Motorhome Inverter

[beetlebug]

The inverter in my motorhome went out and I am waiting for the new one to come in.  When I was running generator yesterday, I noticed house batteries were not charging. Are the two related or do I have another problem?

 

[Rene T]

Do you have a INverter or a CONverter?
A  inverter converts 12 Volt DC power from the battery to 120 Volt AC. Usually to power a residential fridge.
A CONverter converts 110 Volt AC to 12 Volt DC to power all the 12 volt items in your RV.
Both can charge a battery.
Have you checked circuit breakers and fuses? Some have fuses right on the CONverter and the INverter.

 

[Kevin Means]

I suspect Rene is on the right track. You're probably talking about your converter, because the converter is the device that charges your batteries when you're plugged into shore power, or running off your generator. You might also want to check your house-battery disconnect switch. In most (but not all) motorhomes, the house-batteries won't charge when that disconnect switch is off.

Assuming it's the converter you're replacing, what started happening to make you think it needed to be replaced?

Kev

 

[LTG]

Some Inverters will charge the batteries. Some Inverters will not charge the batteries. It depends on if the Inverter has a built in battery charger. If your Inverter does not have a built in battery charger, then you will also have a converter charger. They will be two separate units. The fact that your Inverter quit working and your generator will not charge the batteries indicates that you may have a Inverter Battery Charger combination.

 

[1PlasticMan1]

I have a Magnum 1212 Inverter, and to my knowledge, it does charge the house batteries.  How I know this is that the house batteries ran down, and the Inverter turned out to be bad after less than two years use.  Fleetwood should have replaced under warranty, but refused, because their factory tech (Decatur, IN) tested it five times, failing the first four times, worked the fifth time, so management declared that it was okay.  I told them unacceptable, put a new one in.  Cost me over $1,000.00.  Sent the bad inverter to Magnum in November, 2017, and they agreed it was bad.  Since it was sold to Fleetwood in 2015, they would not pay for it either.  Before Magnum was bought out, the warranty was three years.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Whether it's an inverter or  converter, it apparently contains the charger as well.  The generator doesn't do any battery charging by itself - it only supplies 120v power to the battery charging function.