battery...
:-O

A 300w inverter isn't much power at all and the converter/charger could draw more than this by itself... in which case there is no fault at all, just improper equipment selection...

If you are serious about doing this, then the first step would be convert as much as possible to 12v to run directly from the battery (lights etc) using LED's instead of incandescents (there are many '12v' ES bulbs that can be fitted directly to 'factory' lamp fittings- I use them myself at the shed... very common for offgriders and marine and motorhome owners to use)

The one on the left is a 2700k LED (ie old style yellow light) the one on the right I use 'yellow' 3500k ones in the office, and 'blue white' 5700k ones in the shed itself...

Isolate the lighting circuits from the mains supply and feed them directly from the battery bank (through a fuse of course)
That will give you the same light with 10-15% more run time than running 'mains' LED ones through the inverter, and about 90% more run time than incandescent bulbs...

If you really want to go the 'plug the campers power input into the inverter' then you need to find out exactly what is connected and where- fit a switch to the input of the converter so you can turn it off entirely when running off the inverter, plus any other unneeded 'parasitic' loads (a full diagram of the wiring will be invaluable, but may be hard to find)

As it is, a 300w inverter really is tiny, and won't run very much at all- a laptop alone can with higher performance ones, take up almost all that inverters output!!! (my Asus 'Republic of Gamers' laptop draws 190W when working hard, and its nearly a decade old lol)

 

[skyking1]

@littleharbor2 There is no onboard inverter, and I am not trying to charge anything at all. I'm simply trying to use the power from my battery by hooking it to an inverter.. and plugging my trailer into it. I do appreciate all the input, thank you all.
Going to bite the bullet and trace my wiring from the front tongue of the trailer, find out where the fault is and start fresh. Eliminate the inverter from the loop, use my trailers onboard Converter to power the trailer as intended.
Thanks Folks

Often they do not run a ground wire up and use the frame, with mixed results. Look out for that one.