mysterious converter noise

[DavidBall]

Two nights ago we had a lot of wind and rain and as I turned off my computer and TV to go to bed I noticed a strange noise coming from where my converter is located. It sounded like a fan hitting something.

Upon inspection I noticed that I had no shore power yet I was getting this noise from the converter area which seemed to be more like a relay rapidly switching on and off.

I went outside and discovered that a limb had fallen on the shore power pole and knocked my plug almost out of the box, the plug's tips were barely in their sockets. I plugged the coach back in and when I went back inside the sound was gone.

Does anybody have any ideas what my mysterious noise was?

David Ball

[The Newell]

David,

IT sounds to me like the power was going on and off at the plug and rapidly kicking the converter on and off...probably arcing a little too ??

[GringoPhil]

the sound inside [i would think] was your converter clicking in an out....

[DavidBall]

It would have to be arcing I suppose. The sound was rapid and similar to the sound made by a baseball card clipped to your bicycle's rear fender strut and allowed to hit the spokes

[Newell Boss]

Did you mention what make and model converter you have?

Some rigs may have a converter that does indeed have a relay.. If the plug was barely making contact then as the converter engaged it pulled in a relay, this caused the current draw on the power cord to increase and with the "Just barely" contact at the pole it dropped the voltage, now the converter drops out, this causes the relay to release to the "No-shore power" condition. and the load on the cord is reduced, now the poor connection is able to bring the voltage back up and the relay pulls in again.

And sometimes fans in converters run even when there is no shore power. they are usually 12vdc fans and t-stat controlled.

[Chester B. Stone, Jr.]

Are we discussing converters or inverters?