PD4655 Install with Pictures

[duckdave]

Yes, several of us have fallen for the “you gotta use the new screws” trap. It’s been noted here before, but that’s a heck of a lot of reading.

[Fred L]

Originally Posted by duckdave

but that’s a heck of a lot of reading.

Personally I was glad to get it done and most was due to the many details added in posts in this thread. It was the minor things and lacking printed instructions that delayed my install.

Your note gave me a chuckle. If you didn't have time, or it was too much to read, why did you read it and then waste more time posting a note ?

[duckdave]

Originally Posted by Fred L

If you didn't have time, or it was too much to read, why did you read it and then waste more time posting a note ?

Oh, I’ve read all eleven pages alright, more than once. I still fell for the “you gotta use the small screws trap”, like you did, even though it’s been mentioned herein at least twice before. I figured pointing it out a couple more times might save some folks some frustration, and hoped that wouldn’t be a waste of time.

[Fred L]

Any idea what the black plastic 4 in long thingama jigger is.

[crazylev]

I think that black plastic bar is some kind of spacer if I recall. I think PD supplies that for other applications. Not absolutely certain though so best if someone else responds. Got me wondering.

[Fred L]

Originally Posted by crazylev

Got me wondering.

Mee too... If I have to pull this out again and install that..

May have to re-read this whole thread as Dave notes... theres a lot of things in there that can be skimmed over if not pertinent to what your trying to focus on.

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by Fred L

Any idea what the black plastic 4 in long thingama jigger is.

I asked Randy about that last year and he said it was for other applications and to just toss it out.

[SilverHouseDreams]

Originally Posted by Fred L

Any idea what the black plastic 4 in long thingama jigger is.

It is used on the WFCO electrical panels for installation, it gets installed on the "floor" of the WFCO converter area to latch the converter into place.

[jftompkins]

Originally Posted by duckdave

Thanks to Snowy for the original posting of this thread. His/her posting of pictures and steps for upgrading from Parallax to PD4655 was a great help!

Next, I'd like to thank Randy of BestConverter.com for his expert guidance and recommendations. He appears in Airforums, and in this thread, as a Commercial Member as 68 Overlander.

My transplant was successful and not too difficult. I'll just add a couple of comments about what I encountered. Most of these are already covered if you do a careful reading of this long thread, and I certainly encourage you to do so especially if you are not super experienced doing this sort of stuff.
1) Yeah, do disconnect all power sources, including battery and shore power. Go back and check.
2) Use your cell phone to take some pictures as you go. I kept a pad of paper handy to make notes on, too.
3) The way Snowy transferred all the DC output connections to the distribution board worked well for me.
4)The first two positions on the distribution board are for some sort of low current use. Didn't know what would qualify for that, so I started with circuit position 3, as did the OP. Theres plenty of circuits left over still for my simple system.
5) Some of the wiring needs to be longer to reach their destination on the new board. You can take the 4 securing screws out and move the entire unit out. Getting behind the chasis, you can loosen the restraint clamps and feed more wire into the DC distribution area. Don't forget to retighten the restraint clamps for reassembly.
6) Be careful with the wiring from the converter, below, to the AC and DC distribution boards, above. After I read of D44 experience, and before I fired everything up, I disassembled the covers and checked every connection—a third time. The three wires (black, white and green, should be loosely bundled together with wire tie) need to cross over from the right side of the converter and go into the AC distribution panel on the left upper side (with the circuit breakers in it). The black and white pair of wires need to cross over from the left side of the converter to the right side DC panel. The layout is not intuitive, so triple check this so you don't let any smoke out!
7) My unit had the weird "Y" splice that goes into one of the circuit breakers that is not mentioned in the instructions. The one that powers the converter/charger below. Unless you can figure out a way to reuse this "Y splice", you need to come up with a solution that does not have you putting two wires into one breaker connection point. I had a piece of scrap 14G 3-wire cable from a home-improvement project that I cut a section of 14G black wire (solid copper wire) from. I used about 3-4" to make a pigtail to the breaker. I connected all the other needed wires to this pigtail, reusing the original wire nut. Various ways to solve this puzzle are covered in several other posts.
8) Check all your connections again, before testing. I crossed my fingers and brought up various parts of the circuitry one a at time. I'm sure that was just superstitious behavior that did not help in any way, but it made me feel better.
8)You need to use the new provided screws to secure the face-cover to the now upgraded converter charger. The old screws are too large diameter to go into the new converter/charger lower unit. This point is subtle, but you can waste some time trying to reuse the old screws (don't ask me how I know). This point has also been made before, but somehow I missed it.

So, how's it all work now? Overall, I'm mostly satisfied. As I said, I brought various part of the system up gradually, so it took a couple days to have everything working together. Finally, I left it plugged in overnight and went home...

When I got back the next day, there was a very noticeable hum coming from the unit. All loads (that I know of) were off, the battery seemed fully charged, and the pendant was blinking in a "flash about every 6 sec" mode, which I think means the charger is in storage or maintenance mode. This was a disturbing noise. I took the cover off and inspected the fans, could find no evidence of fan movement. I turned on the overhead (incandescent, for now) lighting, the hum immediately went away. Light off, hum back. Tried some of the LED lights I converted: 1 LED—hum decreased, 2 LEDs—decreased some more, 3 LEDs—could not detect hum. Hmmmm (no pun intended). Put everything back in full hum mode, and went on and switched the LPG switch—hum gone. Next, I called Randy! He said this is a fairly common problem that usually goes away with use, just to go about using my system as I normally would, and if it doesn't go away, or at least become a non-issue, to get back with him. Now, I don't exactly understand why it's doing this, and why it would go away. But for now, that's what I'm doing. We shall see.

Ah yes ...the “Y splice” got me too. On my 2017 23FB had room to plug in another Siemens breaker same barcode model# $9.00 from Home Depot... so split the “Y”...now the converter has its own circuit...

[Fred L]

Originally Posted by pcskier

I asked Randy about that last year and he said it was for other applications and to just toss it out.

Thanks Peter. Had planned to do that and those little screws, that almost went with it.....

[Fred L]

Originally Posted by duckdave

Yes, several of us have fallen for the “you gotta use the new screws” trap. It’s been noted here before, but that’s a heck of a lot of reading.

Hey Dave, I was just reminded of your post. And you call mine a long read
But I will give it to you, yours is better organized.
Also had the Y splice that went to a wire nut and turned that into a 3 wire pig tail.
I like JF's solution for adding a breaker for sole control of the converter.
Was talking with Micro Air about the new Easy Start I ordered and they advised that its best to run only the AC off a 2000 watt Honda and the the converter may be too much draw. Not sure what else is on that circuit via the pigtail.

[marter]

First of all, thanks to Snowy for the very well-illustrated post on his installation process. Since I upgraded an older Parallax 7355, I ran into some differences. I created a doc with pictures showing the differences, but I know there's a lot to read in this thread, so rather than post a lot of pics, just PM me and I'll send the doc.
I have a 2008 International 19’ that came with the Parallax 7355, which I upgraded to the PD4655 purchased from Randy at BestConverter. I also replaced the DC board. I have the remote, but elected not to use it. I have enough blinking lights, and its not difficult to reach down and open the cover if I want to see the charger status.

Some thoughts and comments:

• My DC board’s 12v fuses were all 20 amp (which agrees with the owner’s manual) vs. Snowy’s 15 amp fuses. BTW, I don’t have a microwave.
• The older DC board in the Parallax was suitable for direct wire connections to the fuse block. The new DC board with the 4655 seems more suited to spade lug connectors than bare copper wires. I’m comfortable with the connections, but if I had it to do over again I would solder (or crimp) on lugs to connect to the fuse block.
• I also had the spliced black wire leading to the AC breaker. I cut the black wire on the PD4655 and used another wire nut to splice it to the “Y splice” while leaving the black wire with the existing wire nut. I didn’t feel comfortable using the existing wire nut for 3 wires, so I have 2 wire nuts splicing each of the 2 black wires coming to the AC breaker; the new one from the PD4655 and the existing wire that was spliced. The crimped pin connector goes into the bottom of the breaker.
• The PD4655 AC and DC wiring sets are on the opposite side of the connection points on the AC and DC boards. I crossed the wire sets within the PD4655 before feeding through the grommets on top. Keep the wires clear of other components.
• I assume the wires coming from the PD4655 are tinned (solder coated) copper wires, and not aluminum. Can anyone confirm? I didn’t want to bare any of the wire to check, but I can’t believe they’d use aluminum wiring.
• I strongly recommend pulling out the housing, loosening the strain relief collars and pulling some slack in the wires before making connections. I couldn’t have done this without that slack. Don’t forget to pull back any excess and retighten the strain relief.
• Because of this, I connected the DC side first, the remounted the DC board, before connecting the AC side. This is opposite of the PD installation instructions.
• Some of us have white panels. It would have been nice to have white screws along with the black ones. Just sayin.
• Just as a point of clarification, my AC ground bus (to connect the green wire) is horizontal in the top left corner, and the bus for the white wire is vertical on the left side. Different from Snowy’s pictures.
• I know the black plastic bracket is a throwaway, but does anyone know what the steel rolled pin is for? I hate having left over parts.

The installation took me longer than it should have, but then I chose a day where the temp reached 100 outside and the trailer was in the sun for most of my installation, with no power to the fans. I also have 2 knee and 2 shoulder total replacements so I don’t get up and down from the floor as fast as I used to. Probably took me 4+ hours with breaks.

Nevertheless, once I double checked everything, I flipped off the AC breakers and reconnected the negative post on the batteries. Everything looked good, no sparks or smoke. Fans started up, plugs checked OK, inverter working. So I reconnected shore power, flipped on the breakers, and still all was good. Slow blinking green light on the PD4655.

Hope this helps someone. What a great resource this community is; hoping to pay a little back.

Happy trails,
Mike

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by marter

First of all, thanks to Snowy for the very well-illustrated post on his installation process. Since I upgraded an older Parallax 7355, I ran into some differences. I created a doc with pictures showing the differences, but I know there's a lot to read in this thread, so rather than post a lot of pics, just PM me and I'll send the doc.

Hi Mike, thanks for the notes. Go ahead and PM me that document. Getting ready to install in my 2014 FC. I did it once on my previous trailer a year ago but always good to refresh my memory. You can email your doc to me directly if you like, peter@phkemp.com.

Thanks again for your informative post.

[Fred L]

Originally Posted by marter

but does anyone know what the steel rolled pin is for? I hate having left over parts.

Nice write up Marter, sounds like our replacements were near identical in all details, except for the temps - and I have brown screws for a black cover Already put some touch up paint on them.

Not sure how you did that in 100 degree temps, I was uncomfortable at 80 and ran an extension cord and fan in. Interestingly am also limping from a knee issue.

Agree, the only messy result from mine was inserting the 12v wires into the DC panel, crimped connectors would have been much cleaner and secure.

Glad you reminded me about the rolled pin, also had that as a left over ?

Likewise assumed they were tinned wires, being it was recommended as made in the USA, but cannot confirm.

Also a thanks to Silver House for that explanation. I don't seem to recall that being needed on mine.

Good luck Peter, having done it once it should be simple. The best advice that I noted and so did Marter, was pull the whole cabinet and loosen the wire clamps to get some slack.
Feel free to reach out if you need anything.

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by Fred L

Good luck Peter, having done it once it should be simple. The best advice that I noted and so did Marter, was pull the whole cabinet and loosen the wire clamps to get some slack.
Feel free to reach out if you need anything.

Thanks Fred, should go smoothly. I had to add more slack from the back when I did my 23FB last year. Not just for working space, I actually needed more wire to reach the lugs on the new unit.

[68 Overlander]

Originally Posted by SilverHouseDreams

It is used on the WFCO electrical panels for installation, it gets installed on the "floor" of the WFCO converter area to latch the converter into place.

That is true and now that Airstream is using the WFCO, those wanting to upgrade to the 4 stage units, you will need that. It is included with every 4655VL unit but not needed for the Parallax units.

[duckdave]

Originally Posted by Fred L

Hey Dave, I was just reminded of your post. And you call mine a long read
But I will give it to you, yours is better organized.

Thanks, Fred. And I apologize. I did not mean to say your post was a long one, but I probably was not clear, or did not proof-read my post well. What I meant was the entire thread was very long, now it’s at 12 pages. I certainly should not critize anyone for long posts—most of mine win the prize for length. And I do not think the collective thread, in all its glory, is too long. The devil is in the details, and it’s the details that made this thread so valuable to me. And some of the important details did not make it into my thick skull until the point was made a few times—so repetition is also appreciated.

I appreciate all the contributors and thank them.

[Fred L]

Agree Dave, its long due to details and its the little details that were the important ones, not so much for the proper working order, but to complete the job.
Looking back, it was as simple project, but I also think that in large part that was due to folks here sharing their experiences.

All good.

[marter]

Originally Posted by pcskier

Hi Mike, thanks for the notes. Go ahead and PM me that document. Getting ready to install in my 2014 FC. I did it once on my previous trailer a year ago but always good to refresh my memory. You can email your doc to me directly if you like, peter@phkemp.com.

Thanks again for your informative post.

Peter,

Sorry I've been offline for a couple days with my wife in our AS camping in the Black Hills and Badlands and didn't see this until today. I'll try to send the doc but connectivity is a challenge so it may have to wait until we get home Wed. Sorry for the delay.

Mike

[marter]

Originally Posted by Fred L

Nice write up Marter, sounds like our replacements were near identical in all details, except for the temps - and I have brown screws for a black cover Already put some touch up paint on them.

<snip>

Glad you reminded me about the rolled pin, also had that as a left over ?

Likewise assumed they were tinned wires, being it was recommended as made in the USA, but cannot confirm.

.

Fred,

I had no intentions of doing the upgrade in that heat, but got started and couldn't stop.

Randy with Best Converter confirmed that the steel pin is for a different install and that the wires are definitely copper. Glad he could confirm.

Thanks,

Mike