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Topic ClosedAmperage of Pod converter 45 or 55

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Tibof View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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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furpod View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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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Direct Link To This Post 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 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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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Tibof View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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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Direct Link To This Post 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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Direct Link To This Post 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.
bp
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Direct Link To This Post 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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Tars Tarkas View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post 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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