TrailManor Owner's Forum - View Single Post

makriegz · 07-30-2023, 06:19 PM

Thanks for this post!! I have been troubleshooting my AC and electrical setup for week now. And thankfully, seeing your post and video, I was able to resolve the issue pretty easily.

I am parked in a friend's driveway, plugged into their house's external 15A plug with GFCI. It's been plenty to run AC for the last month. Then last week, on a particularly warm day (for Seattle), the house's GFCI tripped. We reset it, powered up the AC again, and within a few seconds it tripped again. From that point on, I had a ground fault.

The main difficulty I had, while trying to research this online, was that most resources say that in order to diagnose and locate a ground fault, flip all the circuits to off, then plug in the RV, and flip on one breaker at a time until the home's GFCI trips again. But, that wasn't my situation. Even with all the RV's breakers off, the home's GFCI would immediately trip when I plugged the RV in.

Over time, I learned some basic lessons of electrical wiring. Like, the breaker in the RV is only on the hot line, so the breaker being on or off won't affect a ground fault, which is an unwanted connection between neutral and ground.

This also meant that, somewhere in all of the circuitry, something had probably overheated and melted, because my setup went from working to ground faulted. But I struggled a lot on how to locate the ground fault.

In the meantime, I plugged the RV into a non-GFCI circuit in the house, and was able to run the AC for the last few days while I continued to research the issue. (In hindsight, this may have been a dangerous choice...)

Today, I found this video posted above. So I disconnected from shore power and battery, got into the box, and discovered that I also had a screw cap burnt off. Plus, all of the cords were wrapped up together in 1 was of electrical tape.

So I cleaned up the cords as best I could. I then did some continuity checks between the shore power cord prongs and the exposed wires. My tests showed that all 3 prongs/wires (hot, neutral, and ground) were separate again. So I plugged the RV back into the house's external GFCI circuit, and the GFCI didn't trip!! Problem solved.

Long journey, but thankful for this incredible forum.

07-30-2023, 06:19 PM	#9
makriegz Member Join Date: Feb 2023 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 14	Different situation, same point of failure! Thanks for this post!! I have been troubleshooting my AC and electrical setup for week now. And thankfully, seeing your post and video, I was able to resolve the issue pretty easily. I am parked in a friend's driveway, plugged into their house's external 15A plug with GFCI. It's been plenty to run AC for the last month. Then last week, on a particularly warm day (for Seattle), the house's GFCI tripped. We reset it, powered up the AC again, and within a few seconds it tripped again. From that point on, I had a ground fault. The main difficulty I had, while trying to research this online, was that most resources say that in order to diagnose and locate a ground fault, flip all the circuits to off, then plug in the RV, and flip on one breaker at a time until the home's GFCI trips again. But, that wasn't my situation. Even with all the RV's breakers off, the home's GFCI would immediately trip when I plugged the RV in. Over time, I learned some basic lessons of electrical wiring. Like, the breaker in the RV is only on the hot line, so the breaker being on or off won't affect a ground fault, which is an unwanted connection between neutral and ground. This also meant that, somewhere in all of the circuitry, something had probably overheated and melted, because my setup went from working to ground faulted. But I struggled a lot on how to locate the ground fault. In the meantime, I plugged the RV into a non-GFCI circuit in the house, and was able to run the AC for the last few days while I continued to research the issue. (In hindsight, this may have been a dangerous choice...) Today, I found this video posted above. So I disconnected from shore power and battery, got into the box, and discovered that I also had a screw cap burnt off. Plus, all of the cords were wrapped up together in 1 was of electrical tape. So I cleaned up the cords as best I could. I then did some continuity checks between the shore power cord prongs and the exposed wires. My tests showed that all 3 prongs/wires (hot, neutral, and ground) were separate again. So I plugged the RV back into the house's external GFCI circuit, and the GFCI didn't trip!! Problem solved. Long journey, but thankful for this incredible forum. Attached Thumbnails