PD 4045 install

[slbran]

Hi,

I am replacing my old converter/power center with a PD 4045 power center and have a few questions. I know several others have done this but could not find the answers I am looking for.

On the 120 AC side the circuit breaker bus (the metal prongs that circuit breakers are pushed onto) has no connection to the 120 hot input. Do you have to run a separate wire to the screw that holds this bus to the plastic case? Seems odd that there is no defined path for such a wire. The old unit has a lug on the bus for the 120 hot input. Am I missing something?

Also,my old unit has a non-insulated ground wire that connects to the AC ground bus and I believe connects to the trailer frame. Is that standard?

On the 12v DC side there is no negative or ground bus. Not sure that I need one but my old panel has two 12v ground wires connected to a lug I assume is 12v negative.
One of the wires is the negative for the water pump. I think the other must connect to a common ground for the other circuits. For the 4045 it looks like I would need to run a wire from either the converter ground or battery ground lug to these two ground wires. Is this what others have done?

Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve

[cpaharley2008]

I called Best Converter when I replaced a friends, got the answer on the phone.

[stevebaz]

Do you have the wiring diagram for the pannel? If you dont you can get it on line in PDF from Power Products. You need this diagram and not be guessing. The pannel is strangely layed out and labeled connections are upside down imprinted on the plastic case in some places.

As for the AC hot line comming in You attach the hot wire to the Main breaker in what would normally be the power out on a breaker and clip that breaker into the buss, it back feeds power into the buss. In the wiring diagram that is a 30 amp breaker. In the wiring diagram the branch circuts are 15 amp breakers.

On the 12 volt negative side I brought all of my 12 volt grounds to a seperate terminal strip which I purchased and hooked that to ground.

I rewired my individual 12 volt dc circuts using 2 wire cord so I carried the ground and power to the same place and not have seperate ground connections all over the place where they make future repair very difficult.

[Thomas G.]

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...49478099,d.aWc

[slbran]

Thanks for the reply's. I think I understand how it is designed to work now.

My old converter had the AC hot wire going to a lug on the breaker buss. I realized last night that the pdf shows the AC hot feeding the buss through the main breaker. All other AC circuits are powered from additional breakers including the DC converter.

Also on the old unit the AC hot did not go trough a breaker before powering the converter or DC side.

Thanks,
Steve

[mary and bob]

For the 12 volt ground I put a bolt through the side of my plastic battery box and used that for my ground terminal. I used a junction strip for all the 12 volt positive connections. I only used half of the 12 volt circuits in the 4045. Apparently I'm the only one that has had this problem, but a couple of the 12 volt wires were marked with the wrong number, they didnt match with the fuse position. Because my converter is mounted on the face of a storage compartment I bored a couple 2" holes to provide air circulation.

[stevebaz]

I too had issues with the out bound 12 volt wiring on the unit. numbered wires were out of order and one wire with no marking at all. I used a label maker and tagged all of my wires. It will be very easy for the next owner to sort any wiring issues should there be any. I also figured as I get older I wont have to remember where wires went they are all tagged both ends and at mid span access points.

[Jared J]

Yep, the main breaker backfeeds the rest of them.

I ran my grounds through a trailer plug, so it would be easy to remove later, if need be.

The grounds go to a stud block, that also has the ground from the battery, and and the one from the converter hooked to it. For the positive cable, I used another stud block (without screw connections) to join them. I did that because the 4 gauge wires barely fit in the converter, and I knew as soon as the set screws were tightened, you could never take the wire out, and get it back in. Now I just have to undo a few nuts.

[mary and bob]

Thank you Steve, you are the first one to agree with me about mismarked wires. I thought I was the only one to have that problem. I've mentioned it a couple times, just to make others aware of the possibility, and maybe save some confusion.

[stevebaz]

Mary/Bob I thank you for helping me avoid the confusion, as I read your post and checked my pannel before the install and remarked the wires as needed. Its hard enough to mount the pannel and work in a hole hanging you head upside down and then tracing wires when something just doesn't seem right. Most people wont care they will just put in a fuse until it works. For me I wanted things layed out the way I wanted in the order I wanted. I feel if you are going to label it, label it right or dont label at all, that its easier than tracing miss labeled wires after the install.