electrical problem

[smookie]

We just took the tarp off our 2720 SL today. Spring is finally here! We put the TM battery back in since it was stored in our house all winter. When we plugged the camper into our house outlet, we tripped the ground fault protector immediately. We tried another outlet and it also happened. :o

Why would we have this problem? We have always used the same outlet before and we checked the circuit breakers and trailer fuses, which seem ok.

I figured that many of you are electrical whizzes out there and can advise us before we give up and call our dealer for help.

Thanks,
Smookie

[Bill]

Hoo, boy, this can be a tough one. Just ask TN_Camper, who has been chasing this same problem for months. My efforts to help in his case have been fruitless.

Your case is a little different. Since everything was OK in the fall, but is now a problem after the trailer sat under a tarp over the winter, a good first guess is that moisture has condensed somewhere. I suggest that you open EVERYTHING, and set up as many fans as you can get your hands on to blow into all the little nooks and crannies. Include especially:

o Under the kitchen sink
o In the converter/circuit breaker compartment - maybe through the bathroom vent fan opening, assuming it is still at the head of the tub.
o In the battery compartment
o In the lower part of the cabinet to the right of the stove
o Remove the outside cover from the water heater heater compartment and blow a fan in there
o Remove the outside cover from the refrigerator compartment and blow a fan in there

If you can, do this on a warm sunny day or days. Let us know what happens.

BTW, when you say that the GFI tripped, I assume you mean the GFI in the house, not in the TM, right?

And keep the air conditioner turned off, until everything returns to normal.

Bill

[smookie]

Hi Bill!
Thanks for the speedy reply. We will try these suggestions and see if we can get electricity to our camper soon.

Yes, it is the house ground fault switch that trips, not the TM's. We've never had this happen and this is our third Trail Manor.

Thank you, Smookie

[live2shopnc]

You might try this----turn off all the breakers including the main then plug it in. If it trips, then there my be a plug to TM problem in the wire---if it doesn't trip, turn only the main on, then turn on each breaker 1 @ a time until it trips. That will narrow down where your problem is.

[smookie]

Dear Live2Shopnc,
Your suggestion makes sense to us. We will try it tomorrow. Thanks for replying, Smookie

[live2shopnc]

Did you find your problem?

[smookie]

We tried a few things and had the strangest result. First, we turned off all the circuit breakers in the TM and plugged it into a non-GFI outlet in our house. My husband called our TM dealer and they said that some GFI outlets are overly sensitive and we should try one that is not a GFI.

When we turned back on the "main" and the "GFI" breakers in the camper, all was well. When we turned on the two center ones - the air conditioner breaker and the other one (we think it is for the hot water, but we couldn't read the label on it), the lamp we left on in the TM dimmed a lot. We turned off the two center breakers and the light got normal again. After flipping the two center breakers on and off several more times, the light dimmed less and less and now flickers slightly when you turn on those breakers.

Maybe we had condensation that is burning off?

We think we are now "ok" but aren't sure why.
So, what do you make of this? ???
Thanks for your help, everyone.
Smookie

[live2shopnc]

MMMMM Again--turn on the center breakers 1 @ a time and see which makes the light blink. My guess is that you have a bad ground somewhere. If the other breaker is for the hot water heater was it in the AC mode and on? With the TM UNPLUGED I would check the connections at the water heater. Might be a bad heating element.

[Bill]

That "other" breaker powers the AC element of the water heater, the AC element of the refrig, and the converter.

With regard to the blinking light - was it a 115 volt light, or a 12 vdc light? If AC, what was it plugged into when it blinked?

Bill

[smookie]

Hi Bill,
The lamp is a small regular lamp (not 12V) that we bring along that plugs into the outlet near the refrigerator. Since my husband was home by himself trying all the circuit breakers, he used the lamp shining in the window to see what was happening when he plugged the camper into the non-GFI house outlet. That is when he noticed the lamp browning out severely, then less and less till it only flickered.

We are not very good with electical problems so we appreciate all the advise everyone has given us.

We haven't yet tried the fans to blow in the places you suggested, but the TM is up and in a nice place on pavement where it will be in the sun. We have a few days of rain to deal with and after that, I will try the fans if our problem isn't fixed by then.

Thanks, Smookie

[Bill]

Smookie -

I'm really uncomfortable with what you describe. A little moisture can cause a ground fault, and a ground fault isn't necessarily a major problem (though I don't like them).

But a lamp that browns out is an entirely different problem, and one that suggests danger to me. It indicates that there is a bad/loose connection somewhere in your wiring. The ground fault is just a side issue, minor in comparison to the real problem. Moisture might have been the original culprit by causing rust or corrosion at some connection point, but drying up the moisture won't remove the rust or corrosion. The fact that it has gotten a little better probably means that the heat generated by the bad connection has burned through the corrosion - but once again, that is not a solution to the problem. It needs to be fixed, and fixed right. Connections should NEVER heat up. Overheating causes fires.

As live2shop suggests, you could turn on those last two breakers one at a time, and see which causes the problem. And I'd like to know the answer. But having determined that, I'm not sure what to tell you to do next, since you are not experienced with electricity. If your husband had heard any sizzling sounds, I'm sure he would have said something, right?

It looks like it is about 100 miles from your place to a TM dealer near Wilkes-Barre PA. It might not be a bad idea to take your TM over there and let them check it out. It is probably a simple matter of tightening a screw - but knowing which screw to tighten, ah, there's the rub!

Or you could fly me in from Arizona, and I'll tighten it for you ...

Bill

[live2shopnc]

As I don't have my TM yet I was not sure what breaker did what. Sure sounds like a lot on one breaker. What size is it? Ever have any problems running all that stuff at once (seems like a pretty big load). Bill is right -you should have some one check it out. Bill do you need an assistant when they fly you out??
What do you think about the bad water heater element theory?

[Bill]

Live2shopnc -

The breaker is appropriately sized. According to the information I have, the AC heating element in the water heater draws 12 amps, the AC element in the refrigerator draws 1.5 amps, and the converter draws 5 amps. Total max current is 18.5 amps if they are all running at once, and the breaker and wiring for this circuit are rated at 20 amps. So no worries there.

It is possible that the water heater element is the problem, of course, but I don't see a reason to suspect it more than anything else in the TM. I say this because the flickering light is plugged into a different circuit, not the one that runs the water heater. The problem has to be somewhere upstream from the flickering light, and the water heater is not upstream. It is over on the side, on another stream entirely. For this reason, the things I would check are
1) the outlet into which the lamp was plugged,
2) the GFI circuit breaker in the TM, since it controls the circuit that the lamp is on,
3) the main (30 amp) circuit breaker in the TM, and
4) the connections between the main power cord - the big black one - and the power distribution in the circuit breaker box.

In each case, of course, we check not only the device itself, but the connection points where the wires come into and out of the device.

It has been my sad experience that remote troubleshooting is really hard to do effectively, even with a really helpful and knowledgeable person on scene. So I am not going to try this one. It needs someone who can lay hands on it.

Bill

[live2shopnc]

I think your right about the hands on part. One other question--are the recpt. in a TM speed wired (wires pluged into the holes in the back) or wraped around the screws?

[Bill]

You know, I don't recall? But it is a great question in this situation. I hate speed wiring with a passion. My home on the beach in Maine was speed wired, and the salt air really does a number on it. Every year I have at least two circuits that just drop dead. I start at the end of the outlet chain, open each outlet box, change the speed wire to wrap wiring, close up the box, and move on to the next outlet. Eventually I get to an outlet where the wire has simply fallen out of the hole in the outlet body because the salt has corroded the sharp edge of the little capture blades. Boy is that annoying!

I'm still not sure how that could produce the flickering light, since the flickering is reported to happen on one circuit, but only when power is applied to another circuit. If the flickering happened when you played with the breaker that controls the outlets, I would understand. Or if it happened when you wiggled the lamp's plug, I would suspect speed wiring.

But in the absence of more info from Smookie, it sounds to me like a loose/corroded wire at one of the circuit breakers themselves.

But still, it couldn't hurt to follow up. Go for it!

Bill

[smookie]

Sorry for being "silent" for a couple days, but I wasn't able to answer your questions. My husband is successful at plugging in the TM to a non-GFI outlet in our house with all 4 breakers in the on-position. Our house breakers do not snap off. When plugging into either one of our outdoor GFI outlets, the outlets both snap off. Even with the two middle TM breakers in the off position, those GFI breakers snap off.

Now, when we plug into the house non-GFI outlet, there are no more brown-outs of the lamp or anything else.

The dealer says that we should NOT use a regular orange extension cord but a 30 amp one that is the same diameter as the TM cord. He says that the orange extension cord is narrower and causes the energy to be constricted with friction. We will probably go to Walmart and buy the thick extension cord. However, our previous TMs never had trouble with the orange extension cord. ???

Thanks, everyone for your ideas and help. Smookie

[Bill]

Smookie -

The use (or non-use) of an extension cord, and the size or color of that cord, is not related to your problem with brownouts, flickering, or GFI tripping. If your dealer is implying that the extension cord is the cause, then he is just trying to get out of doing the repair.

Why are you using an extension cord at all? Is it because the TM's big black cord won't reach the house outlet? If so, that is fine - but with the following restriction.

An orange extension cord (provided it is #12, not #14 or #16) is sufficient to run the ENTIRE TM EXCEPT THE AIR CONDITIONER. It should not be asked to handle the air conditioner. If you want to use the air conditioner at the same time you use an extension cord, then your dealer is right - the extension cord must have heavy #10 wires, just like the TM main cord. This kind of cord is expensive, but wonderful to have if you need it.

Final question. Has your extension cord, or the adapter between the big cord and the smaller cord, laid out in the rain or in a puddle or under the snow? If so, try a different extension cord, and see if it still trips the GFI.

Bill

[DancinCampers]

Hi Smookie,

I've been following this thread, and electrical problems can be most mystifying to solve, for sure, and you seem to have received a lot of very good advice.

I would only add, checking to see if the TM outlets are wired correctly would be helpful. You can use an inexpensive tester that plugs into an outlet, and has 3 lights on it. The sequence of lights indicate if the wiring is correct or not. I carry one in our TM & use it whenever we plug in at a campground to check their wiring.

Plugging into a none GFI outlet with a load that is miswired may or may not cause an immediate problem, but plugging into a GFI outlet might.

In any event, happy hunting.

Dan

[live2shopnc]

Bill is right : the size of the cord will have no effect on the GFI. At some point in your wireing you have a connection between the neutral(white wire) and the ground wire(bare or green wire). This is what makes the GFI trip. Only takes like .5 milli amps to trip a GFI. Thats why they are used in outdoor or wet locations. This cnnection could well be caused by dampness. Did you ever try cutting off all the breakes and pluging into the GFI---Did it trip?

[smookie]

Thanks for more advice, Bill, Dan and everyone!
To answer your question, the extension cord was used over the winter to power the ultrasonic noise maker (mouse repeller), plugged into the GFI outlet off our deck in the backyard. We never thought of the possibility of dampness in it. Live and learn...

We are off to Walmart now to buy the circuit tester to check the outlet wiring and get the thick, black extension cord so that we will be able to run all of our components including AC if we can't reach the outlet from the TM. These will be handy at campsites, I am sure.

Other than the browning out and flickering experienced on the first day, we haven't had any more of that since.

I think the new (and dry) extension cord may do the trick. Keep your fingers crossed. We've certainly learned a few things about wiring from this thread.

Thanks for all the help. PS: Sorry for answering twice. I didn't realize we were on "page 2" of this thread. :o
Smookie

[smookie]

I just wanted to add that the extension cord powering the ultrasonic noise machine was not plugged into the TM via the black power wire and plug. We bring the orange extension cord into the trailer directly through the door and leave it there with the camper closed up. We bring in the battery indoors for the winter and only have to check the GFI switch in the backyard. periodically, to see if it is still operating the machine.

Smookie