Trailer light converters???

[southpennrailroad]

My Chevy Colorado calls for one of those block type multi wire to four wire converter blocks and at the cost of $35.00 I am always having to replace it almost every year. Very sensitive these blocks are. I am thinking of soft packing it inside a radio shack hobby box and mounting that box beneath my truck. I am tired of replacing them. Need to buy another one now/again.

[glenpinpat]

you could block it. I have only blown them when I short out the sytem usually from launching boat and forgetting to disconnect lights.

[Shadow Catcher]

I will be interested in others answers. From what I can see there are a number of possible causes of premature trailer light converter failures.
1 they/some are poorly made
2 problems with the trailers wiring
3 problem with the TV wiring
4 type of converter not compatible with TV
5 type of converter not compatible with trailer i.e. use of LED's

Our first converter failed fairly quickly with Mega Mini #1, and judging by what I found with #7 the choices made in how the trailer wiring was done were probably contributors. I have had no problems so far with with the converter but I also redid the wiring.

There are converters that are powered from the battery of the TV and there are converters that are "heavy duty". Since they are potted in plastic protecting the module is not a concern and failures are more often in the connector('s).

[Dale M.]

These converters are solid state devices and any sort of padding is not going to do much for electrical reliability.... only keep unit from rattling and irritating you....

If you are using one particular brand and it continues to fail, switch to a different brand.... Not all converters are alike.... I had blown 2 Hoppy (sp?) converters in my Honda Passport them went to different brand and problems when a way.....

Also you might consider contacting manufacturer and see if there has has similar problems with owners of same vehicles ...

Most failures as mentioned above are electrical, caused by reasons mentioned above.... Either its converter itself (of poor design) ... Something in trailer wiring... Or problem in TV.... Or some thing human is responsible for ( poor understanding of device or wrong device for application)...

Dale

[TENNJIM]

+1 on above. Went through 4 of them, two different manufacturers, about one a year. I don't think padding them will change much. Probably redoing trailer wiring and making sure of good grounds would do the most good.

Jim B / Utah

[Engineer Guy]

I've got a potted OEM Converter for my Mitsubishi. No problems, but that doesn't help here...

The Headlight Relay basis for this Project should be reliable. I like Silicon Caulk as 'glue'; we used it in Electronics Assembly all the time. Stick the Relays in a waterproof Box and make all the connections super-reliable in-and-out.

4 Relay Homemade Converter

[wannabefree]

If you have LED lights make sure your converter is "LED compatible." I blew 2 on my GMC Canyon (a.k.a Colorado) and complained to Hoppy. They sent me a replacement, LED compatible converter that I still haven't tried.

Now I'm an EE and can't see how you can make a converter that works on incandescents but blows on LEDs, but that's what they tell me. If this blows I'll build my own.