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Tibof
Senior Member
Joined: 19 Sep 2017
Location: North Idaho
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Posts: 115
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Topic: Amperage of Pod converter 45 or 55 Posted: 30 Jul 2018 at 10:53pm |
Be cool everyone and thanks for all the help. I should have been clearer. Converter is toast for a 60 cents reason: one of the high temp cement resistors simply fell right out. It was inside on the floor. Hold it back in place and things work. Can’t easily be soldered back in. Originally done by circuit board machine. Real junk! We will replace with Progressive Dynamics converter. I am familiar with them. Ruined trip in a one week window of summer opportunity.
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2015 Pod Hood River Edition
2012 Tacoma Crew Cab 4 Liter
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furpod
Moderator Group - pHp
Joined: 25 Jul 2011
Location: Central KY
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Posts: 6128
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 7:27am |
Originally posted by Tibof
Be cool everyone and thanks for all the help. I should have been clearer. Converter is toast for a 60 cents reason: one of the high temp cement resistors simply fell right out. It was inside on the floor. Hold it back in place and things work. Can’t easily be soldered back in. Originally done by circuit board machine. Real junk! We will replace with Progressive Dynamics converter. I am familiar with them. Ruined trip in a one week window of summer opportunity. |
Doesn't have to be a ruined trip, run to wally world and grab a battery charger, use it to keep the battery topped off. In the future, loan it to a fellow camper and be the hero that saves their trip.. I have loaned ours twice now..
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Tibof
Senior Member
Joined: 19 Sep 2017
Location: North Idaho
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Posts: 115
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 10:44am |
Good suggestion, but not quite that easy. Three days invested in trying to get the issue diagnosed. And original presumption was that with the converter out, the batteries would not feed the Pod.
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2015 Pod Hood River Edition
2012 Tacoma Crew Cab 4 Liter
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Happy Tripping
Senior Member
Joined: 27 May 2014
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Posts: 473
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 11:11am |
Originally posted by Tibof
Ruined trip in a one week window of summer opportunity. |
I am very sorry for the ruined trip.
Maybe a little consolation (?) is that some of us are now seriously looking at getting battery chargers.
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Richand Cindy
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Joined: 16 Apr 2016
Location: New Jersey
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Posts: 328
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 1:45pm |
This new section "I need help" can be a real lifesaver. Within two hours of posting there was an answer to the issue and the trip could have been saved. It helped us when our converter broke while on the road and saved our trip and that was before there was this "help" section. Lesson learned is try to have access to this forum while on the road and post a question as soon as you get into trouble. In this case we realize that Tibof asked the question on behalf of his kids so there was three days time lost. Its great to have this resource. Wish the Keystone forum was this good. Its terrible, mostly because it deals with all products and so there is one general board for all Keystone travel trailers so many posted answers to not apply to your unit.
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OLD 2017.5 RPOD 180 + 2015 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk
NEW: 2018 Passport Elite 23RB + 2017 Ram 1500 Diesel
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Tibof
Senior Member
Joined: 19 Sep 2017
Location: North Idaho
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Posts: 115
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 3:31pm |
BTW, the American source for the WFCO converter (which is now a year out of warranty) acknowledged that it was very unusual for a heat resistant ceramic resistor to fall out of the circuit board; not something they see. Yet it "must have had to do with how I was using it, overheating it and contributing to the resistor desoldering itself." Really? This product is junk. I will replace it with a Progressive Dynamics unit, with which I've had long and dependable experience.
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2015 Pod Hood River Edition
2012 Tacoma Crew Cab 4 Liter
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mcarter
podders Helping podders - pHp
Joined: 07 Apr 2016
Location: Greenbrier, TN
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Posts: 3419
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 3:49pm |
Hmmm. My Pod has the original WFCO convertor, almost 4 years old. It's never been replaced. I understand electronic components fail, even bad manufacturing runs, maybe. End of the day pretty easy to diagnose if components are on the floor. Find it hard to beleive how you used it had anything to do with failure. The PD unit is probably way to go, but it could fail someday too. I think because yours failed doesn't make them all junk.
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Mike Carter
2015 178
" I had the right to remain silent, I just didn't have the ability."
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GlueGuy
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Joined: 15 May 2017
Location: N. California
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Posts: 2653
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 5:09pm |
Originally posted by Tibof
BTW, the American source for the WFCO converter (which is now a year out of warranty) acknowledged that it was very unusual for a heat resistant ceramic resistor to fall out of the circuit board; not something they see. Yet it "must have had to do with how I was using it, overheating it and contributing to the resistor desoldering itself." Really? This product is junk. I will replace it with a Progressive Dynamics unit, with which I've had long and dependable experience. |
It could be as simple as the high-heat resistor being improperly mounted too close to the circuit board. Any time you're using high heat (ceramic) resistors, there needs to be an accommodation for that by mounting it with long leads (to keep it away from the circuit board) and/or using a clip-on heat sink. Ceramic resistors are expected to get hot. They just need to be managed. Circuit boards are not designed to get hot.
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bp
2017 R-Pod 179 Hood River
2015 Ford F150 SuperCrew 4WD 3.5L Ecoboost
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TheBum
Senior Member
Joined: 26 Feb 2016
Location: Texas
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Posts: 1407
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 6:37pm |
Or, could have been a cold solder joint. If one end came loose, then with the bouncing of the Pod in transit, the other would probably shear off.
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Alan
2022 R-Pod 196 "RaptoRPod"
2022 Ram 1500 Lone Star 4x4
Three cats
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Tars Tarkas
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Joined: 14 Jan 2013
Location: Near Nashville
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Posted: 31 Jul 2018 at 7:04pm |
Originally posted by Tibof
BTW, the American source for the WFCO converter (which is now a year out of warranty) acknowledged that it was very unusual for a heat resistant ceramic resistor to fall out of the circuit board; not something they see. Yet it "must have had to do with how I was using it, overheating it and contributing to the resistor desoldering itself." Really? This product is junk. I will replace it with a Progressive Dynamics unit, with which I've had long and dependable experience. | I agree with Mike about this. My converter is the original WFCO from 2010. Never a hint of trouble. (Knock on wood.)
From everything I've heard, the PD converter is better and that's the way I'll go if the need ever arises, but I don't know if a few failures out of thousands of WFCO converters out there indicate that they are junk. I did hear also that there were a batch of low QC WFCO converters on the market a few years ago. I think WFCO took care of most of those under warranty.
TT
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2010 176
FJ Cruiser
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