Disable Converter in Winnie Drop

[BlackDog]

I have a WEN 2000w gen that I carry with us and for the most part it runs what we need, including the MW. We recently returned from a trip to Yellowstone and found that at 8k+ feet altitude, it doesn't have enough power. I'm considering rejetting it for high altitude (we're in Denver and usually aren't lower than 5k anyway) or even a bigger generator, but I'm also thinking of ways to make the WEN work for us.

With the converter taking 950W, I'm thinking if I can disable that when I need to run something like the MW, and then turn it back on, the WEN would be able to pump enough juice. In a 2018 Winnie Drop (1780, if that matters), is there a way to disable the converter while still having power to other areas? At the fuse box the only thing I found that turned it off was flipping the breaker marked "General", or removing the two 40A fuses, but that also turned off important things like the lights . Any other simple way to disable it? Or thoughts on conserving power usage?

[powercat_ras]

The generator only makes 120 Volts AC. The converter/charger takes 120 Volts AC and converts it to 12 Volts DC and is intelligent it will sense the condition of the battery or batteries and recharge them and then go into a "float" mode when they are charge. If you disable your converter long term your 12 volt batteries will go dead and many things in your RV won't work anymore (lights, refrigerator, furnace, vent fans, 12 volt entertainment center, etc.).

In a Winnie Drop its small converter/charger can't possibliy take 950 Watts, perhaps 500 at most and most of the time when it thinks the batteries are charged well under 100 Watts.

All that said if you still want to turn off the converter/charger it is on it's own circuit breaker in the Electrical Box, just flip off its 15 amp breaker.

Your towing vehicle may feed 12 volts into a "charge line" when you are connected to the Drop and the towing vehicle ignition is on, so generally you may arrive at your camping destination with batteries charged if that's the case, in which case when you fire up your generator with batteries charged the converter charger will not need to charge batteries and will draw only what the 12 volt loads in your Drop require, typically under 100 Watts.

[BlackDog]

My goal wasn't to keep the converter offline for long, just long enough to let the generator run the MW. I took a look at the converter and it was labeled with an input of 950W, so my thinking was that if it was actively drawing that from the gen to charge the battery, I could temporarily save that draw. Sounds like my thinking may be a bit off?

As for the breaker dedicated to the converter, no such luck. I can grab a picture of what's in the box next time I'm over at the storage site, but other than the "General" breaker, everything else was dedicated (e.g. WH, AC, Front, Rear, etc.) and not specific to the converter. If that doesn't sound right, I probably missed something obvious.

[powercat_ras]

If your batteries are charged, the converter charger will come on and push full power into the batteries for a few seconds, drawing perhaps 750 Watts, it will then pause and sample the voltate and if it senses batteries are at or above 80% it will switch modes and draw much less watts. If it senses batteries are less than 80% it will draw the 750 watts until the batteries reach 80%. The labeling of 950 is likely a worst case if the power voltage is at the low end of the supported range. 750 would be more typical.

The converter charger should have a cord with a standard 3 prong plug on the end, in my RV the box with the breakers had a dedicated breaker with a dedicated grounded outlet from that breaker on the back side of the box that the converter plugged into.

In any case you should be able to follow the converter charger cord and see where it plugs in. In any case it is very likely that the converter charger and microwave are not on the same breaker so you may still be able to accomplish your goal by flipping a breaker.

[BlackDog]

Thanks for the deeper explanation. I'll check out the wiring and see if I can find which breaker it's on. Hopefully there's a dedicated breaker instead of it sharing a breaker with other things like lights.

[Mike Owens]

On my boat I turn off everything 110 before starting the AC. Then my Honda 2000i will handle the start up amps and happy wife happy life. Then flip on things as needed. You can always turn off the breaker for the converter but if it's a float charger the impact is minimal but things add up.