Power surge 12volt DC

[Hutt]

My 85 U-HAUL converter box had one extra terminal left so I wired a line to run a 12volt DVD/TV under cabinet unit. I installed a cigarette lighter type receptical and plugged the unit in. The 12volt flouresant lamps got brighter and when I turned on the furnace the 12 volt fan motor speed increased by several RPM's. When I unplugged the TV/DVD, normal lamp and fan operations returned. No fuses were blown during operation. Any ideas as to what might be going on....Thanks Hutt

[Byron Kinnaman]

Did you have the trailer plugged into AC power?

If you did then most likely the extra drain on the battery kicked the converter into charge mode.

Just my guess.

I do know that connecting extra stuff to a DC supply or battery or .... will not create an increase in voltage unless it's something like that.

[Hutt]

Did you have the trailer plugged into AC power?

If you did then most likely the extra drain on the battery kicked the converter into charge mode.

Just my guess.

I do know that connecting extra stuff to a DC supply or battery or .... will not create an increase in voltage unless it's something like that.

The system was on AC power mode however there is no battery hooked up as of yet during restoration.

[Byron Kinnaman]

I think before you can determine you have a problem you would need to have a battery connected.

[Mike Taylor]

I had the same problem in my 1978 Chinook pop-up camper. It turned out that the tv was not compatable with the 12v converter. Every time I hooked the 12v cord up to converter the lights would brighten and it would pop the fuse when I powered up tv. The solution was to use the ac cord when on shore power and when on battery power everything was fine on 12v cord.

[Loren G. Hedahl]

Did the TV work alright through all this?

[Harvey Craft]

Be very careful hooking up electronics to the 12 volt side of your converter.

While camping last year we charged our cell phones on the 12volt side of our Casita and burned both of them out.

I checked the 12 volt outlet and found 27 volts of Ac on the 12 volt side.

I am in the process of replacing both of my Parallax 6300 series converters.

The 7400 series has good ac filtering so you don't get ac in the dc circuit.

Harv in Colo.

[Rob S.]

You might consider adding a DC voltage stablizer between the converter and the lights, appliances and other draws. It shouldn't be between the batt and converter. It smooths out the DC voltage curve. They can be as high as $150 but they have been on Ebay for about $15-30.