Born Free Leap'n Lions RV Club Info & Discussion Forum

bcope01....Did you replace yours wth the ...PD or the WFCO...? Remember the discussion held back in March on converters where I had replaced my Parralax with two different WFCOs and had the same problem with both, whereas the cooling fan was coming on when about the third or fourth light was turned on. The fan circuit is load sensitive and not temp sensitive like the PD and will come on with about a 7 or 8 amp load according to the WFCO Techie.
The WFCO was an easy install with the Best Converter mounting box but the constant fan noise was not acceptable. But Best Converters supplied me with a WFCO mounting box that worked great with the PD.

But now another problem cropped up with AM radio interference. I previously stored the coach but now have it plugged in here at home and am getting static and squeal on AM stations in the house even in my cars in the garage. Anyone else have a problem? Maybe Bill Hemme has an answer.

Thanks....Jack

Jack:

Neither.

I upgraded mine with an IOTA Engineering 55-amp 3-stage smart charger ($140 on eBay).

WRT fan, the IOTA unit is extremely quiet, and seems to be temperature sensitive. That is, the only time I've heard it, and that was with my ear down near the unit, was when the ambient temperature in the coach was in the 90s and 100s. Of course, I didn't stay in there long at those temps, it was in storage along side my house.

I'm surprised about the noisy WFCO. It is OEM on a lot of RVs. Are you sure it wasn't just your unit(s)?

Sorry I can't help you with the squeals on AM, no such problem here.

Bill

JacK Lassen,

Did your PD charger/converter always cause a squeal in your AM radio since you installed it or was it a problem that developed later?

If the interference is coming from the PD unit, it should be there both when the coach is plugged into shore power or when your generator is providing the 120 VAC power. If that is the case, then I would suspect a failure in the noise filtering circuits within the PD unit which would require removing it and sending it to the factory for repair/replacement.

A more common cause of squealing noise interference in AM radios are certain modified sine-wave type inverters. Do you have such a device?

And a question for Ann P,

When you say that you went dry camping for four days and that you only had to run the generator about an hour each day to keep the batteries up, how much of a load were you putting on your batteries during your time in the coach? Were you running many lights and the TV. More specifically were you running the furnace - the furnace fan draws 6 amps when running and the furnace will completely discharge a pair of coach batteries in just two evenings! Extensive use of the furnace while dry camping will generally require the generator to be run many hours the next day to return the needed charge back into the batteries.

To Bill and anyone else who dry camps...Bill asked how I dry camped 4 days with little generator use. Well, that's interesting because it was in early March in Tucson, and the nights were nippy. My camping partner wanted the furnace set low at night so it'd at least kick in, but I was worried about using up the batteries and the LP . We ran the generator at night about an hour for the microwave, TV,and then a small space heater ;then in the morning for my hairdryer and heat. There were others around that we didn't want to disturb with the generator. Now I know the furnace fan is a big battery sucker-upper, so I'm thinking when I dry camp in Q'site in Jan., maybe I'll use the generator for my space heater or the furnace to warm up for brief spells, and not even think about having the furnace on overnight ,even if set at 60. Right?

Good to know the furnace can discharge the batteries in just 2 nights. But this makes me wonder if golf cart or any batteries will discharge that fast ,as long as I still have this "stupid" original converter. Comment-vous?

Ann,

I guess I should explain a little more about the furnace drain on the batteries. Where the furnace can deplete the batteries in only two nights is when it is relatively cold out so the furnace (and fan) run quite often during the night. I am talking about out outside temperatures down around 40 degrees F with a setting on the thermostat in the range of 55 to 60 degrees to minimize to some degree the amount of time the furnace is on.

I don't know how cold it gets at night in the wintertime in Tucson but probably not down to 40 degrees F on average. Where I have had some experience with significant discharging of the batteries in one evening is when I have dry camped in places like Albuquerque, Winslow, Grants and Flagstaff along I-40 on cold winter nights.

lassen wrote:But Best Converters supplied me with a WFCO mounting box that worked great with the PD.

Would you be good enough to provide some details on that install and how it meshes with Bill Hemme's instructions please. Also a P/N for the box. Thanks.

Dave....The procedure would be about the same as Bill's but I used the AC Pigtail and the DC wires with the WFCO mounting shelf. Thus eliminating the need to disassemble the Parallax unit to mount the PD unit. My coach is a 2005 so already had the newer style fuse blk. Didn't have a part number with the mounting shelf, Randy at Best Converters supplied me with the shelf.......Jack

Dave, will E-Mail you some photos...

Jack Lassen ~
I, too, would be interested in more information on your converter conversion and your problems with the WFCO noise. I have been thinking of going with the WFCO simply because it seemed to be an easier conversion than the PD. Did you give up on the WFCO and go with the PD? I would prefer to convert to the PD 9160 but am daunted by Bill Hemme’s extensive instructions. I’m afraid that after I cut all those wires I would not be capable of getting them all back together in working order in spite of Bill’s excellent details. Did you install a PD converter in a WFCO mounting box? … and if so, was it a difficult job? Any information you have about your conversion would be helpful to many of us contemplating an upgrade. Thanx
~ Bill Brent ~

Willie...Do a search on this site for a thread I initiated back on March 22 this year titled....Battery Replacement....which eventually discussed converter replacement. Check out those posts to see where we have been with this and then come back with your questions. Also if I had your E-Mail I could send you photos of the PD Unit installed in Best Converter's WFCO mtg shelf.
Its not as difficult as it seems and as you can see how well Bill Hemme has it laid out. And even though initially I was installing the WFCO I was modifing Bill's instructions to fit the case. By the time I installed and removed two WFCOs and then to changed to the PD it became a piece of cake.

Jack......

Jack, As this is on my "to do" list I would appreciated if you would send me the pictures of your installation.

Jack ~ forgive me, I am a little thick, … what I get from your post is that you have mounted a PD converter into a WFCO case and that it was somewhat less involved that Bill Hemme’s conversion. I would be very grateful for any photos or instructions that you might send. My e-mail is GWillieB@kc.rr.com . Thanx
~ Bill Brent ~

Bill Hemme....You hit the nail on the head, I'm getting AM radio squeal from the inverter. The 2005 BF has an inverter for the TV and booster circuit and its under the sink near the AC panel. I kept the coach in off site storage and plugged in there, now that I keep it here at the house and plugged in is the reason that the squeal just now appeared.

Mel Wilbur.....Hi, will get some photos off to you tomorrow.

Bill Brent.....Also will send you photos tomorrow. I mounted my PD converter on a mounting shelf that Best Converter has had fabricated for the WFCO converter. If you look at the Best Converter site they have a Magnetek Upgrade that is basically what I did with the PD unit, minus the fuse board replacement.

Jack....

Jack,

Well now that you have the AM radio squeal noise traced to your inverter, can you find out specifically what type inverter it is that you have? There are two types - a) the lesser expensive type called a modified sine wave inverter and b) the more expensive type called a pure sine wave inverter.

A modified sine wave inverter just by its inexpensive design can cause noise in an AM radio. If you have that kind of unit, I would recommend ditching it and getting a pure sine wave type of inverter. That should fix your problem. I use a Samlex 300-watt pure sine wave inverter (Cost $169) to run a 20' Samsung LCD TV and associated VCR/DVD player with no problems with interference.

For those that have used the WFCO charger/converter, is it true that you don't have the capability to over-ride and manually control the 3 operating modes of the unit? I think someone mentioned that lack of manual control capability. I know the PD system that I installed with the optional Charge Wizard permits manual control as well as automatic control of the 3 available charging modes.

whemme wrote:For those that have used the WFCO charger/converter, is it true that you don't have the capability to over-ride and manually control the 3 operating modes of the unit? I think someone mentioned that lack of manual control capability. I know the PD system that I installed with the optional Charge Wizard permits manual control as well as automatic control of the 3 available charging modes.

Bill, wondering why you would want to manually control a "smart" charger? Just seems as though you might get yourself in trouble. What advantages do you see with manual control? I've been using my fully automatic IOTA smart charger/converter for a while now and I haven't seen a need to control it manually.

Bill

Bill,

I just wanted to point out that potential difference in the system choices so that others would know. I personally like to have the choice of manually controlling the charging mode. I am not saying that letting these system's automatic control over the modes is not good - they seem to work just fine.

I have also installed a precision coach battery voltage and current meter charge monitoring panel, the details of which are also in the Coach Modification section at the following URL address: http://www.bornfreervclub.org/bulletin_ ... .php?t=437