converter cooling fan constantly running

Bocephus · 07-25-2011, 09:49 PM

the cooling fan in my converter constantly runs while my camper is sitting outside my house (when not in use). these past few weeks have been pretty warm here, and it gets around 90-95 inside the camper while sitting outside my house. iv noticed that the converter fan runs alllll the time. i am not using anything in the camper. the only thing turned on in the camper is the refrigerator. i know 90* is pretty warm inside, but is it normal for the cooling fan to be on all the time?

skeeterbait8 · 07-28-2011, 12:48 AM

I had the same problem a month or so ago. Not sure if this is your problem but it was mine.

Check to see if the connections to your battery are good. Ours was a bit nasty, and one side was loose. Check that first. THEN check to make sure your battery is good (taking charge).

This worked for me. BUT it also could be a number of other things. But check that first. Good luck. Hope you find the problem.

Bocephus · 07-28-2011, 04:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skeeterbait8

I had the same problem a month or so ago. Not sure if this is your problem but it was mine.

Check to see if the connections to your battery are good. Ours was a bit nasty, and one side was loose. Check that first. THEN check to make sure your battery is good (taking charge).

This worked for me. BUT it also could be a number of other things. But check that first. Good luck. Hope you find the problem.

well, i just installed these two 6v batteries new back in april. so i would ASSUME they are fine....but you never know. the cables i know are good. i have checked them.

DAISY BOYKIN · 07-28-2011, 05:09 AM

If the 6 Volt batteries are the wet (ACID) type, check your water level. The constant running of the charger fan is an indication something is not right. Low water, bad cell in one battery (even a new battery can go bad)
Anything 12 V items being left on is a constant drain. But back to the "low" water, bad battery?? Can be your source of problem.
Feel of the sides of the battery to check tempature of battery. A good way to isolate which one is causing the problem. Hot battery
is being charged constantly. Disconnect batteries from charger and each other, read voltage on each battery seperately. take batteries to your local auto supply store (Auto Zone), have them load tested

Good luck

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 07:44 PM

ok guys, i decided to dig into this a little more... any help/opinions are appreciated. one question i do have before i get too indepth with this is....."will the fan on the converter run if the ambient temp inside the camper is fairly warm, even when it is not charging the batteries?" (thermometer showed 93* inside when i got home from work)

- i came home from camping last night. the battery meter inside showed 1/3, a quick check across the two 6v batteries gave me a reading of 10.9 volts.

- plugged into 120v last night at about 6pm. i do use an adapter to drop my 50A cord down to the standard 20A 120v household plug. the reason i mention this is because im not sure if this is slowing down the charging rate of the converter or not. i wouldnt think so because i do not have any trouble with breakers tripping or the extension cord getting warm......but im throwing that fact out there to help with my diagnosis. the ONLY thing running off of 120v ac is the converter and the refrigerator. there is NOTHING to my knowledge drawing off of the 12v system other than clock memory

- peaked inside the camper at a little after 5am this morning (monday) before i went to work. i didnt check the voltage, but the fan on the converter was running.

- got home from work at 4:30pm today, converter fan is still running. i check the voltage across each battery. one is at 6.89v and the other at 6.87 volts. i got 13.8v across the two batteries together. the electrolyte level in each cell is right where it should be. the batteries were not warm to the touch and did not smell as if they were overcharged.

- i manually trip the main 50A breaker on the converter. the cooling fan shuts off.....the voltage across the batteries drops to 13.5v. this tells me the converter is doing SOMETHING...

- i manually turn back on the main 50A breaker, the fan stayed OFF, the battery voltage jumped back up to 13.8v. now, i realize .3v is not much to worry about, but it does prove that something is going on when i open and close the 120v feed to the converter.

- now remember, i said the fan was OFF......and it still is. meanwhile i start pulling the 12v fuses on the converter board to check current draw across each circuit. all checks were done with everything off. just as it would sit when not being used (except the gas detector, fridge, and stereo memory)

all of the lighting circuits - .000-.001 amps
12v aux power (cig lighter) - .000 amps
gas detector - .038 amps
fridge - .071 amps
factory stereo - .095 amps

- as sit scratching my head in curiosity.....the cooling fan turns on

. all the 12v fuses are out, so nothing is drawing current on the 12v side of things. i start manually tripping 120v ac breakers. i have all of them tripped except the main 50A and a 20A breaker labeled "GFI". as soon as i trip the 20A GFI breaker, the fan turns off. does this circuit supply power to the fan? i have no idea.

ok, i think i checked all of the obvious things. maybe a few of you can scratch your head too....

edit for update - one more meter reading taken after i put all 12v fuses back in and restored everything to normal as it sits in my yard when not in use

- i removed the main oem feed wire going from the + terminal on the battery to the oem distribution block (which im assuming goes into the converter). the current draw here was 1.1 amps.

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 08:37 PM

this is a quick drawing of my 12v setup (paint shop

). the gray line down the middle pretty much splits the OEM equipment from the things i have added (outdoor stereo with a head unit and 2 amplifiers.....as well as a power inverter. if i meter the current draw through the large power feed to my amps and inverter, and head unit....it is .14A. this is noticable more than any other of the aux current readings i have taken, but i still dont think 1/10th of an amp is out of line....

buzzards27 · 08-22-2011, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bocephus

this is a quick drawing of my 12v setup (paint shop

). the gray line down the middle pretty much splits the OEM equipment from the things i have added (outdoor stereo with a head unit and 2 amplifiers.....as well as a power inverter. if i meter the current draw through the large power feed to my amps and inverter, and head unit....it is .14A. this is noticable more than any other of the aux current readings i have taken, but i still dont think 1/10th of an amp is out of line....

Can you isolate what you added and see if they are drawing enough to put it over the top?

I think the reason the fan did not come back on immediately is because the down time you described gave the converter time to cool. The fan only started after the converter had been going a while and got warm.

You might want to rethink how you store the unit and maintain your batteries. I shut down the converter at the 110 breaker (I added a breaker so the converter is on its own) flip the store switch and flip my battery disconnect when I store mine. I would rather conserve the converter and use a charger or battery miner to keep the batteries fresh.

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzzards27

Can you isolate what you added and see if they are drawing enough to put it over the top?

i isolated my added equipment by simply unhooking it from the batteries. i have a 2/0 awg wire going from the batteries to a dist. block......then to each individual component. this is where i got the .14A draw from. im assuming that is what the head unit takes to keep its memory....

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzzards27

You might want to rethink how you store the unit and maintain your batteries. I shut down the converter at the 110 breaker (I added a breaker so the converter is on its own) flip the store switch and flip my battery disconnect when I store mine. I would rather conserve the converter and use a charger or battery miner to keep the batteries fresh.

i have considered this. i do have a battery disconnect switch, although i am not sure what it all disconnects. it is right by my converter, so i assumed it cut all 12v power in and out of the converter, but i could be wrong. this would perhaps stop charging the batteries??? then i could get a battery maintainer and use that. i guess i have never even touched that battery disconnect. maybe i should put a meter on things and see what its actually doing. if it stops charging the batteries that probably wouldnt be a bad thing in my case...

edit.....

went out and checked out the disconnect switch. it is nothing even CLOSE to a battery disconnect switch. i am rather embarrassed that i even thought thats what it was lol. rather, it is a disconnect for the aux 12v power source in the rear of the camper (the round cigarette lighter style). so ahhhh yeah.....sorry for the above comment. it is rather irrelevant

nailit · 08-22-2011, 10:00 PM

I have noticed with our Wolfpack, the converter fan will run all the time if the 5er is plugged into the house current (same setup as yours) when the weather is really hot (tomorrow, 110-112 forcasted). But, if I disconnect the the house current and just run off the two 12v marine batteries that I have on board, the converter fan doesn't run at all. I read somewhere that if the batteries are fully charged, the converter fan won't run, but if the batteries are low, the fan runs...what does that mean, I have know idea.

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nailit

I have noticed with our Wolfpack, the converter fan will run all the time if the 5er is plugged into the house current (same setup as yours) when the weather is really hot (tomorrow, 110-112 forcasted). But, if I disconnect the the house current and just run off the two 12v marine batteries that I have on board, the converter fan doesn't run at all. I read somewhere that if the batteries are fully charged, the converter fan won't run, but if the batteries are low, the fan runs...what does that mean, I have know idea.

the fan will never run unless your are plugged into ac power (be it at your home, campground, or generator). so that is normal of yours to act like that. it is also normal for the fan not to run if the batteries are fully charged (and your are plugged into ac power). it is NOT NORMAL for the fan to run nonstop. it is usually a good indication that your batteries are not charging fully. sometime you may have a bad cell in a battery, or a bad battery all together. but like i said....it should not run constantly like mine is doing.....and yours is doing

Bocephus · 08-22-2011, 10:48 PM

another update.....

i was out playing with the breakers figuring out the ac system in my wolfpack. i found out that the 15A breaker labeled "GFI" not only controls the GFI style outlets by the sinks, it also controls some non-GFI style outlets in the living room as well as the battery charger. i get a .3 - .4 volt differential in my battery voltage when toggling this breaker off and on.

i then figured out which breaker my fridge is on (because it isnt on a separate breaker) and turned that on too. from my quick inspection, the only thing this breaker controls is the outlets that the GFI breaker does not control, as well as the fridge.

all other breakers are off (except the main one of course) and the fan has not came on for about 30 minutes. i dont know if it is because the ambient temp is down to about 70* or not. i guess we shall find out tomorrow when it warms up again....

buzzards27 · 08-23-2011, 07:50 AM

Not sure what power center you have, mine is a WFCO, 8955 if I recall right. With the front panel off you should find the leads from the converter and be able to determine which 110 breaker it is on. Most likely it is piggybacked to another circuit with a wirenut. I added a separate breaker and isolated the converter so I can turn it off. I had replaced a defective converter and did not want it to burn up again if it ran away like yours.

If the batteries have enough voltage, sounds as if you do, the converter should stop charging and the fan would not run. Something is not quite right. Maybe it is the heat, maybe it is a fault in the converter, maybe it is a faulty multimeter (I had one go bad), maybe the batteries have a problem. There is a WFCO manual online that is linked in several threads, I have it on this phone but cannot figure out how to attach it here.

There is an undocumented test, not in the manual, the guy at WFCO had for me. it tests the output of the converter with it disconnected from the batteries. if Lou does not chime in you might call WFCO and talk to them.

rbarrieau · 08-23-2011, 08:19 AM

every one of the circuits in my panel are marked wrong.
Found this out when I was tracing a wire back from the furnace relay, this relay has seperate power from the furnace 15amp circuit.
The relay fuse was marked "REF".

Bocephus · 08-23-2011, 08:38 AM

The converter is a parallax power supply model 555. The meter works as I have tested it on numerous other things

Bocephus · 08-23-2011, 09:19 PM

i am messing with this damn thing again tonight guys...

i had left the camper plugged into 120vAC lastnight and all trough today. when i left for work this morning the converter fan was NOT running. when i got home from work the fan was running. voltage check shows 13.8 on the DC system......same as yesterday. when i manually trip the GFI breaker, this kills the battery charging part of the converter. over the course of about 2 minutes, my voltage slowly drops down to 13.3. is this a high enough voltage to satisfy the converter and make it NOT charge?

buzzards27 · 08-24-2011, 08:46 AM

According to the WFCO manual 13.2vdc is only a 50% charge on 12v batteries and is the point the converter switches between a trickle charge and a bulk charge. Your converter may work differently but it sounds like there is a problem with the batteries, the manual suggested a battery fault if your stuck bouncing between these two charge levels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bocephus

i am messing with this damn thing again tonight guys...

i had left the camper plugged into 120vAC lastnight and all trough today. when i left for work this morning the converter fan was NOT running. when i got home from work the fan was running. voltage check shows 13.8 on the DC system......same as yesterday. when i manually trip the GFI breaker, this kills the battery charging part of the converter. over the course of about 2 minutes, my voltage slowly drops down to 13.3. is this a high enough voltage to satisfy the converter and make it NOT charge?

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