Converter problems?

[Montana3610]

Had an issue this past week while camping. Seems my converter wanted to be in boost mode and kept repeatedly tripping my auto resetting breaker up front by the batteries. It would trip the breaker about every 10 seconds. I manually put the converter into normal mode to stop this cycle fearing any damage to,the converter or coach. My questions are is this a bad converter or a weak resettable breaker? My batteries were charged so I don't understand why my converter wanted to be in boost mode. My converter does make a humming noise from time to time, im hoping that is normal. It's a inteli power 4500. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated...

[Lenny K]

Never heard of this happening before but how do you know your batteries are fully charged?

[Lenny K]

I am not an electrician but I always thought a resettable breaker trips when to much current draw is going through it for its rating. So do you have some kind of a large draw happening?
I'm sure someone that is more knowledgeable about this will pipe in soon.

[Montana3610]

I keep my batteries on a smart charger, put them in the coach then leave. Drove 3 hours to campsite then plugged in. Even if my batteries were below 90 percent that doesn't explain the constant tripping of the breaker. I wish I knew more about the electrical on my coach. Need to do some research but it's difficult to ask the questions right online to get an answer. Thank you very much for your input...

[jeffba]

If your reset-able fuse is factory installed- one can assume it is properly sized.
So yes it could be defective. or it could be there is too much of a load on the inverter.

it could also be a in improperly resetta ble fuse.

[Montana3610]

It's a 90 amp converter but anything is possible with these rv's. It does concern me that it was stuck in boost mode but I think I will start with replacing that resettable fuse. If it still does it I guess I move on to the converter. Thanks so much for your reply...

[Carl n Susan]

Funny you should mentions this! I had exactly the same problem this winter. After boondoocking for three nights, I finally had a chance to run the generator to re-charge. Understand I have six 6V batteries and I was running my TV, DirecTV receiver, stereo, and three computers along with the normal lights, etc. I had run the batteries down to 50%.

My symptoms were a little different. The generator was surging. It would run at high RPM for 10-15 seconds, then drop to idle and repeat. When I stuck my head in the front compartment, I heard that stupid self-resetting breaker do its self-resetting thing repeatedly. I changed out the breaker and all was well.

That 90 amp converter can definitely over power the self-resetting breaker if it is weak and you are in a high charge mode.

[Montana3610]

Thanks for your reply. I put my volt meter on the batteries while it was doing this and could see what it was doing. As soon as it went to 14.4 volts it would trip the breaker and drop to 13.6 then repeat. I'm going to follow your lead and replace the breaker and hope it solves the issue. Thanks again Carl n Susan...

[jcurtis934]

Obiviously, your converter thinks it needs to de-sulphate the batteries OR if the converter has its program to go into this mode every XX hours as the progressive dynamics converter does, you could be seeing it trying to complete this cycle. You could just short across the resettable to see if the converter completes the cycle. How old of a montana do you have...has to be an oldie given the make of your converter....hence could very well be a old weak thermal switch.

[Montana3610]

It's a 2015 Montana 3610. I'm hoping that the resettable breaker is bad. It did this once before about a year ago. I suppose it's possible the batteries were below 90 percent but all I did was level up the coach with the batteries at a full charge. Thank you for your advice...