Converter Problems

[Jeremy Witt]

Hello folks, here is the story from the beginning...

This spring, I took the trailer out of storage, and went to put the battery back in. It spent last winter inside on a trickle charger. When hooking it back up, I had the wires crossed. Hooked the negative wire to the positive post, and so on. There was a large spark and the 12 volt didn't work the rest of the summer. We usually camp with electric so it wasn't an issue. I checked the fuses and didn't find any broken.

In September, we were camping at the Lanesboro gathering, running the furnace, exterior light, etc. When the overload light on the converter started blinking red. All of the lights were flickering.

I called Scamp, they said your battery is low. Took the battery to have it tested and they said it was wothless. Purchased a new one for this weekends camping trip. Everything worked great all weekend. No problems.

Upon arriving back home, I plugged the trailer in to an outlet in our garage, like I always do. When I went in and turned on a 12v light, the overload started on the converter and the lights were flickering.

I don't know what to do, it has a brand new battery. Perhaps when I had the wires reversed and it sparked I damaged the converter? Any ideas?

[Per Walthinsen]

Jeremy:

Hard for me to tell what is wrong, but I would guess the converter may be fried. Reversing the polarity is easy to do, it apparently happens often enough.

When I recently replaced the antiquated converter in mine I put in an InteliPower 9245 and noticed that it has two fuses and a circuitry designed to react to and prevent a reverse polarity connection. If I ever accidentally do that I would hope it works as designed.

[jrnutpaul]

I reversed the polarity on my trailer once and things happened as you said...It did not charge my battery when plugged in to shore power also as you said....

It turned out that at my converter there were two fuses....They are meant to blow if the polarity is reversed.

I replaced both and the 12v system worked fine and the battery recharged.

These fuses were the 12v auto slow blow type and they were located on the face of the converter.

Paul

[Dan Meyer]

One other thing to remember is the black wire is positive. if you hook it up backwards, you will blow a fuse. It could be any or all of three fuses that blow. One near the battery, one under the front bunk (or in the closet if you have a front bath model), and one in the fusebox in the converter.

For more information, read the Scamp owners manual, available via a link in the document center at the left.

Let us know what you find.

Good Luck!

-- Dan Meyer