Dustytrailer
Member
Hey all, we live in a montana 346lbq 5th wheel and have been since June. Now that it's winter time we're having some puzzling issues with the dc appliances. Namely the furnace. It's kind of a long story but I want to be thorough.
About a month ago it got cold enough that we wanted to try using the furance. My sister had had lots of problems with it when she owned this rig but had supposedly gotten someone to fix it. We set the thermostat and went out for the night and when we got home the lights were dim and the propane detector was beeping.
After a few hours of trouble shooting in the dark I determined our battery was not fully charged but seemed to hold a charge fine when connected to a 12v charger. I disconnected the leads and measured the volts coming from the converter itself and they read at about 8. I started believing we were having a converter issue. Got a small 2 amp charger my grandpa let us keep hooked up to the battery and it seemed to get us back to normal. We didn't touch the furnace because my sister said they suspected it might be drawing too much power so we just made due with a space heater running in the room before bed and packing all 5 of our animals in the room with us so they wouldn't be too cold as the RV dropped to 30 and below inside.
Que a few weeks of not enough time or money to do more, our lights dim again and I switch the little 2 amp charger out for a 12 v intelligent pulse charger. Everything seems good except one time where the lights dim, I go out and the charger is off. I turn it back on and were all good again.
Just recently I've had enough time and money to actually consider getting to the bottom of this. I find our converter, it's fuses are all good, the power from the outlet is fine, while the smart charger is hooked up it's reading around 14 volts. I disconnect the leads and it drops to 8. My grandpa who is a bit of a handyman (though by his own admission this is a bit out of his area of expertise) thinks that maybe it needs to be connected to properly output charge so I disconnect the charger, reconnect the converter. It starts out at around 13.5 and after about 20 minutes drops to 12.9 while just the lights and fridge should be running.
Turn on the furnace and it drops further to about 12.4 but otherwise seems fine. My grandpa thinks this is fine and nothing seems to be wrong but why did we have a complete failure a month ago? I feel like the converter seems to be inconsistent or at least not giving as much as it should and still kinda want to replace it while we have the funds to do so. My grandpa is also saying to not run the furnace at night and only run it in the morning but I'd like to keep the inside above freezing for our cats and dogs so they can sleep comfy without us having to crowd everyone into our room at night. I'm about to check it one more time before putting everything away again but would love some insight from anyone who has been doing this longer.
About a month ago it got cold enough that we wanted to try using the furance. My sister had had lots of problems with it when she owned this rig but had supposedly gotten someone to fix it. We set the thermostat and went out for the night and when we got home the lights were dim and the propane detector was beeping.
After a few hours of trouble shooting in the dark I determined our battery was not fully charged but seemed to hold a charge fine when connected to a 12v charger. I disconnected the leads and measured the volts coming from the converter itself and they read at about 8. I started believing we were having a converter issue. Got a small 2 amp charger my grandpa let us keep hooked up to the battery and it seemed to get us back to normal. We didn't touch the furnace because my sister said they suspected it might be drawing too much power so we just made due with a space heater running in the room before bed and packing all 5 of our animals in the room with us so they wouldn't be too cold as the RV dropped to 30 and below inside.
Que a few weeks of not enough time or money to do more, our lights dim again and I switch the little 2 amp charger out for a 12 v intelligent pulse charger. Everything seems good except one time where the lights dim, I go out and the charger is off. I turn it back on and were all good again.
Just recently I've had enough time and money to actually consider getting to the bottom of this. I find our converter, it's fuses are all good, the power from the outlet is fine, while the smart charger is hooked up it's reading around 14 volts. I disconnect the leads and it drops to 8. My grandpa who is a bit of a handyman (though by his own admission this is a bit out of his area of expertise) thinks that maybe it needs to be connected to properly output charge so I disconnect the charger, reconnect the converter. It starts out at around 13.5 and after about 20 minutes drops to 12.9 while just the lights and fridge should be running.
Turn on the furnace and it drops further to about 12.4 but otherwise seems fine. My grandpa thinks this is fine and nothing seems to be wrong but why did we have a complete failure a month ago? I feel like the converter seems to be inconsistent or at least not giving as much as it should and still kinda want to replace it while we have the funds to do so. My grandpa is also saying to not run the furnace at night and only run it in the morning but I'd like to keep the inside above freezing for our cats and dogs so they can sleep comfy without us having to crowd everyone into our room at night. I'm about to check it one more time before putting everything away again but would love some insight from anyone who has been doing this longer.
