Newbie Learns About Shorepower
I recently traded our geezerly 93 Fleetwood Flair for a 2002 Holiday Rambler Neptune 34ft diesel with 32K miles.
We have been having a bit of trouble with the shorepower. Here are the sequence of events that lead to the exciting conclusion!:
After parked at home, started playing with the control board(BEFORE READING THE MANUAL!)Promptly clicked on a button labeled "convert". Next morning brand spankin' new coach batteries are dead. Real dead. So, charge 'em up overnight. Meanwhile,whilst plugged into shore power, only one outlet will function.(using a flimzy homeowners orange extension cord, 50footer) It SEEMED (to me, at least) that either the transfer switch or the converter/inverter was acting up. Tried disconnecting the 12V leads from the inverter and rehooking em up. This helped once, but after it reverted back to it's previous state of "one outlet working in whole coach". I read every stinkin' post on transfer switches and inverters till my head was about to explode. Then,an original thought not produced by reading something came to mind: "WHAT IF THE CORD THAT IS PLUGGED INTO THE SHORE POWER CORD IS TOO SMALL AND WILL NOT ALLOW ENOUGH CURRENT THRU, SO SOME COMPUTER BOARD SOMEWHERE CUTS OUT ALL OF THE POWER TO EVERYTHING BUT THE ONE STUPID OUTLET?" Wow, did my feeble geezerly brain just think that? Huh!
Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I found that I still had a long 30 amp extension cord from our old rv and plugged this into the outlet (adapter needed) and into our new unit. VOILA'! Like magic,one half of the RV's electrical stuff started working! I realize(Now, after reading that stupid manual) that a 30 amp plug provides only one 120V rail to the RV. I need a 50 amp to run everything.
So..after tearing out the batteries and recharging them out of the coach, and having to figure oot which cables went where afterwards, I did get it all back together and all is working fine.
Conclusion: Do not hit the "convert" button and use your shore power cord to plug directly into an outlet if you want to use some of the 110V powered stuff in the coach.
finis :S
We have been having a bit of trouble with the shorepower. Here are the sequence of events that lead to the exciting conclusion!:
After parked at home, started playing with the control board(BEFORE READING THE MANUAL!)Promptly clicked on a button labeled "convert". Next morning brand spankin' new coach batteries are dead. Real dead. So, charge 'em up overnight. Meanwhile,whilst plugged into shore power, only one outlet will function.(using a flimzy homeowners orange extension cord, 50footer) It SEEMED (to me, at least) that either the transfer switch or the converter/inverter was acting up. Tried disconnecting the 12V leads from the inverter and rehooking em up. This helped once, but after it reverted back to it's previous state of "one outlet working in whole coach". I read every stinkin' post on transfer switches and inverters till my head was about to explode. Then,an original thought not produced by reading something came to mind: "WHAT IF THE CORD THAT IS PLUGGED INTO THE SHORE POWER CORD IS TOO SMALL AND WILL NOT ALLOW ENOUGH CURRENT THRU, SO SOME COMPUTER BOARD SOMEWHERE CUTS OUT ALL OF THE POWER TO EVERYTHING BUT THE ONE STUPID OUTLET?" Wow, did my feeble geezerly brain just think that? Huh!
Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I found that I still had a long 30 amp extension cord from our old rv and plugged this into the outlet (adapter needed) and into our new unit. VOILA'! Like magic,one half of the RV's electrical stuff started working! I realize(Now, after reading that stupid manual) that a 30 amp plug provides only one 120V rail to the RV. I need a 50 amp to run everything.
So..after tearing out the batteries and recharging them out of the coach, and having to figure oot which cables went where afterwards, I did get it all back together and all is working fine.
Conclusion: Do not hit the "convert" button and use your shore power cord to plug directly into an outlet if you want to use some of the 110V powered stuff in the coach.
finis :S
