RV is newly converted & a puppy dog owie

Welcome to Dear Miss Mermaid! http://dearmissmermaid.blogspot.com/   my latest blogger friend - she is an author & her latest book is titled Hurricanes & Hangovers - go check it out on her blog site! I believe she's a full time RVer & seems to be living a good life!

Now to the details, yes, my RV is indeed newly converted! And I had no idea on how badly she needed to be newly converted. Ok, so what I really mean is, that her old converter was dying & taking the RV coach batteries along with it! It turned into evil. It ate batteries. It became ravenous. It had no soul. I had NO idea on how bad those things can get when they turn evil! So yes, that's how I spent my day on 11-1-11...installing the new converter that I bought, what? A month ago? So I put all procrastination & fears aside & tackled the job. All by my lonesome I did it. Yep. Myself. Again. I've done nearly all the upgrades & maintenance things myself, except the installation of the new fridge & ladder a few months ago. I had an RV place do those. Then I fixed what they broke :-/    And I do pay someone to change Ellie's oil, but I change her genny oil myself. And now I'm thinking of changing her name to "White Trash" because I'm always doing something on her!! And she's big & white. And gettin' kinda old. Oh yea, back to the converter huh?

OK, so I'll try to keep it basic here. Here is a pic of the old evil one:

Original to the RV, which is a 1996 model.

And this is where she lived, under my dinette bench beside my fridge.

And here is the new Angel!

xoxoxoxo to her!! My RV coaches heart or would that be heart valve? Who cares, she works!

She is an Inteli-Power 9100 for a 30amp RV. I've replaced with the same amp as the old converter was. The 9100 series also has an optional Inteli-Wizard that has a computer chip in it that tells the converter what phases of operation the coach batteries need. My coach only runs on one 12 volt battery, so it's a pretty simple operation for a small RV. I felt that the Inteli-Wizard was a necessary item to go along with the new converter. If you get the 9200 series of that brand, then it already will have the wizard built into it. Here is a description of what the 9100 is:

Model: PD9130 Output: 13.6 VDC, 30 Amps Input: 105-130 VAC, 500 Watts Size: 4.5H x 7L x 7.25W Weight: 4 lbs.

http://www.bestconverter.com/Inteli-Power-PD9130A_p_11.html
And follow this link to read up on the Inteli-Wizard:
http://www.bestconverter.com/Charge-Wizard-Flooded-AGM_p_15.html

Installation really wasn't all that difficult.
1. Shut off your coach battery power
2. Disconnect battery terminals
3. Shut off main breaker at breaker box
4. Unplug RV from shore power  -- You want to be sure that all electrical currents are OFF!

OK, now pay attention to your cables. Not a difficult job though. Be sure you know what your grounding wire is on the old converter. Be sure that you know what the hot & cold (or negative & positive) cables are. It still wasn't a difficult chore. Understand where these go on the new converter before you start to install.

Now that your power is OFF, you did turn everything off, right?
1. Unplug old converter.
2. Unbolt old converter (mine was screwed down to wood)
3. Disconnect grounding wire.
4. Disconnect hot & cold wires.
5.Pull out old converter. Put aside. I vacuumed out the area after taking the old converter out as it was pretty dirty. No one really cleans those areas often do they? Oh & then you also have to remember that your power is off, so you'll have to run an extension cord from somewhere else to get power for your shop vac or whatever you use to vacuum with.


6. Place new converter in old converters place. Do NOT bolt down yet, save that for last.
7. Attach grounding wire. Easy, just screw the grounding screw on top of wires when you push them through the hole.
8. Attach positive wire -- in my case, the red cable. Same way as you do the grounding wire.
9. Attach negative wire -- in my case, white cable. Same way as you did the positive wire.
Pretty simple because new converter box states where to put them.
10. Decide where you want to place your inteli-wizard before you attach it to the converter. I placed mine on the outside of my dinette where I can view it, but where it's located as not to annoy me with the green blinking lights.
11. Attach inteli-wizard to converter.
****This converter has a 30amp fuse. IF you install things incorrectly, the fuse will promptly blow as to protect your converter & 12 amp system. So be sure to have an extra just in case. But if you follow instructions, you should not have a problem.
12. Plug new converter into electrical socket.

OK, do not bolt the converter down yet. You want to be sure it's working first.
Place terminals back on coach battery. Turn battery switch back on. Plug RV back into shore power again. Turn power in breaker box back on again. If light is green & glowing on the inteli-wizard, Congratulations! Job almost finished & you now have a working converter again! Yay! Now bolt the converter down & be proud of yourself! Yay! Now go turn on every single light in your RV because they will be nice & BRIGHT!!! I always thought that 12volt RV lights were just dull. Little did I know that I had a bad converter all the years I owned my RV!

  ~~~ Click on photos for larger images if needed~~~

OK, now for some pictures of some of what I was talking about:

See the small flat head screw above? That has holes on either side of it, take out screw & that's where the grounding wire goes. You HAVE to have it grounded!

On this side, you can see where the red + POS & the -NEG ports are. Simply place your positive & negative wires into the appropriate ports & screw back down. The screws are hex screws in those & located in channels above the openings. Easy Peasy! If you look beside teh positive port (real hard) you can kind of see the fuse (a small green sliver under that gray cord). The gray cord is attached to the inteli-wizard that plugs & then screws down to the port above the fuse.

What the charge wizard looks like mounted under my dinette seat area.

And if this hasn't been boring enough, heres a 20 min video (if you are ever interested in installing one yourself...but it didn't get edited down to a lesser time due to the lack of time on my part)

OK, now for a little dog time. I went Lure Coursing again this weekend, taking out one of my girls, Birdie. But unfortunately, Birdie got hurt today :-((( She was running really hard, took a tumble, slid, rolled, slid some more, got up & finished her run! Came in on the bag even, then came to me when I called her. But she was sore & I knew it. I put her cool coat back on her ( a terry cloth coat that was wet down with water to cool her off), then walked her back to the van. We soon left after, but she's pretty sore. Poor baby. She got pretty bruised & I can only relate this to when I fell out of my overhead bed one day after a nap! That HURT! For days! OWIE! Never do that!!!! I woke up groggy & stepped out of bed & thump - BAM! Ouch! I've been in car accidents that hurt less. In my groggy mind, I thought I was simply getting out of a regular bed. Don't even know why I thought that as I've been living in the RV for quite some time. Duh. Again, never do that! owwwwwwwwww.  
Back to the coursing thing. It's held at a cool ranch that has RV parking & lots of horses. Even saw a lady riding a mule & she let me take a picture of her & her mule. Wow, what a sweet animal. I'll do a post on the ranch, some dogs coursing & horse riders on a later blog. I've taken up enough of your time this evening. Hope everyone has had a good day. I've gotta go hug & care for Birdie some more. Poor baby.

As always, be kind to your pets, clean up after them on your travels & respect your neighbor.