HELP...we are on the rd PROBLEMS w 3 stage Wold Friendship Co power converter

[countrygirl]

I am currently on line at Burger King in Maryville Missouri...


we have a 3 month old 2007 3124 ks...we camped at an uncles home for a week and ahalf with no problems...the day before yesterday the lights dimmed and the converter stopped working...we bought a new battery...things worked...we left for a 4 hour hunt came back and same thing...battery was going bad ...converter not humming and not working had to sleep in uncles house again.

We had another uncle ....retired electrician come check things he also has owned a lot of campers he checked the power pole and it is fine (30 amp)...he says the converter is bad....do you have any suggestions? Dina

[rtcassel]

Have you checked the fuse at the battery? Sometimes the glass fuse looks ok, but the contacts in the holder can be faulty.

[Bill]

Since a new battery cured the problem for a while, I doubt that the problem is the battery fuse. If the battery fuse were blown, a new battery would have had no effect.

Just inside the door of the converter box, you will find four (five?) household-type AC circuit breakers (in addition to all the colored 12-volt fuses). One of these circuit breakers brings AC power to the converter itself. If that one had popped, and no AC power was reaching the converter, you would experience the symptoms you describe. I imagine that the electrician-uncle checked that these circuit breakers were all on ???

By the way, just looking at a circuit breaker is not enough to verify that it is ON. And pushing the black handle in the ON direction won't do it either. You must snap the handle to the OFF position, then return it to the ON position. Do this for all four breakers.

Beyond this, I believe that the WFCO converter has a reverse-polarity-protection fuse. If you hooked up the battery backward, even for a moment, this fuse would blow and the battery would not charge until the fuse is replaced. Have you disconnected/reconnected the battery recently?

Finally, I think the WFCO converter has some diagnostic lights. Did you check them?

By the way, my TM does not have a WFCO, so I am working from memory here. You really need to dig out your Owner's Manual - it is in the Big Blue Binder that came with your TM.

Bill

Countrygirl,


I had (I thought) an issue with my WFCO controller on our TM. I talked to a Dan at the companies warranty dept. He was very helpful. You can call them at 877 294 8997 and his extension is 106. If he isn't available just ask for someone to help you. Good luck...

Mike Anderson

Did you fry the electric water heater element by not adding water first? If you did, it may affect your electrical system. That happened to me once.

Dina

You've got a Trailmanor dealer just south of you in Grain Valley, MO.
They're located at Exit 24, on the north side of I-70, just 25 minutes east of downtown Kansas City. Call them at 816-847-3300 .
http://www.showmecampersandboats.com/

If that doesn't work, I'm an hour south of KC and would be glad to help you out. I'm jealous, our TM is already parked for the winter. Don't people leave the midwest for Florida in the winter? Are you all lost!! LOL!

Hope it all works out for you and you have a safe trip.

[Joe]

I hope I'm not too late with this.
I had a similar problem about 2 months ago after a thunderstorm.
I'm familiar with electrical problems so I checked the output voltage of the converter and it was zero. I called WFCO and talked to a tech. He was very helpful and told me the converter had a 2 yr warranty but the first year is handled by the installer (TrailManor). I talked to Ed at TrailManor and he sent me a replacement converter, but he cautioned me that if they got the old one back and sent it to WFCO and they said it was OK, they would return it and I would have to pay for the replacement. That did not turn out to be a problem.
The troubleshooting proceedure for the converter is too long to post here, but basically it is to disconnect the battery (that's easiest to do by taking the fuse out of the holder at the battery.) Connect the TM to 120V and be sure the converter is getting 120V input. You do that at the converter panel. The top breaker is the 120V input for the converter. Then measure the converter output. On my converter this was a heavy red wire and a heavy white wire. That voltage should be about 13.6 volts. If it isn't, the converter is probably bad.
If you have the capability on the road, go to: http://www.wfcoelectronics.com/docs/...2025%20052.pdf
This is a manual for several of their converters. It's a PDF file and on page 10 of the file (labeled page 7 in the manual) there is a drawing of the converter panel and more detailed instructions about how to check it.
If you can, download the file and print it. Even if don't need it now, someday you will.

The lights dimming would be my biggest clue here. This would mean that the converter wasn't working and that you're battery was slowly draining. It's definitly the converter but the question is what went wrong? Certainly all of the suggestions above should be tried. I will give you one more thing to consider. The main AC breaker could be bad. I have a breaker go only once in my life (in my elec panel at my house) so this is a long shot. They are easy to replace though and not too expensive. If you know how, you can pull the breaker and test the continuity through it. If it's bad, you'll know it. When you work on, please disconnect all power sources (AC and DC).

My better guess is that the transformer in the inverter has an open. This can only be fixed by the factory. My attempts at repairing things at this level (even though I can do it) have proven to just be a waste of time because it's difficult to hunt down the parts and they don't exactly give you the schematics so finding those is often a "no-starter".

Good luck. These are always "trip busters" I'm afraid.

Phil

[countrygirl]

Thank you for all of the responses. I wish I had been able to check them again. After we spoke to Ed at the factory we moved into my Uncles farm house for the last of our trip. We are currently enroute home and are moteling it tonight.

Bill I did look at my owners manual...there is no owners booklet just the info on page 24. I also looked at the electrical schematic. The other uncle checked everything thagt you suggested. He had a polarity gauge and used that on the 30 ampele outlet.]

Tire not will let you all know how this turnes out.

On the bright side....I did harvest my first buck ever...an eight point with a black widow recurve.

[countrygirl]

An update.

We are still on the rd. Saturday we stopped at the Drury Hotel in Paducah, Ky. After we had showers...my husband complained of a burning in his chest...he fell over sideways in bed....he was sweating heavily in a cool room....he was snoring but his eyes were open. I coulod not get him to respond and called the desk and asked for rescue. The were there with in 5 minutes....and enroute to the hospital thought they were losing him. They had to hit him with the paddles in the rescue and again at the hospital.
Today he had the heart catherization and his arteries are fine but his aortic valve is worn out causing his heart to work twice as hard. His brother is flying in tomorrow to drive us home. After he get homes he will have the surgury.

We look forward to getting home!


I can't say enough great things about the Drury Hotel chain...they comped our 90.00 bill the head deskclerk drove me to the hospital and said they would send a prepaid taxi when I wanted to return to the hotel.

I called my sister and brother in law who were camping 63 miles away in

Sikeston Missouri and they have been with us through this...however my brother in law was also admitted to the hospital with 4 perferation to his colon and a bad infection...he will be released on Wednesday. This has been one heck of a trip...after things settle down I might post about some of our adventures. Please excuse typeos...I am tired.......