Converter/Charger replacement

[bbwolf]

Ran into trouble when I went to install the Progressive Dynamics 4600 Converter/Charger (as a replacement for the Parallax 7345).

It appears that Parallax has changed the design of their DC Distribution board.

I've included photos here of what Progressive thought it would be replacing, and then the photos of the actual Parallax 7345 Distribution board.
Note: The new Parallax distribution board has wires grouped by colors and attached via a set of plug-in connectors, vs. individual wires.

[bcope01]

Argh! Alan, time to give Progressive Dynamics a call: 269-781-4241

Bill

[bbwolf]

Thanks Bill. Yes, I'll give them a call tomorrow and find out if they are aware and have any proposed solution.

[bbwolf]

I contacted Progressive Dynamics today and although not happy with their response, I do understand.

First, they were unaware of the option provided by Parallax to have a "Plug-able" DC distribution board. I sent them the photos and received the following response: (paraphase) "... cut the wires close to the existing Parallax distribution board, and plug that end into the Progressive Dynamics distribution panel... "

The two top wires, once cut, would be too short to reach the new connection.

I'm going to ponder this for a bit. Luckily, in a past life, I was an electrician on jets, so making 5 custom plugs with wires that are long enough to reach will not be difficult.

I was hoping for an easier installation though. Not that big of a thing, but did want to close this post with the actual response (below).

===================

The wires need to be cut flush or de soldered. Then Stripped to go under our terminals. Tinning them or using fork terminals is ok. There should be enough length to do this.

Dave Watson
Service Department
Progressive Dynamics
8A.M-12PM & 1PM -5PM EST
Phone 269-781-4241
FAX 269-781-8729

From: Mike Smith [mailto:msmith@progressivedyn.com]
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 10:02 AM
To: Dave Watson
Cc: Jeff Cornell
Subject: FW: New DC Distribution board - Parallax 7345

Dave, could you please get back with this customer to go over how he needs to hookup the new DC board provided with the PD4600. The pictures make it painfully obvious how the DC board works, an RV Tech would have known from looking at it what to do.

Thanks,
Michael S. Smith
Mechanical Design Engineer

Progressive Dynamics, Inc.
507 Industrial Rd.
Marshall, MI 49068
p: (269) 781-4241, x115
f: (269) 781-7802
c: (269) 908-1402
www.progressivedyn.com

[lonvanostran]

Rob,

Here are some photos from my website link referenced in the topic CONVERTING PARALLAX 7345 CHARGER/CONV TO PD4655 in the Coach Modification section of this forum. Even though they were about installing an earlier model Progressive Dynamics PD9160A Charger/Charger, these particular 6 photos and related discussion would also apply to preparing to install the now recommended Progressive Dynamics PD4655 Charger/Converter system.

Thank you so much for this post. I made the change today in our Born Free. The PD4655 was perfect for the change. I spent more time getting all of my tools ready than I did making the change. Good stuff. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

[bbwolf]

Question about Surge Protection.

Is there any need for an external surge protector when connecting to shore power, or does the Progressive Dynamics convertor already provide this protection with its upper and lower voltage limiting feature?

Do many people actually carry their own portable surge protectors, or is an actual problem very rare?

[bill crommett]

I have worried about that too.

[bcope01]

Alan, what was your resolution with the new Parallax distribution board?

Bill

[bbwolf]

Hi Bill. Yes, I continued doing research just so I could understand the technical debate between the Parallax approach vs. the Progressive Dynamics (PD). There is so much support for the Progressive approach of monitoring/multi-voltage schema, that I decided to install the new PD Converter. It went easy and works great. The Parallax distribution board had to have the wires cut off of it, to put into the new PD DC distribution board.

Turns out, it solved another problem I was having. The driver side 12 volt wall light kept burning out. Kim sent me a full light replacement, but within a couple days the new bulb again burnt out. I checked the other 12 volt light bulbs, and they all looked "burnt" inside. I replaced the bulbs (thinking they must be cheap or something) and sure enough a couple days later they showed this "burnt spot" inside the bulb.

After the replacement of the Parallax with the Progressive Dynamics, no more 12 volt light bulb problems..... I can only assume that the Parallax was sending a spike through the 12 volt system. (I truly am assuming, but the problem is now gone!).

I used the voltmeter and the new converter provides the correct voltage, just like it states, so I am happy that I made the replacement.

[bbwolf]

I found an interesting post about the use of a Surge Protector. Hopefully this is correct advice:
====================================
Source: RV Blog - Kirk - Livingston, Texas -07/15/05

As you can see, there are a wide range of opinions, many based more on fiction than on facts. If you are interested, this opinion comes from one who made a living repairing things powered by electricity for 40 years.

First the guy who told you that your circuit breakers will protect you should put that into writing and sign it, so that you can go back and get him to pay for repairs when it doesn't. A circuit breaker is designed to protect you and your equipment from shorts, grounds and situations where excess current may be drawn. But they are not intended to protect from surges and they do not open nearly quickly enough to prevent damage from a large one, and if that surge is big enough it will weld the breaker shut. They just are not designed for that purpose.

Electrical surges have been around for years, but they are much more harmful today than in the past because we use so much more solid state electronic equipment. The old style appliances were much more tolerant of short term spikes than what we have today. Such surges can come from lightning, from industry, welders, and even from the starting of equipment inside of the RV park.

The lower priced surge protectors only protect you from surges and they have an upper limit, above which they do not provide protection and they also have a response time that is slower for the lower priced ones and thus they provide less protection. If you plan to buy one, I strongly suggest that you get one of the higher priced ones as they provide far more protection for the cost. The better units not only prevent surges, but they are actually power monitors that will protect your RV from over voltage, under voltage, mis-wired outlets and many other things that are actually much more common than dangerous surges are. The most common harmful problem from your power supply is actually low voltage. If the voltage of the supply drops below 108V for any extended period it will begin to cause damage to motors and some other types of equipment. That problem is very common in older RV parks and campgrounds and it happens very slowly as more and more RVs arrive and connect to the power supply. They also refuse to connect your RV to the power if the outlet is not wired in a safe manner. That too is pretty common.

I do use one, but I have not always done so. I can't tell you that you will have a problem if you do not use one, as not everyone does. But the odds of it happening grow with each increase in the number of RV owners and the increase in power used. It is very difficult to prove that a line monitor ever protected an RV from damage, but I do know of three RVers who have had repairs that cost in excess of $1500 when they experienced a major surge. I also had an incident where there were three RVs on the same row as we in an RV park who were all complaining of major electrical problems caused by the park's power when I was not effected, and I was using my Surge Guard. I don't know that it protected me, but since one RV was next to me, another directly behind and the third two spaces away, I strongly suspect that I was. There could have been others in our area that I do not know about. We left the following morning so I do not know the outcome of that incident. But we also had RVs for more than 25 years before I ever owned any kind of line monitor and we never had any problems with bad power in those years. I did repair minor electrical problems from time to time that could have been partly from power, but, who knows? I did have all of the lights in our pop-up fail at the same time on one occasion, and I suspect that was a surge, but that was a very long time ago and the pop-up had very little electronic equipment.

Quality line monitor equipment is expensive. But the electronic equipment in most RVs today is far more expensive. For me, I use one, just as I pay for insurance on my car even though I don't expect to ever have an accident. It is much the same thing. If you buy a line monitor and never have a power problem, the purchase will have been a waste of money. But if you should experience a major problem, and do not have any kind of power protection, they you will feel you made a mistake in not purchasing one.

Like many things in life it is a bit of a gamble. I choose to live on the side of safety, but the choice is yours to make.

[Bill Dodgen]

Alan, what was your resolution with the new Parallax distribution board?

Bill

Bill

A few months ago, I upgraded to the PD4655 converter and ran into the same situation as Alan regarding the DC distribution block. In my coach (2008 22 foot cabover) Born Free ran their DC based coach wires into 5, color coded modular plugs (red, green, blue orange and yellow). Each plug had 3 wires coming into it.The yellow plug wasn't used in my coach, so there were just 12 house wires coming into the red, blue, orange and green plugs. The Parallax distribution board had the 12 wires soldered to the board and then these wires ran to the mated plug housings. All Born Free had to do was just plug the Parallax Distribution board plugs into their matching house wire plugs when they installed the Parallax units.

Here lies the problem: If you just cut the wires off the old Parallax board as close as you can to where they are soldered on and then trim the insulation back, they are too short to reach the terminals on the new PD board. My solution was to cut off all of the wires at the old Parallax distribution board where they were soldered, not worrying about cutting them close. Before I cut them, I marked each of the 3 blue wires as 1, 2, 3 and jotted down which size fuse each used. I then marked the matching wire on the Born Free side of the plugs as 1, 2 or 3. I did this for the Blue, Red, Green and Orange groups.

Then, I unplugged the mated wire plugs and discarded the Parallax side of these plugs and wires. I then cut the ends off the Born Free side, as close to the plug as possible. I was now left with 12 wires, 3 of each color group, and all marked so that I knew which size fuse they needed. Fortunately there was just enough length on them to run them through the metal housing and around to the front of the new PD distribution board where they were screwed into the terminals. (I do mean JUST enough length--very close on a few).

The only thing I purchased for this mod was three little plastic grommets to protect the wires coming thru the sharp metal edges of the wire knockouts below where the modular plugs had been. If you look very close at the picture of the wires attached to the PD board, you will see the black grommets where they are coming through the metal.

One more thing. On the new PD fuse block, there are two terminals that are rated just for 5 amp fuses. These are the two terminals on the far left side. I wanted to connect the LP detector and the Auxiliary Start button to these, and they were in different color groups before the change. Being a bit anal I guess, I wanted to keep the colors grouped as they were, so I changed one of Born Free's wires, I think the Aux Switch, to an Orange one in order to keep the color groups right.

Hopefully the attached pictures will show how this was accomplished. I tried for about a week to hunt down the Progressive Dynamics side of the Molex modular plugs, as it would have been nice and neat to just run new mated plug wires to the Progressive Dynamics board, but you had to buy them in 1,000 blocks of each color, so it was way too costly. I even tried to make my own plugs, but the posts also were just sold in huge quantities. After a week I caved in and just did it as described above.

Worked great and was well worth the little effort required.

Bill

[bbwolf]

Great pictures Bill. Your description was much better than mine. (I'm a bit embarrased right now for not having provided the depth of information).

My experience was almost exactly as you described. I was unable to find the Molex plugs that would have made everything so much cleaner. Even my electrical friend could not find them.

[Bill Dodgen]

Alan,

I've had a Surge Guard in line protection device that I purchased from Camping World in a drawer in the Born Free, ready to install, for several months now. Your comments on electrical surges have motivated me to get after this and get it done. Thanks.

Bill

[bbwolf]

Thanks for the encouragement Bill.

I talked with Progressive Dynamics tech support. They said that their convertors do not protect against very large power hits, and they definitely recommend we use quality surge protectors.

They said that the products they receive in a damaged condition have been due to lightning strikes, power surges from shore power, etc. If we use good surge protectors, we wont have to call them later (I could tell there was a smirk in his voice at this point).

They did not have any products to recommend, just that it is definitely the correct path to follow.

[Dave&JanPotter]

Is there a surge protector made, that simply mounts in-line on the side of your coach, or at the power source box?

Similarly to the water flow regulator that you put in-line when hooking up to city water?

If so, would CW or PPL in Houston, Texas be a source for such a device?

Yes Sam, there are several units like that. I've used a portable 30 amp Surge Guard from TRC for the last 3 years with no problems. I bought it at CW and use a bracket CW sells to lock it to the power cord and a second lock to secure the power cord to the RV as it is fairly expensive and could easily wander off on its own. I also wrap the exposed bracket/surge protector joint with a plastic bag to keep it dry here in the NW. It sounds like a lot of work but only takes a couple of minutes to set up. I went this way as it has under voltage protection also and I've seen low voltages often in the summer when everyone has their AC running. Here is the CW online info on that unit. http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/it ... uard/18336