converter

jjustman · 08-15-2010, 05:07 AM

Our converter makes noise when we turn on the sink area and table area lights. Whats with this?? We put a led light over the table and it still does it.
Can we buy the led light and install them in the old light units??

Happy Camping,

Hunter11 · 08-15-2010, 05:43 AM

You sure you are not hearing the cooling fan on the converter? Ours will spin faster and make more noise the more lights we turn on. You can only hear it if there is nothing else making noise in the trailer.

**Lloyd** · 08-15-2010, 06:40 AM

We had a new converter put it ours this spring. It was squealing last fall. It was still under warranty. Now this last week when we were out, I couldn't hear any noise coming out of it, and we were running the AC just about steady. Now, that bothers me a little bit because I was always under the assumption that the fan should run when there was a load applied for cooling.

If you want to check for LEDs here is a site. Go in and look around or you can even give them a call. They are nice people to deal with.

http://www.commandelectronics.com/led-tail-lights.html#surfacemount

dalemac377 · 08-15-2010, 07:24 AM

The a/c running should not affect the converter as the converter only supplies 12v d/c power. The a/c runs on 120 v shore power.

**Lloyd** · 08-15-2010, 07:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dalemac377

The a/c running should not affect the converter as the converter only supplies 12v d/c power. The a/c runs on 120 v shore power.

Dale:
Thanks for posting. I hadn't thought about it that way.

Some times we try to look for to much trouble. Shouldn't do that-----it can find us fast enough without looking for it.

fhenn · 08-15-2010, 11:24 AM

Lloyd we had the converter go out last Spring, and it took out the battery. I can not here the fan on this one. Tech said he upgraded the converter. Have had about 80 days of camping since then

gossamar · 08-16-2010, 12:22 PM

Swapping out your stock lights for LED's will drastically reduce the load on the converter. I went to this website and purchased my LED's two years ago.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/
Like you, just by turning on one regular light, the converter fan would start to run, slowly. The more lights I turned on inside, the faster the fan would run. Now after converting all interior lighting to LED(except bath vanity), I can turn on every interior light and the converter fan does not even come on. This is not a cheap upgrade, but if you do some dry camping/generator camping, electric juice comes at a premium. Of course, I kept all of the old bulbs so when I upgrade to my next trailer, I will take the LED's with me

**Lloyd** · 08-16-2010, 12:29 PM

;ssamar:
If you want to swap out your vanity lights for LEDs, you can get right angle LEDs to replace them. Same place you got the other ones.
Like all the other ones---------these aren't cheap either. $14.95 ea.

Edited by: Old Farmer

KennyB · 08-17-2010, 07:19 AM

I just checked a 18 LED display and it was drawing 170 milliamps, no wonder they don't put much of a load on your converter!

gossamar · 08-18-2010, 10:26 AM

Old Farmer...thanks for the tip...might have to look at that upgrade here pretty soon....

efavilajr · 09-12-2010, 01:24 PM

The fan in our converter in our Cruiser would go on whenever we turned on just a couple of lights in the rig and my wife kept complaining about the sound so I called Crossroads guy and he suggested a quick test -- disconnect the coach batteries when on AC power then the converter is supplying all the 12v needs to the 5th wheel. Well, it turns out from this quick test that our converter was defective and was barely able to supply any 12v current (2 lights caused a voltage sag), so a new unit was installed and all is quiet now and the converter is easily supplying 12volts to our rig as it should!

Good luck

Stan · 09-12-2010, 04:43 PM

Good info and thanks for posting the test procedure.

efavilajr · 09-12-2010, 11:47 PM

Happy to help Stan....by-the-way, the converter is quiet now but strangely my wife is still finding other things to "complain" about! LOL

Chrisnan23 · 09-13-2010, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by efavilajr

Happy to help Stan....by-the-way, the converter is quiet now but strangely my wife is still finding other things to "complain" about! LOL

I beleive that is her job, yours is to find ways to explain it away so you can watch the game while enjoyinf an adult beverage...

jeffandaudrey · 09-13-2010, 10:52 AM

let get get this straight,,while on "shore power" disconnect the batteries and what?? wont everything still work fine cause of the shore power? what am i missing..thanks

efavilajr · 09-13-2010, 12:00 PM

Yes.........if your converter is working properly, it should be able to supply your 12 volt needs when plugged into shore power (110v AC) and the coach batteries disconnected, but ours was failing and turning on a couple of 12 volt coach lights would cause the cooling fan in the converter to ramp up and if we turned on 2 lights more everything would begin to dim.......the test as the Crossroads tech suggested proved that our converter was failing. A new, replacement was installed and all is working great now!! We can turn on every 12-volt light and no dimming.......

By-the-way, the Crossroads tech mentioned the converter should be able to supply its rated amp output without the assistance of the batteries. Our old unit wasn't even close. You can find the rated current output by determining the model........

Ed and Deb

Edited by: efavilajr

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