power converter location.

Well here is another newbie looking for help. I have a 2011 Greystone 5th wheel and i am
having trouble locating the converter. It is the model that has the entertainment section
and fireplace at the rear, and the queen size bedroom at the front. It has 3 tip outs, kitchen
in the middle, and washroom to the left of the 3 step walkup to the bedroom. Sure would
appreciate some help. My converter seems to stay stuck in a loop. Will only work if my
3000 watt inverter is on. It use to work without the inverter being on.I just can't find
the location of the converter to test it. Thanks so much, hope you can help.

Welcome to the forum. This is a great place with a lot of great people sharing information. You should get some help.
The converter is located behind the wall in the basement.
You will have to remove one or both of the black carpeted walls.
Also, I recall reading something about using an inverter with a converter. Seems that there is a procedure for disabling the converter while using an inverter.
Have you done that? Might not be a problem with the converter.
Hopefully someone with that setup will help out here.

Peace
Dave

Hi droopyhere,

As Dave said, it's probably behind the basement wall. If you picture a line between the fuse box and the battery, the power converter will be somewhere near that line.

If you are looking for it because the battery is not getting charged when on shore power, or your 12V lights and appliances don't work when disconnected from shore power, take a look at our 12V Block Diagram and Diagnostic guide. You may have tripped the manual-reset 12V circuit breaker on the buss bar near the battery.

can't find my converter

Newbie here, I have a 2011 Greystone GS-32RE 5th wheel, I am trying to locate my converter. I looked behind the fuse panel,the fireplace, the stereo,
and behind the panel in the crawl space where the pump is and found nothing. I spoke with the service guy where I bought the trailer and he said
that my relay and fuse panel was my converter????????? never heard of this before. If anyone knows this trailer I sure could use your help.

Hi droopyhere,

I looked behind the fuse panel,.....and behind the panel in the crawl space where the pump is and found nothing

Click to expand...

Did you take down the rear wall in the basement storage area? Btw, I merged your 2 threads together so all the answers stay in one place.

Hello and thank you for your response. I have a GS-32RE 5th wheel Greystone 2011. In my crawl space( is this the basement?) i removed one of the walls
and the only things in there were the pump,ducting and wires,no converter. That was the only wall with screws and removable. The wall on the other side is not removable.
I looked behind the stereo,the fireplace and the fuse panel and still nothing. Spoke with an employee from where i purchased my trailer and he said that the fuse panel
was my converter??????????not to sure about that statement.I have a 290 watt solar panel and a 3000 watt inverter hooked up to 5 batteries.At the beginning all
had to do was turn off the converter then turn on the inverter and all would run perfectly. Now i have to keep the converter switch on at the same time as my inverter
and thats not suppose to be because the converter draws to much amps. I need to find my converter and test it.

I cannot imagine the greystone having the integral converter and breaker/fuse panel. They usually look like this picture.

It is more thank likely something like this. It is separate from the panel is usually located in the basement of the Heartland models.

I have a picture at home showing where my converter was located in the basement when the fifth wheel came from the factory. It was located way up back behind the basement wall (that you have removed), near the backside of the stairs that led up to my bedroom. It happened to be near the backside of my fuse panel (12V DC, Direct Current). This is what my 12V DC fuse panel looks like, and this is what my 120V breaker panel looks like. They are separate units, which you should be able to confirm by looking at your unit. If you have a combined AC and DC panel, it may look like this.

Click on all of the links to view the pictures.

Hope this helps,
Brian

Many many thanks, this will be a great help. I can;t believe the guy at the RV told me that load of kaka guess because im a female
i'm not to know these things lol. I'll post what happens after my search for the elusive converter. Thanks agin

Droopy:
I think you need to call Heartland Service with your VIN number, and they should be able to pull up a build list on your unit, tell you what brand and model converter you have, and where it is. From the brand model info, you should be able to find a picture of it on the Google images search.

On running the converter from the inverter. The converter (I prefer to call them converter/battery chargers) is a STANDARD piece of equipment on most every RV that plugs in to AC shore power. It will run your lower current 12 volt DC devices like lights, etc. by converting incoming AC shore power into 12 volt DC power. It also normally charges a battery so that you can use these devices (along with higher current devices like landing gear) when not plugged in. The INVERTER does the opposite - it takes in current from the battery and outputs AC power like you get from the shore power cord. The problem with using your inverter AC output to run your converter/charger is that you are just wasting energy from your battery - you are not effectively charging your battery as you take more energy out of the battery to run the inverter than the converter/charger puts back into the battery. This is because both the inverter and the converter are not 100% efficient and waste energy, and you cannot put more energy into the battery (charging) than you take out of the same battery (discharging). It's all one closed system in that configuration. I turn off my converter/charger breaker when I run my AC system on inverter power. The one time I forgot, the system didn't run too long before the batteries went down.

The other thing to remember on inverter systems is the 10 to 1 current ratio. If you draw 10 amps of 120 volts AC power from your inverter, you will be drawing 100 amps of 12 volt DC power from your batteries. Actually, due to the inefficiencies I cited before the input current is actually more, but 10:1 is easy to figure. Those high amperage 12 volt draws demand an adequate battery bank and large cabling to reduce wiring voltage losses.

BTW, no female bias here. Sometimes when you teach a subject you can't assume knowledge of all of the fundamentals. I hope everything works out for you.