Electrical question - tongue jack

[toastie]

Originally Posted by HowieE

You have what is called a dead battery. Not sure why if it is only a year old but if the convertor is putting out 16 volts I suspect it cooked the battery. The convertor should only put out about 14.7 max. Look in the battery and check the water level I suppect you will not see much.

If the battery is low and has boiled out the wtaer do not put a new battery on that convertor until it is either calibrated or replaced. If you do it will cook that battery also.

I talked to tech support at Progressive Dynamics today makers of my converter and you are right on the numbers, I put a new battery in
my multimeters and took another reading, its reading a consistant 13.55 volts.......

[toastie]

[quote=HowieE]
What I was saying was to remove the battery. To do this you only need to lift the wire off the neg terminal. Now that the battery is out of the circuit and while the trailer is pluged in read the voltage from the positive battery post to the negitive battery cable, while it is off the battery terminal. You should see the same voltage you see when testing across the convertor positive and negitive terminals.

quote]

Charged the battery overnight with battery gauge showning fully charged.
With shore power on and toggles to dc distribution panel switched to city power, attached positive cable to battery and with neg. cable off the battery took reading, the reading was "0". Switched toogles to dc distribution panel to battery power, took reading and it was also "0". Took a reading at the converter post and it is reading 13.55 volts.

[toastie]

Originally Posted by HowieE

If you are saying the convertor is putting out 16+ volts but the battery is only 11 volts when first checked something is wrong in the wireing from the convertor to the battery. You should see the same voltage at both ends of the wire from the convertor to the battery, convertor output voltage.

Solve this problem first,and get a charge on the battery,then lets look at the jack.

I still question the high convertor output voltage having had a runaway convertor cook my batteries but that a secondary question at the moment.

I talked to a engr. at progressive dynamice inc. makers of the intelipower
here in Michigan, I ask him if it would be alright to run another set of wires from the converter to the battery, he said that it would be ok, tryed it, and eveything seems to be workng ok, this is the first I heard anything coming from the converter, the little fan is working and the converter feels warm like its working, volt reading from the converter is 14.3v and the battery is reading the same, battery showing full charge. The tongue jack works when connected to shore power and when disconnect from shore power, ran the wire from tongue jack to where the bargman connects to trailer.

[HowieE]

Glad to see it all worked out. The sounds from the convertor fan indicate the convertor never had the battery load connected to it. May have been a broken wire or an absence of a wire altogeather. I would suggest you try and determine which. If it was a broken wire you want to make sure that it is removed or caped off so it can not short to the body in the future

Have fun camping