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DIY Camper Power Converter Repair (Elixir ELX-30 Replacement)
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May 22, 2024
This video is about a camper power converter replacement. Simon was having power issues, and found out that his power converter was bad. Dead battery, high pitch squeal, only one circuit running, these were all the symptoms he was having. He fixed it himself, and shares how they work. This site was super helpful: https://www.bestconverter.com/ The best replacement for an Elixir ELX-30 is a Progressive Dynamics PD-4135: https://amzn.to/3FUOvDb In this video: 0:00 - The Problem 1:58 - The Old Unit 2:55 - Finding a Replacement Model 4:26 - How a Power Converter Works 9:22 - Adding Accessories 11:07 - Woodwork 11:26 - Progressive Dynamics Power Converters
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey everybody it's Simon from Lake Hub and I'm a happy man because I just fixed
0:05
my power problem. So relieved! I replaced my power converter and now my battery
0:14
which I thought was toast is charged and the lights work and everything works
0:20
Oh my gosh I'm a happy man. So here's what happened here are the symptoms
0:25
First of all my battery died. Okay time for a new battery. Put a new battery. It
0:35
died. Okay did I get a bad battery? No. Turns out the power converter was bad
0:42
What led me to believe that and to start investigating that and
0:46
learning about that because I had no idea how these things work. What led me
0:51
to that was this high-pitched squeal when this circuit breaker was on. So
1:00
this one was on we could run our air conditioning and that's it. This one was
1:07
on high-pitched squeal nothing worked. Start looking into it and that squeal is
1:14
what a dead and dying power converter sounds like. So I learned a lot. Huge
1:25
shout out to some some friends on Facebook in the RV entrepreneur Facebook
1:30
group who were kind enough to encourage me to do it yourself because this felt
1:38
like way over my pay grade. I've done a lot of like you know wood and mechanical
1:43
work and stuff on campers but not electrical. So I had to learn a lot
1:49
because we're talking about 120 volt and 12 volt and them all working together
1:53
and playing off each other. So underneath my dinette seat here is where everything
2:01
lives. So this is my new unit this is my old one. My old one this is a 30 amp set
2:09
up here and my old one was an Elixir model 30. Very fancy name. Elixir is no
2:18
longer in business. I guess because they made really janky power converters. I
2:23
don't know a lot of complaints about them. This one's I you know I didn't look
2:31
to see if there's like a manufactured date on it or anything like that but they were in a lot of factory models you know like they were used a lot. They
2:40
were used a lot. So this one might have lasted you know 10-12 years. I don't I
2:44
don't actually know. It might have been an aftermarket. I don't really know. They
2:48
were used a lot. Can't buy them anymore. So had to number one find a replacement
2:56
model. So shout out to best converters dot com. Best converter dot com? Best
3:02
converters. I think it's best converters dot com. Because they have like a little
3:07
wizard that helps you pick out if you had an Elixir this model and you're
3:14
running this type of circuit then you need to pick from you know either this
3:18
one or this one. So that was the only place online I found that actually had
3:25
any helpful information for what model to pick. So bought from them. Had to buy
3:32
the circuit breakers separately but they were like add-on you know it's
3:36
pretty easy to check out and stuff. With shipping and everything it was about 200
3:41
bucks out the door. So ouch! But if I had to pay an RV tech to do this you know it
3:51
wouldn't have been done for a couple months because there's a shortage and my estimate probably in the 500 to 600 dollar range. So yeah I'm glad I did it
4:02
myself all in all. I was freaked out. I mean this box has been sitting in here
4:06
for a couple months. Been waiting for a non-hot day when we're camping to try
4:13
and fix it with power and tools and all that kind of stuff. So kind of like
4:18
waiting for the perfect scenario to try and fix it because if I screwed it up I
4:21
was afraid we'd have no air conditioning and then... So first of all the reason why
4:30
the circuit breakers are the way they are is because the big one on the left
4:36
big meaning you know more amperage is the main one. That's where 120 comes in
4:45
That's your shore power right? That's your hookups. This is where your hookups come in. You can see that right here. This is this is my
4:53
snake right here. So it comes in right here boom boom boom goes in the bottom
4:58
and if you trace that when you take this panel off you'll see that it goes right
5:05
into that first circuit breaker. Then power goes out from that breaker and it
5:11
goes out to the air conditioner in this case. In my case it goes out to the air
5:15
conditioner and then also out to the power converter which is on this side
5:20
Okay so this is where this is where all the expensive stuff happens. This is
5:27
where it goes from 120 volt to 12 volt and then there's a there's a circuit
5:35
board with all the logic and all the gizmos and all the stuff that I don't
5:38
know anything about and there's a fan and something else to note about that
5:43
fan is it's basically a computer fan. It's a really inexpensive little
5:47
fan. It's like four screws in a clip once you take this panel off. Four screws and
5:52
then an electrical clip connector and those are cheap to replace. So one thing
5:59
to note if you're having trouble with power if you notice that everything's
6:02
like dimming and dimming and dimming and dimming and then it goes out your power
6:09
converter might just be overheating and if it overheats a lot of them have a
6:13
built-in safety. This is another something I learned. A lot of them have a built-in safety and they'll shut off. So first of all make sure that there's
6:22
plenty it's in a big enough space so if there's like if there was like a board
6:27
or a wall or something right here that'd be too tight. Not enough airflow. It needs
6:33
three cubic feet of airflow but this this right here I'm not gonna this box
6:37
is not gonna live in any this is my old converter by the way. My instructions for
6:41
the new one and all my old nuts and bolts and guts of the old one right here
6:48
it's not gonna live there so there's plenty of airflow around here so that
6:52
doesn't happen. But if the fan fails that could also happen and that's a really
6:55
inexpensive upgrade. So that could be something that you do to save an older
7:01
unit. Always work cheapest to most expensive right? Cheap and easy to
7:06
expensive and complicated. So check your fuses. Those are super cheap you know
7:14
like a buck a piece or something like that. Then check your circuit breakers
7:18
Those are like ten bucks. Fan. Fans gonna be in here. That's gonna be like 20 bucks
7:27
and then if you have to replace the whole dang thing which is gonna be in
7:31
my case $200 but if you are talking about like a massive rig 50 amp and all
7:36
that kind of stuff really complicated lots of circuits going on probably a lot
7:40
more. Don't exactly know how much but I don't have to worry about that because
7:45
we ride in a little rig. Okay so anyway the power goes to the converter and then
7:55
it goes back to this circuit. So this is a this is the 12 volt circuit. Then that
8:00
goes out into all these right here. It goes to the goes to the fuse panel. Okay
8:06
you can see your fuses right there. Yonder. And then it goes out to all the
8:17
different circuits. These little fellas right here. So these then go out to power
8:24
all the different widgets in the camper. So that's gonna power the lights you
8:32
know the my exhaust fan all that kind of stuff. The you know the propane the
8:41
propane detector. Propane leak detectors tied into that that system. What else? I
8:50
think that's it. I think mmm there's the fridge. I think the fridge might run off
8:55
a 12 volt. I don't even know honestly. I haven't haven't really gotten that far. I
9:00
just connected took the old circuits and then kind of matched them all up and
9:04
and connect new ones. And what's cool about this one is our old one had it
9:09
only had three circuits. This one has seven. So this last fuse right here is
9:13
just a that's just a spare. I have three. Is that right? Oh my last one had four
9:21
This one has seven. So I have three spares right here. So I'm thinking about
9:25
putting a little USB you know they make like a little 12 volt USB charger
9:30
Putting that one right here. Why not right? That'd be kind of a cool handy
9:35
handy dandy little little addition to be able to charge all our devices and stuff
9:40
This is a 2008 camper so it came out let's see the iPhone have been out what
9:47
a couple years two years maybe. So yeah no USB ports in this camper. That would
9:53
be an aftermarket addition. They they also make like a little panel that has a
9:58
couple USB ports and your battery battery volt meter. So it's a little
10:04
digital display that that has how many volts are going on in your battery. So
10:09
you can tell whether your battery is dead or not. Which is super handy if you
10:13
put that with an eye shot. I'm thinking about putting it right here. Put it with
10:17
an eye shot of the door then you can just glance in and check you know before
10:22
the camper's popped up. What would probably be best is to put it on this
10:26
wall right here. That way it's right next to the door and this is like a nice
10:29
little counter to rest all our phones on and stuff. Anyway we have our when
10:33
everything's popped up and proper not like me working in it. We have our shoe
10:38
rack handy-dandy shoe rack that hangs there. I had a video about that. That is
10:42
like the easiest cheapest most handy pop-up DIY hack you know addition or
10:48
whatever that you could possibly do. It's so handy. So that would be the right way
10:54
to do it but I'd have to go down underneath the camper or back up. I don't
10:59
know maybe I'll do it. That's that's probably the right right place to put it
11:02
So I'm actually kind of excited like I can add like accessories and stuff now
11:07
There was a little bit of woodwork involved. I had to. The shape was
11:13
slightly different and so I had to cut away some of this. I had to get a
11:17
circular saw and kind of eyeball it. It's a real hack job but you know unless
11:21
somebody's down there here on their hands and knees and looking up they're never gonna see it so I'm not too worried about it. One one other thing to
11:31
note if you have a progressive dynamics power converter like I do after I get it
11:38
all installed I was still kind of like I crossed my fingers like I hope this
11:42
works right and I noticed on the back it said visit our website for more
11:45
warranty information and return instructions. I was like okay I'm just gonna I'm just gonna check their website just be sure. I found my there's like a
11:52
documentation like instruction manuals and documentation and FAQs search deal. You put your you put your number in there I have a PD 4100 and it had the
12:06
instruction manual and a PDF and I opened that up just to make sure that that was the same as what I have which is it it is four pages and I was like
12:13
okay cool. Then they also had an addendum to the instruction manual which I've
12:18
never seen that before. I thought I better take a look at this. The addendum says in
12:24
like red letters at the top ignore everything on page one in your
12:30
instruction manuals. Okay started to sweat a little bit because page one is all of
12:38
the important stuff. Thankfully thankfully it didn't affect my project at all. The addendum just did a better job of explaining what's going on in
12:48
here and that's everything basically what I just shared with you like how the
12:53
power is going in on this side it's going to the converter in there and all that kind of stuff. The addendum explained that very well so if you have
13:02
progressive dynamics power converter yeah go ahead and check their website before you start working. That was that was a little bit of like hey guys
13:11
would have been helpful but thankfully didn't actually affect me at all. So
13:18
there you go. I now have power. If you're having power problems hope this helps
13:23
you out. If not at least you found it interesting and you'll know what to do
13:28
if you have problems in the future. I'm Simon from Lake. I mean we'll catch you next time
#Campers & RVs
#Home Improvement
#Power Supplies