↓ Episode 92 – Is the Battery Bad or the RV Power Converter

Is your battery bad or is the converter bad? This is Eric. With the smart RV or podcast, delivering the smarts. You need to enjoy the freedom of the RV lifestyle without the fear of breaking down. So this is episode number 92, and we're going to be talking about batteries and converters. But before we get into that, let's talk about living the RV life for just a moment, does living the RV lifestyle mean that each member of the family has to live at the exact same.

Not even if it is a family of two or a family of five, it doesn't matter how each person enjoys our vein. The ultimate goal is for everyone to have a good time and enjoy themselves at their levels. In other words, what they like to do, what's comfortable for them that don't get me wrong. RVN is an ideal way for a family to spend time together.

But that doesn't mean the kids always have to want to do what mom and dad wants to do or vice versa. Everybody has to work together in this, but at the same time, enjoy it to the way they want to enjoy it. You know, as I think back on my childhood, my dad was into. Harvey's came later on. So we spent a lot of time at Catalina island off the shore of California off the California coast.

We are over there almost every other week during the summer months. And we did some things together as a family while we were there. Obviously going over to Catalina was kind of a family thing coming back, you know, we're in the boat and everybody's kind of paying attention to what we're doing, but, you know, we were there enjoying the weekend, generally three days.

You know, my parents would kind of do their thing. Sometimes my dad would be doing something by himself. My mom would be doing something, maybe go to another friend's boat or something, you know, my brothers and I sometimes would go fishing, snorkeling, swimming together. But then again, I'd do stuff by myself.

We all enjoyed it at a different level. You know, there's the times where we all together. But there are the times that we are doing things by ourselves. You know, I don't remember just the stuff I did. I mean, I remember those things, but as a whole, when I think about going to Catalina, It was more of a family memory than just an individual memory.

Even though I do have individual members or memories, the point is we want to like the RV lifestyle. We want everybody to enjoy it at their level and enjoy it the way they want to enjoy it, but also make it a family thing. So we can't force what we want on others. So, you know, dad can't force the kids to do it.

He always wants to do, let everybody develop it on their own. And eventually it'll work out where everybody's just enjoying themselves, having a good time. They look forward to it. It's not drudgery. Oh man, we got to go RV and again, go on camping. What a pain, you know, that's not it, you know, after all isn't RV about enjoying hobbies.

Going to awesome places, relaxing family time, and most importantly, creating new memories. What a great place and a great way to create new memories. So I want to encourage you to do that. Expand your memories and RV as much as possible. Now we're to the section stain on the road, talking about maintenance, repairing your RV, keeping things functioning properly.

The most important thing about enjoying your RV is making sure it's working properly. So is your battery bad, or is it the converter? The answer is what we are going to explore today. First, the converter. Not an inverter, C O N V E R T E R. Converter that converts 110 volts to 12 volts, excuse me. 110 volts AC to 12 volts DC.

And the converter is used to charge the house batteries in your RV. Nice emphasizing convert, because so often it gets confused with inverter. And I know when I'm talking to customers on the phone in the store, sometimes you spend a minute or two. Trying to make sure that it is a converter and not an inverter.

Most RVs don't come with inverters. They come with a converter. In fact, all modern RVs, you know, have one, they have a converter now converter might be a standalone one. It's often called the deck mount converter, and they're usually located in a cabinet or a storage area. So they're kind of out of sight.

You might hear the fan running occasionally, or it could be a power center. And these are usually located on the front of a cab. And they're very accessible. You know, they have an access panel, they're brown, or they're black, you know, they kind of stand out. They're not ugly, but you can definitely tell us there, the fuses are accessible.

They're the 12 volt fuses, the circuit breakers everything's right there. And so the power centers generally have a circuit board in that. That is actually the converter. It's quite often called a main board assembly. So what I have experienced is that most our veers one replaced the converter or the battery without diagnosing the problem.

You know, I, I get customers on the phone, in the store. They kind of explain what's going on, but it's not a hundred percent helpful because they're not really sure most often they have something in their mind. Already and it's that they want to replace something. And generally it's the battery, probably 90% of the time they want to replace the battery.

And then when I start asking some questions, because they throw in the converter portion of it and the battery, they connect the two. So when I start asking questions, they really don't have the answers. And that's why I'm doing this episode today. So hopefully it'll help you diagnose your problem. And then if you need help on it, you can talk to.

With a little more intelligence about what's going on. And I don't mean that as an insult, it's just reality. You know, when you're working it all the time, every day, like me and other guys. Yeah, you, you know, the technology, you know how things work when you're not doing it all day every day, you know, it's a learning curve that you have to understand.

So there's a, the right way and the wrong way to diagnose a converter, the wrong way is just to buy parts and throw it in there the right ways to figure out actually what you need, whether it's the converter or the battery. Now, just to give you an idea how often batteries are misdiagnosed, let me share a true story with.

One of my battery suppliers was upgrading our battery tester. So that's the test or the check of a battery as good or not. So someone can bring a battery to me without a charge and I can test it and it'll see if it's good or not. So to show me how it worked, we went out to his truck, so he drives his big truck and he has new batteries in it.

And he has, you know, bad batteries in it or supposedly bad batteries in it. Now he's not selling, he just sells to businesses. So he's not the. The culprit here. You'll understand what I'm saying in just a moment. So on his truck, he has about 50 cores or bad batteries in the storage area. So he takes out the battery test or mechanic going through and he says here, so let me show ya.

So he checks the first battery and it tests good. And some that's interesting. So he checks it again and again. So then he goes onto the second battery. The third battery and they're good. So he's been to through three batteries now, checked him multiple times and hasn't found a bad one. So he went through about 25, or I should say he tested about 25 batteries before he found a bad.

Now just for the fun of it, he says, Hey, you want to check all these batteries? Let's do it. So we tested all the batteries on his truck and only about 10 were bad. And I'm talking about, you know, the supposedly bad batteries. So that was an eye-opener for me. How many batteries are getting sold that do not need to be replaced?

So misdiagnosing batteries is a huge deal and a good portion of these were deep cycle battery. And they weren't from me. So it wasn't my shop that was doing this, but it also could be not necessarily a shop, but someone walking in just saying, I need a new battery. They bring in their old ones that are on the counter and the person doesn't ask any questions and they just sell a battery.

And the guy goes on down the road. And you know, after a few days, his problem resurfaces more than likely. Cause I do get people asking me questions about things I'm converters and you know, I bought new batteries. So it's not, not the battery. So it happens. So they get diagnosed misdiagnosed quite a bit.

So the point of the story is not to just replace parts. Diag knows the problem when it comes to converse and batteries just don't replace the parts. The easiest way to get the diagnosis going in the right direction is to take your batteries and you can take them to. Any automotive parts store and have them check the battery to see if they're good and that eliminates the batteries.

And now some people might disagree with me saying that is one of the first things. Because there are other things you can do, but what that does is eliminates the batteries. If you know, they're good after they're tested, then they're good. You don't have to worry about that anymore. It's out of mind then it also gives you an idea how, what kind of shape your batteries are in what kind of condition they're in.

So it rules it out. So there's no lingering doubts and I've had that happen too. Well, I'm not sure if it's the batteries, you know, they don't want to get them tested because it takes a little bit longer simple solution, but that's not how you do. There's other ways to do it. It's getting the batteries test.

And not only do you know what the condition of the batteries, but it's just peace of mind. It's done. The batteries checked out. Good. Put them back in. Then you don't have to worry about that if they test out or check out good. And then sometimes you find out the batteries are bad and that solves your problem right there.

You know? So it can go either way. So even though the converter and the batteries are working together, it is good to just rule out the batteries, you know, and if I didn't ask people questions, when they come in and want battery, Or want to converter my battery sales would at least triple if I didn't push the proper diagnosis when I'm in my store and people are asking me about these two particular things.

So I'm speaking from experience. Most of the time, if the converter is working properly, the interior lights will continue to work without the batteries being good or hooked up. That is what can make it a little confusing. But the diagnosis is relatively simple to do you all you need is a few basic tools and a volt meter that can check AC and DC voltages.

So a volt meter is what you need because you didn't need to see voltages. A test light can get you close, but not close enough. And I've said it before. I've said it several many times, you know, have a volt meter, um, test lights or hand. You know, I just grabbed my volt meter for almost everything I do. It just is easier.

You can see what you got. So regardless of the brand of the converter that you have, you need to make sure that it has 120 volts going to it. So if it doesn't have 120 volts going to it, in other words, sharp, And it doesn't matter where the shore power's coming from, whether it's from ne you know, you're plugged into your house, you're at an RV park, it's a generator.

It's the 110 volts that is coming into the RV and it's called shore power. So if there's no 120 volts coming in, Dan, are you plugged in? Is the converter plugged in? Is there a circuit breaker that's blown, something like that. But that's generally not the problem you're going to be facing, unless you just end up plugging your RV.

So if there are 120 volts and there's still no DC output coming from the converter check to see if the reverse polarity fuses are blown. Now, these are generally two fuses that are on the converter. And what they're for is to protect the converter. In case you hook up the battery cables wrong, even for a split second, it'll just pop those convert a few.

So that way the converter doesn't get ruined. So it protects the converter. So if they're blown first, you're correct. The wiring. You don't just put in a new fuse. Cause if the wiring is still incorrect, it's just going to blow the fuse again. So you correct the wiring at the back. Then you replaced the fuses.

So that would solve the problem generally in that case. So if you're converged, not working, those fuses are blown. You correct? Your wiring at the battery put fuses in, it will probably be working again. And if they aren't blown check for DC output or 12 volt output at the DC terminals on the converter, if there's no DC output at the converter, the con, excuse me, on the terminals, the converter is bad.

Now, keep in mind. Each brand of converter can be tested differently. And that can cause a different outcome depending on how the manufacturer likes to have them tested. Most converters test, very similarly low, you know, depending on the brand. And, and I will have the instructions on the website, the smart RV or.com.

So you can check that out. But ultimately though, if your converter isn't putting out like 13 and a half volts, 13.3 volts, you know, at the terminals at the battery, you would disconnect the battery, check those terminals. If the power's not there at least disconnect one. If you don't have that kind of voltage or the terminals on the back of the converter, then the converter more than likely as bad.

You know, if it's not putting out or if it's lower than that, you know, if it's 12 volts, eight volts, the converter's bad, then you would replace the converter. But keep in mind, as I said, there's different brands, so they test differently. So getting the instructions for your converter and having it on your phone or your tablet or your computer is an easy way to go.

And, you know, I recommend that, you know, and I've said it before in other episodes, keeping track of what you have your model number. Serial numbers in some cases, you know, if it's there or if you want to just take a picture of the tag, so you have it and keep all your photos handy, you know, maybe in a folder marked RV.

So you can go right to them. But keeping that stuff handy, downloading manuals before you need it is always easier than when you need it. Especially if you can't find the right one, it might take a little, uh, you know, exercise of the brain to figure out the differences and will this manual work. But also keep in mind when you're.

You know, working on a converter, there could be an external problem. Like I said, there might not be power going to it. So you might have a problem in the AC circuit going to the converter. It could be overheating, progressive dynamics, parallax. They talk about that overheating and even generators since can sometimes cause problems where the converter's not working properly, maybe an intermittent issue, or even an overload as system can create.

So an overload and system would be having more 12 volt accessories on the 12 volt circuit, the DC circuit than the converter can handle. Which generally, that's not the case, unless you added a whole bunch of stuff to your RV, thinking that you have endless power and you got all these 12 volt accessories, but the way they come from the factory, that's generally never an issue.

So that probably isn't going to be the case. And of course there is the time where you'll have a bad converter in conjunction with bad batteries. It happens. And that's why diagnosing both of these. You know, you test the batteries, Tesla converter is going to rule them in or rule them out. And I've had customers.

They explain everything to me, they go get the batteries tested and the batteries are bad and they come back. Yep. The batteries are bad, but the converter still isn't charging. So I need to replace that too. And they test it and make sure, so it does happen, you know, it's not going to happen every time.

But it's certainly something to keep in mind and don't say, well, that'll never happen. That's a one in a million. Well, it's not. And I say that just, you know, with an open mind, you know, sometimes it's just, we don't want to spend the money, so we don't want it to be that way. You know, who wants to spend, you know, 250, 300 bucks on batteries, if you don't need to, or if you're just not ready to do it, you know?

Or a converter, you know, they're not cheap anymore. Fear find yourself needing to replace the battery. Always buy a quality brand battery from a reputable battery source, whether it's an RV store or an auto parts store, buy a brand with the national warranty and make sure it's a good quality brand. You know, we sell interstate and AC delcos and I know interstate makes batteries for repair store.

Or, you know, shops like what I have and they make batteries for big box stores and there's a difference in the batteries. And then when it comes to your converter, when it's bad, it's always easier to replace it with the same brand. And size of converter if it's possible. And it's always best to replace it with the same amp rating.

So if you have a 45 amp converter, it's best to put a 45 amp converter back into it, into the RV. And if it's Alysia Wolf code WFC O then put that same brand back in, it makes it easier for hooking things up, mounting it, you know, usually the, the mounting holes are the same. You know, simple things like that, which can be a problem.

Sometimes if the, if it's in a tight space and keep in mind, the RV is designed for the size of converter that's installed in it from the factory. So if you have a 45 amp converter, the wiring in the RV is designed for. You know, it might be a little bit bigger. It might be able to accept a 55 amp converter.

If you can just go back with what's in there and always use caution when you're testing electrical equipment, you know, you don't want to electrocute yourself. You don't want to short something out. You don't want to cause more damage than what's already there. And keep this in mind to the converter companies, you know, Wolf code WFC co actually has world friendship corporation and, uh, parallax.

Uh, progressive dynamics, iota. They all have a lot of resources on their website. In fact, you can get a lot of resources there to help you diagnose the problems. You know, you can go there too. It makes it real simple. In the meantime, if you want to, you can go to the smart RV or.com to download the troubleshooting guides for the major brands of RV power converters.

So you might have a problem you might not, but it's worth downloading. Having them, or even just looking at them to make sure you got an idea how to, uh, how to diagnose the problem. So now we're coming up to the next stop, the cation destination, you know, every time I do this, I always want to go someplace on the pack, up my RV and go do a little traveling.

But unfortunately I'm tied to a business, but that's okay. I get to read about a lot of this stuff. So today we're going to be talking about two different places. Roswell New Mexico and Carlsbad cavern, New Mexico. The reason why I'm talking about two of them is they're both kinda oh, smaller. You're not going to spend weeks at either one place.

nows, is known for UFO. So in: 1947

Everybody wanted to see what took place. And this is from all over the world. People came from everywhere. So the, the story was that a object or a UFO crash near Walker air force base that contained aliens inside of it. So ever since then, tourism to Roswell has been. Handsome. I must say lucrative, you know, steady flow of people.

So they want to see something, you know, they're going there to see an alien, see a space ship. So there is the crash site, which is about 75 miles away from Roswell. So it's got a little bit of a drive, not too bad though, with a lot of stuff to see along the way. So that's one of the things to see there.

So you'd have to go that and see the crash site. You never know, you might find. Moon rocks or something, right. Something that everybody else missed. So you also want to check out the Roswell museum. So there's a museum in town and it has Southwestern art, educational, and cultural things going on there.

And there's a, uh, a collection, the Rogers Aston collection, and it has artifacts from the 16. So the 20th century, so that makes it kind of unique. You know, that's a big span of time there and they have artifacts from that. There's also a golf course in Roswell that you'll want to check out 18 hole course.

And of course there are some sand dunes there where you can rent an ATV, you can rent a dune buggy and go on those tours that they have. So that's kind of. Then of course, um, you know, just everything else there. There's always food places to eat all the usual good stuff. Food. I like food. Right? Who doesn't then Carlsbad New Mexico.

So if you go to Roswell, there's no reason to not go to Carlsbad. If you go to Carlsbad, there's no reason not to go to Roswell. You already at the Southern end of the state, you might as well see a couple of things while you're there. Yeah, New Mexico is one of those states where you can be bop around to different places and see different things.

And you actually do some driving, but you know, it's not that much driving, especially if you've got some time, I've been all over New Mexico and I enjoyed it. Lots of do. There are lots of C, so Carlsbad caverns of course, or Carlsbad, New Mexico is known for the caverns, you know, the, uh, national park. And that's pretty cool.

I think you have to see that sometime in your life. You've got to see it now down in near Tucson, there's a place, a Kartchner caverns, which I've talked about. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. But, um, so it's a small version of Carlsbad caverns. So if you're in the Tucson area and you can't get to New Mexico, well, there you go.

Kartchner caverns is the next best thing. So the caverns are awesome and you can take pictures in there. You know, you can photograph stuff. There's not a problem. There is. So the Carlsbad caverns, uh, have been around obviously for a long time. But they've become very popular today. You know, almost a million people go there a year and it's a nice day trip.

You know, it's not just a one hour trip. It's a great day trip. Cause there's a lot of stuff around there to see as well. I mean, the calves themselves are just awesome and you know, there's the big room in the caverns. There's the natural entrance in both of these are very unique to themselves and to the caverns.

So it's a nice, nice trip then also why you're in Carlsbad. There is the, uh, sitting bull falls. So it's like this, a waste this in the middle of the desert. It's an awesome spot. There's pools there. You can swim in it. There's trails around the falls so you can, you know, have a nice trip there. You can take a lot of good pitchers, bring a swimsuit, bring sunscreen.

Because you're in the desert and depending on what time you go, you might need to use that. And generally, uh, March through August is the best time to go to these places, you know, just because of the weather, it does get hotter. There are actually March through June, excuse me. So, yeah, they're great places to go.

And so we're going to have some information on this, on the smart RV, ir.com website under the heading RV destination. So you can check out a little bit more there or. What I'd really like you to do is go to the contact us page on the smart RV or.com. And let me know about your favorite RV destination. I want to hear where you guys are going, what you doing the case.

So now to make your bellow RV years in via RV envy today is going to be about the Energizer arc five portable power. That's a thousand Watts of portable power. Now I've talked about this in the past. This Energizer is awesome. The portable power pack or the arc five. It's absolutely awesome. We've sold a ton of them.

Everybody loves them. I've been using one since we started carrying them. You know, I use it in the store. I take it home and eventually I just sell it. Discounted price and, you know, bring a new one into my little system here, but we use it in the shop for different things. I've used it at home. I've literally plugged my RV into it.

And it powered up everything. Now, granted is not going to run the microwave and all that, but it did bring turn on the lights, the interior lights. And I thought that was pretty darn cool. It gave it enough power to do that. So now I'm not recommending you do that, but it's a really nice addition to have because not only is it great in an RV because you got that portable power is great at home too.

And there's so many uses for it. If the power goes out, you have a source where you could actually plug a lamp in or a light into and have some light, you know, it does have a. Of its own on it. That's adjustable. So you can plug in to 110 volt appliances. It has USB outlets. You can charge it with a solar panel generator, 110 volt.

Charge it in your car. So it's very functional in many different directions and I've used it for charging batteries on my ATV charging batteries, cordless drills. I've run this podcast with it many times, um, which I think that's just absolutely Cooley. Cause you can't see what I have here, but I have three computers, a, uh, a road podcaster pro.

All this stuff takes power and the computers are overkill us. Just me. I like, you know, I like technology and computers are cool. And so I've used it for that. I've used it just when I don't want to run an extension cord someplace, I've taken it home, use it out in the garage, run things. Various things. Um, you know, it's not gonna run a Skilsaw.

It's not going to run a: 1500

So the arc five page and I will link to it on the website is, well, it's a smart RV or.com. So check it out. It's a really cool item. It's a must have in there handy as can be. And, you know, with a lot of things going on in the world, they talk about soaring, energy prices, problems, power outages might be worth having.

But it's definitely worth having, just for going on vacations with your kids can plug in their power to it. Recharged phones, you know, laptops, tablets, you can run a TV off it, a C-PAP machine. For at least three nights, we've had reports from three nights, five nights and seven eyes depending on the C-PAP machine.

So it's an awesome device to have. So again, this is Eric Stark. I want to thank you for listening to the show. Keep being a smart RV. And if I don't see on the road, we can connect@thesmartrvor.com. .

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