Where is the inverter on a 2017 Torque 396

Toreq

Member
Where is the inverter on a Torque 396?

My battery loses charge pretty quick. When I take the negative cable off, I get a pretty good spark.

I put a shutoff on the negative cable. The battery will stay up as long as the ground is shut off. Going down the road, the battery discharges slowly, but when the lights are used on my pickup, the alternator cannot keep up and the battery will go dead. I also loose the tail lights on my RV when the battery is dead.

i need to leave, but I will check back in later
 

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi toreq,

Inverters change 12V DC into 120V AC, so I assume you mean the Power Converter, which changes 120V AC into 12V DC. If you have a residential refrigerator, you also have an inverter that is dedicated to the refrigerator and comes into play when disconnected from shore power.

I'm a little confused by your problem description. Sounds like the trailer battery is going dead and you think it should still have a charge on it.

The spark on the negative terminal may indicate you have something drawing a significant amount of power from the battery, and that the cutoff switch you added on the negative wire slows the drain (and maybe eliminates the sparking).

When you use the lights on your pickup, the truck battery/alternator should be powering the trailer lights and also providing a slow charge to the trailer battery. So if your truck battery/alternator can't keep up and the trailer lights go out and trailer battery goes dead, it again argues that something in the trailer is drawing a significant amount of power from the battery.

It's not obvious to me that the Power Converter would be responsible for this.

But if you have a residential refrigerator, and the inverter that is dedicated to it, the refrigerator would certainly place heavy demand on the batteries (and you probably would have 2 batteries).

You will probably have to track down the source of the current drain. Here's a link to a post with a video that may help.

As for the location, the refrigerator's inverter (if you have one) is usually mounted close to the batteries. If you are still looking for the Power Converter, it's usually located on a straight line between batteries and fuse box, and usually is closer to the fuse box. On many models, the rear wall of the pass through basement storage has to be taken down to get to the Power Converter.

Perhaps another Torque 396 owner has been there and can give you a more specific location.
 

justafordguy

Well-known member
You have something odd going on for sure because you should never loose the trailer tail lights no matter how dead the trailer battery is. They are powered by the truck battery.
 

LBR

Well-known member
In regards to your truck alternator not keeping up the trailer batteries, I would turn truck key on and check for voltage to the proper pin in your truck plug...Use a simple test light or VOM and one pin will show voltage....If not, check for a blown fuse on that circuit. You should also check the plug's ground pin with continuity to ground.....may simply have a wire pulled loose at the truck plug or a blown fuse.

Every so often, I do a service on my truck plug making sure all pins look fine, are solid, and then cup a rag around sandblaster nozzle and blast all pins shinier than new. They get pretty groady looking as time goes on...A clean plug pin is a happy plug pin. On all of my trailers, the male plug gets the same treatment as the truck female plugin also.

Your trailer high electrical drain is definitely another gremlin to battle...Good luck, Bud!
 
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