RV Converter Issue? HELP!

[frzbgolfer]

I have a fifth wheel camper that I swapped to a 12V 230AH LiTime Lithium battery last year. I had also replaced the converter with one that is compatible with Lithium (well it is an auto detect model that seems to not want to detect that the battery is Lithium but that is a topic for another day). Everything has been working great for the past year. I acquired a new 1500W inverter for free so decided I wanted to add that into my system. So I add that along with a QWork battery monitor system. Oh and I added an automatic transfer switch to switch between shore power and inverter power. Testing went fine other than the inverter not being able to do anything close to a 1500W load but other than that everything was fine. After depleting my battery, I turned the inverter off, plugged my camper back into shore power, and turned the breaker back on to my converter to start charging the battery. Initially I could see via the battery monitor display that the converter was sending around 50 amps to the battery. I noticed it fluctuated some but figured that was normal. I let it be for a bit and when I checked an hour or 2 later, it showed that it was no longer sending any amps to the battery. It had only pushed around 2.5ah total to the battery. I tried turning the converter off and back on but that didn't help.

Here we are a few days later and I had time to do more testing. Using a multimeter I was able to see that when I turn on the converter, it is sending around 13.7V but the battery monitor showed no amps going to the battery. I disconnected the battery and checked voltage, it was around 12.2V or thereabouts. I checked all connections and verified continuity between the converter and the battery on both the positive and negative sides. Hooked the battery back up and tested again, no change. I then took a 12V battery charger I have and connected it to the battery (well I put the negative lead on the load side of the shunt so I could verify the amperage going into the battery); the charger was sending 14-15 amps to the battery which is the highest that charger can do.

So would all these things point to an issue with the RV's converter? What other testing can I do? Oh I also checked all the fuses on the RV's DC panel, all are fine. Thank you to those who took the time to read through all of this. I tried to keep it as short as possible but still giving all of the pertinent information. Let me know if you have any questions. THANK YOU!

 

[chrisski]

Yes it points to the converter.

Is there any fuses? I had one with some ATC blade fuses that had blown and shut off the converter. Replacing the converter’s ATC fuses fixed it.

Is the converter AC circuit breaker good?

It could also be DC wiring. 10 amps can go through 14 gauge, but 50 amps needs 6 AWG wiring. 10 amps is the usual charge rate for a lead acid Rv battery. Without upgrading wire, could be bad.

Is there an external fuse that’s blown?

Is there a remote start jumper for the converter that came loose?

The two AC to DC converters I worked with were two DCwires, a remote on off switch, a plug, and an adjustable amperage. One was constant 13.6 volts, the other had dip switches for the batteries.

If you look at auto detect converted, they don’t always auto detect. This is one of many threads

K

Thread 'WFCO Auto-Detect Converter Does Not Auto-Detect'

Aug 19, 2022

I recently installed WFCO's "auto-detect" replacement converter and board for our trailer's OEM WFCO 8955 converter. Their claim of auto-detection of "the battery's chemistry" is clearly not accurate as it never got anywhere near the charge rate for LiFePO4 batteries. So, looking up the issue, I find a WFCO Tech Support "official" video that advises you have to "trick" the converter into recognizing LiFePO4 batteries! You have to take their "auto-detecting" converter out of its enclosure, starting with shore power turned off. You then have to turn it on and off twice, hoping that the...

• KCBlues
• Replies: 17
• Forum: Vehicle Mounted Systems

 

[frzbgolfer]

Yes it points to the converter.

Is there any fuses? I had one with some ATC blade fuses that had blown and shut off the converter. Replacing the converter’s ATC fuses fixed it. - I'll double check tomorrow to see if there are any on the converter itself

Is the converter AC circuit breaker good? Yes, power at the breaker is good.

It could also be DC wiring. 10 amps can go through 14 gauge, but 50 amps needs 6 AWG wiring. 10 amps is the usual charge rate for a lead acid Rv battery. Without upgrading wire, could be bad. This converter has been charging the battery for the past year although I'm guessing not to 100% capacity since it stayed in Lead Acid mode. I'm thinking that is probably due to what you mentioned regarding the gauge wire from converter to battery is probably undersized. But right now, the converter doesn't seem to want to push any amps to the battery

Is there an external fuse that’s blown? Not sure what you count as "external" fuse but no... There is continuity from the output wire of the converter to the battery on both the positive and negative side separately so any fuses between the converter and battery have to be intact. So that would only leave fuses on the converter itself which I'll check tomorrow as mentioned above.

Is there a remote start jumper for the converter that came loose? Not sure what that is

The two AC to DC converters I worked with were two DCwires, a remote on off switch, a plug, and an adjustable amperage. One was constant 13.6 volts, the other had dip switches for the batteries. I'll take a closer look at the converter tomorrow but what I know is that on one side it has the AC wires that hardwire into the circuit breaker and terminal blocks on the AC side of the panel and on the other side are the two DC wires that go to the DC circuit board where the battery is also connected and then that dc board has all of the fuses, each one going to a different DC circuit

If you look at auto detect converted, they don’t always auto detect. This is one of many threads Yeah, I've heard about the auto detect issues, but that is separate from the main issue I'm trying to fix right now.

K

Thread 'WFCO Auto-Detect Converter Does Not Auto-Detect'

Aug 19, 2022

I recently installed WFCO's "auto-detect" replacement converter and board for our trailer's OEM WFCO 8955 converter. Their claim of auto-detection of "the battery's chemistry" is clearly not accurate as it never got anywhere near the charge rate for LiFePO4 batteries. So, looking up the issue, I find a WFCO Tech Support "official" video that advises you have to "trick" the converter into recognizing LiFePO4 batteries! You have to take their "auto-detecting" converter out of its enclosure, starting with shore power turned off. You then have to turn it on and off twice, hoping that the...

• KCBlues
• Replies: 17
• Forum: Vehicle Mounted Systems

Thanks for your input, I've added responses in GREEN to each section of your response. Hopefully they add some clarity

 

[chrisski]

If you have an external fuse on the DC side it is not blown if you have continuity. I added a 50 amp fuse to my external wire when I made the gauge thicker.

If there’s a manual on the converter, then it will explain what a remote on/off switch is. Ususally it’s a tiny two female pin input with a small jumper wire between it. You remove the jumper wire to put a remote on button.

 

[TacomaJoe]

The converter should be able to power the 12V stuff without the battery. If it can do that, it is OK but you have some issue between it and the battery.

 

[frzbgolfer]

@chrisski @TacomaJoe

Ok, some additional investigating and testing has been done. I don't see any fuses inside the converter itself other than one on the AC side of the circuit board which is intact. With the converter on, it is able to power the 12V circuits in the camper. On the other hand if I power the converter off but leave the battery connected, the 12V circuits do not work in the camper so that points to the DC wires running from the DC fuse panel and the battery. Confusing because that was working fine before the inverter install/testing. I retested for continuity on the positive side and again on the negative side from the terminals on the DC fuse panel and the battery terminals and there is continuity. If I measure the voltage at the DC fuse panel, it is only seeing 0.5ish volts. Voltage at the battery is around 12.5.

I traced the pos and neg wires as much as possible between the 2 ends and what I can access is fine but I can't trace the entire run. It appears to be only 8 AWG wire. So many I'll try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and run bigger gauge wires directly from DC fuse panel terminals to the battery. It would be a 10 foot run. That would bypass whatever mystery is causing my issue and should help my converter detect my battery as lithium and charge accordingly.

 

[frzbgolfer]

UPDATE - Found the issue! Long story short, the positive DC wire goes from the converter down into the belly then into the front compartment of the fifth wheel, past the battery, up into the hitch area, then connects to the load side of a 40A auto resettable fuse, the wire coming off the Battery side of the fuse ties into the 7 pin wiring harness, then returns to the front compartment and connects to the battery.

Anyways, the auto reset fuse apparently went bad.

So I think the best course of action is to run larger gauge wire straight from the converter to the battery (10 foot run). Then remove the positive wire that was going from the converter to the bad fuse in the hitch area, but leave the wire going from the battery to the 7-pin wiring harness. Hopefully that all makes sense.