I have a Magnatek 6300Q series Converter.
A couple of weeks ago I was prepping the RV for travel and when trying to run the slide outs it began to strain. I held the button for a bit and suddenly it stopped completely turned out my battery was completely dead. I connected jumper cables directly to the RV battery and it worked fine. I replaced the battery and all seemed fine until I got to my location. The fridge wasn't working. Turned out to be the 12V fuse behind the outside panel.
Well after leaving it plugged in for 2 weeks I get back and the new battery is completely dead. Slideouts do absolutely nothing. and the fridge is off again but the fuse isn't blown on the fridge this time. I put jumper cable from the truck to the battery and viola the fridge works and the slideouts work. I leave the truck connected for about an hr while I run the heat. I disconnect the truck and leave the heat on while I take the bike out for a trail ride. When I get back a few hrs later the battery is completely dead again.
My inverter is evidently not charging the battery. Is there a hidden fuse for the 12v side like the fridge or have I cooked my unit?
Thanks in advance for your help!!!

 

i am going to have to guess at a few things. first i do not think the magnatek has a charge wizard on it, you need to change it out to a intelli-power converter with a charge wizard. no more buying batteries. where the inverter is plugged in use a meter or test light to see if you have 120 volts all trailers have a circuit breaker for this outlet. next i think the magnatek has a breaker on it if both are good next remove one of the 12 volt wires from it. and with a meter or 12v light see if it is putting out 12 volts a test light is more helpful than a meter for this because it provides a load. i think the magnatek uses a fuse inside the unit to protect the trailer from fire if a diode shorts out. it seldom gives trouble. next connect the wire back up and remove the + battery lead there is usually two breakers or fuses on the 12v side of the panel one feeds the relay to switch to shore power the other to batteries.check to see if you have power on the loose battery cable.

 

On the panel it says that it will sense if the battery is charged or not and charge if needed or not if not needed. That said It cooked the previous battery dry so I'm not so sure it does what they claim on the panel.

Now I haven't checked any of the circuit breakers to see if they're bad but none are tripped. At least none on the front of the panel with the other fuses.
Any idea how to find the fuse for the Magnatek it's self? It doesn't appear to be on the front of the panel with the other fuses.

To note when I was trying to move my slideouts with the old battery connected I did smell that tale tale smell of burning wire. right after the slideout stopped completely.

 

Well I found some info on this site that tells me it could be a bad resistor.
Ugh!!! no time to get back up there until next weekend and I'll be too busy to spend any real time working on it while I'm there.
I wonder if a regular battery charger would be enough to keep it rocking or would I fry the charger if I keep it connected while in use?
I do have another idea up my sleeve.
I could pull the cranking battery and the 2 trolling motor batteries from my boat, connect all 3 in succession to the current battery and put my battery tender on it?
Thoughts??

 

The trouble with using a battery minder on 3 batteries in a series is that when one or more batteries are fully charged and one isn't, the charger keeps pumping juice into all 3. You end up overcharging batteries and frying them when you do that. I had the same idea last winter. I store a bunch of trailers for friends and family and I was going to hook up all 8 batteries to one battery minder until someone pointed out to me what I just explained to you above. Too bad - on the surface it seemed like such a slick idea.

 

I have 4 GC2 cart batteries hooked in series,parallel, with a single battery minder to My 5er and its been that way for 5 years now with the same batteries also hooked my friends 4 cart bats. up the same way. are batteries work for a week strait when we dry camp no issues with over charge it keep all 4 batteries up and ready to go. this has worked great for me, better then anything in the past .I just got sick of replacing batteries and this set up keeps mine like new we just parked it for winter but the last time we camped (2 month ago) all was great

 

I decided to drive back up and after the long drive I found that my unit has no fuse for the convert inside the converter box. There was an 30 amp inline glass automotive fuse at the battery but it was good. I did find a couple of things though. First off when I pulled the converter I found a massive pile of insulation and rat droppings on top of the converter covering the cooling fan. I pulled the breakers and tested continuity. All were good. The suspect resistor looks to be bad. It tested at .83 ohm. Should have been .15 ohm. Because it was pop riveted in in the very back of the converter box and behind the transformer which is also pop riveted in I'm going to wait until I can put it on my work bench to fix it. Instead I'm going to try my 2 trolling motor batteries along with new battery already in it to supply the needed 12v with a battery charger on it.. It's connected now set at 10 amps for 12 hrs. A friend of mine is up there now. He's going to set it back to 12 hrs every other day until I get back up there on Friday. Hopefully that will hold em. the only drain on it now is what ever the fridge needs from the 12v to stay on.

 

I'm resurrecting an old thread and no I still haven't fixed this!!! My battery charger at 2 amps has kept it up pretty well.
I did some research sometime ago and found this page. Everything I'm reading indicates that it's the resistor that the guy on this same site had to replace. Resistance should be 0.15 but it's 0.83.

Anyway this resistor is connected with insulated wires via spade lug on one side and has two bare wires soldered to the other side and then soldered to a couple of other insulated wires.
See pics:

resistor%20left%20side%20cropped.jpg?t=1436450204

resistor%20right%20side%20cropped.jpg?t=1436450209



I suck at soldering so my question is, could I cut the bare wires right at the old resistor and use a butt spice to connect those wires to the new resistor and then crimp a spade lug to the other side and connect the wires on the other side? Would doing that create any issues as opposed to soldering them together? Why would the wires on the left side be bare? Is it a heat issue?

Here is what the new resistor looks like. Mine is the longer one.

 

A crimp splice to the solid lead on the resistor won't stand up long. I'm guessing the resistor has to carry 25 amps or so. It needs to be soldered into the circuit.

Why kill yerself trying to keep 40 year old technology working when you can get a Boondocker charger that won't under or overcharge your batteries, and will desulfate them when it's idling between surges, like recharging the battery after running off grid for a day or so. Increased battery life alone will pay for it in a few years. I used to get a couple of good years out of a set of batteries with a ferro-resonant power supply. I'm going on 4 with the Boondocker and they're showing no sign of giving up the ghost. In fact, they've only used about an ounce per cell of water in that time.

I'm an electronics technician, been designing stuff since 1965 or so. Just looking at the diagrams, I see no temperature compensation, poor single stage regulation --field mis-adjustable, and of course no "smart" technology at all to supply all the various scenarios a battery really needs for long life.

 

So mine currently isn't putting out the 12 volt charge because of the bad resistor but how does one connect the boondockers for the 12 v supply and keep the converter from send 12v to the batteries as well.

 

OK, I get it. This replaces part of the converter. Well I've got to get it functional today so for now I'm gonna run what I have with the old bax and new resistor installed but I'm certainly going to entertain the Boondockers upgrade kit.

 

Converter means that it will support a load within it's capabilities without a battery connected. Charger, of course, is a battery charger. If it's built right, one device does both with no problem. It takes some output filtering.

One trick I learned. I put in a 60 amp boondocker charging 2 group 31 batteries, protected by a 60 amp breaker at the batteries. I connected my camper load at the batteries, and had the breaker trip once in awhile. I moved the camper load to the boondocker side of the breaker, and all is well.

If you have a single battery, you'd want a smaller unit. Maybe 45 amp.

When you want to upgrade, PM me and I'll help ya out with diagrams.

 

I'm currently running one battery but intend to run two just for grins.
My current unit is 45 amp. I'd like to go with the 55 amp upgrade kit unless there is a good reason not to?
Thanks for the offer to help. I'll certainly take you up on that when I'm ready!!!