Griff in Fairbanks wrote:
StingrayL82 wrote:
I edited my post early this morning, but apparently not everything took....
I think I know why my refrigerator fuse connection started melting. This happened, when I was plugged into shore power, using an old 10/3 extension cord. The cord had the ground pin knocked out of it years ago, and I didn't give it a second thought, when I plugged in. I'm now thinking that the cord was producing reverse polarity to the rig.
The reason I say this is because, when I was underneath working on the Dana 70, I kept getting this slightly uncomfortable tingle, every time I touched the chassis. It felt like a TENS unit on low power. At first I didn't think anything of it, and wrote it off as my imagination, because it was the sensitive part of my forearm that was touching it.
But then I decided to see if I still got the tingle, when I was unplugged from shore power, and I did not. Needless to say, the 10/3 cord was disconnected and I pulled out my RV 30-amp extension cord. No more tingling, when I touch the chassis, so the old 10/3 cord WAS the culprit.
It wasn't until I started reading up on reverse polarity, that the thought of the 10/3 cord not having it's ground pin was possibly the cause of the refrigerator wire melting. What's interesting is that the 15-amp fuse did NOT blow. It had some condensation in it and a slight brown tinge, but it was intact.
Any thoughts?
10/3 is actually a 240VAC cord ... Two legs are hot and the third is neutral, not ground. Usually, there's a fourth ground wire. Some people tie the neutral and ground together and put a 120VAC plug on it ... or find other ways of screwing it up, such as using a 10/2 cord on 240VAC connection.
This is the cord I bought from Home Depot. It most definitely is 120VAC.
Yellow Jacket 10/3 Extension Cord.
