I have a new to me fifth wheel and took it over the weekend on it's first outing. The camper is a 2005 Cherokee 285B+. I purchaced this unit last fall and this was the first outing. The bottom line is even hooked to shore power my battery is going dead when being heavily used. It was quite cold at night (40s) and I had the furnace running a good portion of the weekend. anyway, one day into the weekend(saturday afternoon) I lost power to everything while plugged in. I imideatly thought I had a shorted battery so we ran to the local bait shop and picked up a new one, hooked it up and everything was good. 36 hours later (this morning) the Carbin Monoxide Detecto was beeping as a fault and I noticed my battery was showing nearly dead. BTW, I have no Idea if the one I took out is the original or not, it was not dated and had no born on sticker, is there any other way to tell? If it's fairly new it'll be mounted as a backup on a switch for when I go primitive camping.
The 110V AC was working as we could run the TV, Microwave ect just fine. I also didn't have any problem at home as I have had the camper dewinterized for about a month and just kept it plugged in as I know from my last camper that there are many things that will drain a battery inbetween trips if they aren't plugged in. I din't however have hardly any load on it.
I ended up taking a regular battery charger, pluging it into a 110 outlet on the camper, and kept it on 10amp charge for this morning and I didn't have another problem.
I personally think my converter is going south on me and not properly charging the battery when hooked to shore power. The odd thing is, it seems to be trickle charging but not charging enough when under load. I say this because I noticed the converter kicking in every once in a while as the lights would get considerably brighter inside the camper but it would kick off a short time later and the lights would again dim as they were being run only by the battery.
So I guess my next question is, if it's the converter, is it very hard to change it out? I'm real handy and don't mind wiring stuff. From the front side it looks pretty strait forward but I have no idea what the back looks like. any help or suggestions??
First, I don’t know if I have the same converter as you, but when I brought my new trailer home, it was acting a lot like yours. My problem was that the dealer must have connected the battery the wrong polarity or shorted the cables when installing the battery, which blew the two DC fuses in the converter. You wrote that you hear the converter running, so I assume that it is getting the 110 volt shore power to the converter? What I would first suggest is that you get your converter manual and use the troubleshooting guide to help you (I went online to the converter manufacturer’s web site and downloaded it). I would first check to make sure you have 110 volts to the converter itself, then the fuses in the converter (if I remember correctly, one fuse is for the charging circuit). They’re also thermal protection devices (that auto reset) in some converters that will cause a converter to cycle off and on, check that the cooling fan is working and also there should be room around the converter so that it doesn’t get hot. Keep us, updated and if you are still having problems, let us know the make and model of your converter. It’s hard to troubleshoot over the internet.
I just went out and did a little tinkering and I found that my NEW battery is currently reading 12.25 Volts (about 2 days worth of camping) even though it is plugged in to my garage outlet. It reads the same completely unhooked! The microwave is still on, as is the refigerator, but the lights are awfully dim when you turn them on! I put the old battery out in the shop and hooked it up to the charger about 2 hours ago and it is showing 12.5 volts without the charger, 12.69 volts on 2amp trickle charge and 12.75 volts on 10amp charge. That being said It seems as though the converter is not charging at all!
I pulled the front cover off of the converter and pulled the control board, the one on the bottom with the fan, so it's just "loose" and I can get at everything. I assume the large RED and WHITE wires soddered into the control board should be the incoming 110V? Could somebody verify where the incoming 110V wires should be?
I really have no Idea what to do at this point other than replace the converter control box as I'm not sure what else I should be checking???????????
I'll have to see if I can find a manual and I'll post if I do. I've checked all the fuses and breakers and they are all good. When the converter runs (when I notice the lights get bright), I hear the fan running every time. I will check for 110 power at the box as soon as I figure out which wires to check. I assume I have 110 coming in since the 110 outlets, ac, refer, ceiling fan, and micorwave are all working properly and those are all on breakers in the same box, although maybe they have them physically seperated, I'll have to find that one out. Thanks for the advise I'll keep updating as I work on this situation.
I checked the ground at the battery and took a wire brush to it, it's nice and clean now but it didn't change anything. I have 12.2 volts at the converter which is nearly the same as the battery, so I guess I'm down to checking what I have for 110V. I also tried putting a large load on it to see if I could get it to kick in as it's done in the past, so I turned on all the lights, radio, fans, ect at the same time but ther was still no reponse from the converter.
Well, I just went out to check things out and the camper has been plugged into the house for about 8 hours since we got home. The converter is apparently working as I check the battery again and to my supprise it said it was full, so I grabbed my multi-meter and sure enough I got 13.67 Volts which means the charger is currently charging????
Apparently I think what is happening is as I had originally suspected, the charger will run in the maintainer mode but won't bump up to higher amperage/voltage when under load, it's like it isn't sensing that the battery is discharged. I suppose this will be a new control board, fortunatly I see they're only $150 shipped. I'm gonna do a little more checking tomarrow before I order a new board, but one thing is quite apparnt, The nicer stuff I buy, the more it costs to keep it up! Just for a kicker my MinnKota 80lb AP Trolling motor for my boat also went south this weekend, unfortunatly thats about a $1,300.00 bill if they cann't fix it! I also have a few other minor issues with the camper but overall I think I should have everthing tip top in 2 weeks for my next outing.
As a side note, my orginal battery is shot, after 8 hours of charging, the needle on my charger has yet to move off of 8.5 (When charged it should be at 0), usually, even if it was stone dead, it would be getting pertty close by now. I'll loade test it, but I'm pretty sure of the outcome.
I also forgot to mention my convert is a WFCO WF-8955AN W/Plastic. Says it's a three stage unit. If you are wondering what the three stages are, just google the model and manufacture and they describe it much better than I can.
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