Fleetwood Santa Fe electric problem.

Hello.
I recently bought a 2007 Fleetwood Santa Fe pop-up camper. When I tried to run it on 220v power the lights just turned off and I couldn?t turn it back on.
After some time I finally managed to turn it back on some time after I unplugged the 220v AC cable.
All the power plugs works when the 220v AC is plugged in. Do I need a battery to run the lights even though I have the AC plugged in ?
Also the Truma air heating wont start. So my guess is that the battery is dead.

Huh????

When you plug your trailer into a campground or house plug, it is 110 volt....It is also AC not DC

That said, your lights and furnace fan run on 12 volt DC, so I would suspect that your battery is dead.....However, when plugged in, your power converter should supply that 12 volts

poncho62 said:

Huh????

When you plug your trailer into a campground or house plug, it is 110 volt....It is also AC not DC

That said, your lights and furnace fan run on 12 volt DC, so I would suspect that your battery is dead.....However, when plugged in, your power converter should supply that 12 volts

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Hi. We use 220v in Iceland.

So the converter may be broken ?

You did not mention that your were in Iceland initially.  All of Europe also uses 240V but any North American made RV's in use over there have to be modified, usually by adding a 240V to 120V transformer, before they can be plugged in. As a result, they still run on 120V while plugged into a 240V supply. I am not sure how useful the majority of the plugs are under those conditions though.

If you really plugged in a US or Canadian made (but unmodified) trailer or RV into a 220V supply, you could have done a lot of expensive damage, the least of which is the converter.

All lights run off the 12V DC battery which is supplemented and charged by the converter.  North American made converters, like any other appliance, for example, a microwave, a TV, the refrigerator on electric cooling, the water heater on electric heating etc. all use 120V AC, not 220V.

So, to answer your question directly, YES, the converter will most likely be blown if it was used on 220V as could some of the other items mentioned.

The electric system was modified back in 2007.

If it was indeed fully modified, then the converter/charger and the Truma will be fine on 220v/50Hz. If not, they could be cooked.

The lighting is 12 volt DC, so needs either a battery or a working 12vdc converter/charger (a 120v --> 12v converter would have been factory standard). Some converters won't work without a battery in place, but usually they don't require a fully charged battery. The purpose of the 12vdc converter/charger is to provide 12v in lieu of battery power when plugged in.

Good!!! Sounds logical since it would appear that the trailer was sold in Iceland where that change would be necessary.

Then the question comes back to your original post where you said:

Do I need a battery to run the lights even though I have the AC plugged in ? Also the Truma air heating wont start. So my guess is that the battery is dead.

Click to expand...

Whether nor not you 'need' a battery often comes down to the make and model of the converter. On my unit, the Progressive Dynamics PD 9200 series converters seem to function just fine without batteries however some other converter brands do require them and will not function well without them. If towing, you definitely need the battery as the emergency break-away system uses it to apply the trailer brakes should something happen to require it. The batteries also act as a filter for the DC power produced by the system.

A 'dead' battery puts a heavy load on the converter as it tries its best to charge it, I suggest you rectify the battery situation first then try again. (A battery is considered 'dead' of you read any less than about 11.9 volts across the battery terminals with no load or charger operating. A fully charged battery should read about 12.6V and a battery under charge will read anywhere from about 13.5V to 14.5V , depending on the charger and stage of charging using a 3 stage charger. (Most trailers do NOT come equipped with a 3 stage charger so 13.5V is more the norm.) After checking the water level and topping up using DISTILLED water you can try charging the battery using another charger or have it load checked at most battery sellers. Replace as required.

I suspect the Truma heater not working is also tied into dead or no batteries situation as it seems to need a solid 12V. This particular heating system is not well known here in the North American RV/trailer world, AFIK, but looks like it would do the job just fine...

HTH (hope this helps!!)

Thank you all for your replies.