Help with my campers inverter/ battery charging board

[Parkguy]

Hey all, I’m in a very odd situation. Hopefully this is allowed. I had to walk in the rain to an abandoned boat I sit on for service so I’m on mobile. I can’t really navigate the forum well.

I work for my states park service and am living in a hurricane Katrina FEMA camper. Overall it’s a pretty nice place however I don’t have heat, stove, roof leaks some, and other etc.

The issue I’ve had for a few months is if I use my interior lights, the AC immediately shuts off and doesn’t come back for a good while. This morning I was awoken by the AC relay freaking out and the breaker snapping, so that was fun.

Anyways it seems the solution I found online was replace the inverter / power converter board that charges the battery, but there’s some issues there.

I DID replace the inverter but realized my specs may be too off. Being government property I am not permitted to buy anything for it. It’s some complicated state thing. I am,however, allowed to pull parts off another camper which I did. The problem is I hooked everything up before comparing specs .

The converter is from a camper that says inverter input is 780 watts, output is 13.6VDC 45 amps.

I installed it into a camper that says the input is 950 watts and the output is 13.6v 55amps.

Will this work? I know one of the wires connected to the AC switch so I haven’t touched my AC or heat so nothing should be damaged yet (hopefully). It’s about to get very cold and I would like heat.


I’ve lived in this thing since august 1st. It’s been a bit buggy and I partially fell through the bathroom floor , but it’s been pretty comfortable . I just graduated and went from an apartment to this, so it’s been a learni experience.

Thanks in advance !

 

[Gronk]

It should work. It will just be 10 less amps. If it is as bad as you say, are you sure you want to stay in all that potential mold contamination?

 

[Parkguy]

It should work. It will just be 10 less amps. If it is as bad as you say, are you sure you want to stay in all that potential mold contamination?

So far I at least have working lights which is a first, and with a meter I get 12v at the battery.

Also another new development is that I have the furnace fan running. No warm air coming out but it’s a step further than before.

I wish I had a manual for this thing. I can’t find any marking identifier but it’s registered. If I can get them to pull the papers that would really help.

 

[Gronk]

So, you now have the blower for the furnace! Good!! Next is to figure out why no heat. Do you hear something making a tick, tick, tick noise? That would be the spark igniter. You may need to pull the burner and clean everything up and reinstall it.

 

[Parkguy]

So, you now have the blower for the furnace! Good!! Next is to figure out why no heat. Do you hear something making a tick, tick, tick noise? That would be the spark igniter. You may need to pull the burner and clean everything up and reinstall it.

I've been pretty sick the last few days and of course have continued to work so my time has been spent between work and sleep, but I have more updates.

So, I have been able to get the furnace to supply heat but only when I crank the thermostat to the max temperature. Even then it doesn't run for very long, which is odd. Today it got warm enough for my camper to be way too hot (in the 90s it felt like), so I put the AC on 75 and went to sleep after work. When I woke up 2 hours later my camper was ICE cold and the ac was still going. Playing with the thermostat I got the AC to shut off after putting it around 85ish or so. That sure isn't right.

This is a analogue Duo Therm with a slider for the temperature control instead of the fancy ones with screens people online talk about. Using the slider I kept sliding it around to see when the AC would click on, and it will click at around 85ish. I'm thinking maybe the thermostat is now bad even though it's worked since I moved in in August, and it was running a month prior when I started fixing things up and moving into it. I'm wondering if the sudden freak out my AC had a couple weeks ago was the cause for the damage, or if the thermostat giving up the ghost was the cause for the freakout.

Either way I'm guessing I need another one. My doner camper has the thermostat as part of the AC roof unit and the two can't be separated so I'm out of luck there. Also my local junkyard which was FILLED with campers and motorhomes (a yard I have been getting Volvo parts from for 3 years) suddenly decided to clear ALL vehicles and scrap them so I'm out of luck there. It looks like I might have to just shell out the $50 to get another one.

I'm not supposed to be buying things for this thing let alone installing them on government property thanks to the insane world of regulations which make NO sense. If I need a tool for a job and have it in my rolling mechanic shop of a station wagon I'm not even allowed to use it, I have to get my park to either find the tool or order one. If it was my personal camper I would have just gone nuts and bought a few hundred dollars worth of parts and gone nuts.

I'll have to talk with some people tomorrow and see what paperwork I can do and see if somewhere in the park service we have another camper like this that is beyond repair or parts. If I can somehow disconnect the temperature control section and wire in a house thermostat to do the temp portion I might be able to get away with that.

This is all a prime example of why you'll see weird fixes that make no sense on park equipment. Sometimes we are short on money, but usually we have to rig something up, do paperwork and jump through hoops to get what's really needed, and since the temporary fix keeps holding we leave it and deal with other things as they break.

 

[Gronk]

Just about any analog thermostat should work. Even the old round Honeywell with the mercury could be made to work, but you would need really good leveling for that to be accurate!

 

[Kevin D Pem]

I have seen a lot of help wanted signs.

That's the best advice I can give you.