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kemeisland's avatar
kemeisland
Explorer
Jan 24, 2015

Blew a fuse I cannot find... Bum,bum,bum.

First time poster, planning to be pretty active on this forum. Hello!

I searched for this in the existing posts and haven't found anything.

I have my first RV, testing out the full-time life. Bought an '89 Mallard ( M-270 SB-Ford, on an Econoline 350 chassis ). Everything has been pretty good once I got the RV into shape to begin with. I'm the third owner in 25 years.

Today I had a space heater and electric water kettle on the same circuit and I heard the fuse blow. Usually I take one or the other off and use one at a time. This time that didn't happen. Now all the outlets aren't working. I checked the fuse box at the back under the closet, close to where the power hookup comes in for 30 AMP, but none of the fuses are blown. I was aware a fuse might not look blown but still be blown, so I took one I knew worked and tried it on all the other spots, with an outlet tester plugged in to see if it lit up. None of the fuses seemed to affect it.

Where do I go from here? Is there somewhere else a fuse box might be, or a specific fuse for the outlets only? Right now I've put the space heater and my laptop on the separate circuit the microwave has, but that's not a solution and I'll need to be extra careful not to blow my only remaining outlet. I'm hoping there's easy access to some magic fuse.

Any wise full-timers or electrical magicians have any ideas?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!
  • kemeisland's avatar
    kemeisland
    Explorer
    Jan 24, 2015
    Hey Ron -- I neglected to mention/be clear on the blowouts being in my SUV, and the spare I used was an identical tire. The blowouts were road debris and heat related... oh and the tires were ancient! I'm surprised I made it as far as I did. That was the beginning of me waking up to basic issues and doing maintenance myself.

    And don't worry! I used the same amperage of fuse. That part I wasn't foolish enough to confuse, but my ineptitude is still pretty far reaching :)
  • lanerd's avatar
    lanerd
    Explorer II
    Jan 24, 2015
    kemeisland wrote:


    HAH! Last time I was out in Yuba I had two tire blow-outs one after another. First one took my spare, then once back on the road with no spare left, the next blow out came swiftly. Pretty hot asphalt! I'll never forget that spot!


    Typically, what happens here when one tire blows out, all the weight that was designed to be handled by two tires is now all on the remaining tire...obviously overloading it. Hence, blows out the 2nd tire. Other contributing factors would be overloading the rv in the first place and/or under inflation of the tires. The third possibility would be aged tires.

    Of course, it could be all three...

    Glad you got your electrical problem figured out. As others have mentioned.... be aware of what electrical items are 120v and what are 12v. Really helps when something goes out. For the record, taking one fuse out to use as a test for other fuses is really a bad idea as the fuses come in different amperage ratings. If you put a too large of amperage fuse in a socket designed for much less amperage, you could cause wires and other items to get hot and catch on fire. Your best bet is to get a digital multimeter (set on ohms) and put the probes on the top of each fuse where you see small metal section. If fuse is good, meter will read 1..if bad, it will read 0.

    Good luck

    Ron
  • kemeisland's avatar
    kemeisland
    Explorer
    Jan 24, 2015
    Thanks YC 1 :) The link is much appreciated -- started looking that over and bookmarked it for later. It's extremely encouraging to know such a strong group of fulltimers/knowing people are out there and willing/ready to share.

    HAH! Last time I was out in Yuba I had two tire blow-outs one after another. First one took my spare, then once back on the road with no spare left, the next blow out came swiftly. Pretty hot asphalt! I'll never forget that spot!
  • wannavolunteerF's avatar
    wannavolunteerF
    Explorer
    Jan 24, 2015
    I know you got it fixed, but FYI, since you are new to RV's. Your lights work off 12V so will continue working even if you trip the breaker outside on the power box. So take the 2 minutes to walk outside and check that if you don't find a tripped breaker inside.

    Yes, I know this because I tripped mine using microwave, hair dryer and furnace blower came on. I was not "new" but in my mind, it had to be something in the trailer, since I still had lights. My GS Roadside assistance comes with a tech help line that I called, and the nice tech didn't even laugh at me for being insistent it had to be inside since my lights were working, but explained to me why they worked, and suggested I go outside to the power box, just to humor him. Guess what he was right... and nice.. especially since it was an early Sunday morning (especially in his time zone) on a holiday weekend.
  • YC_1's avatar
    YC_1
    Nomad
    Jan 24, 2015
    12 volt side of life

    Welcome aboard. You have already found the value of this site. We were all noobs at one time and some rv's are more complex than others.

    The link to the 12 volt side of light should enlighten you about your systems.
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Jan 24, 2015
    Almost MILLER TIME now haha... Glad you got it going.

    Since you are new to this you might want to have some fuses handy in case one of those gets blown when you boondocking. Most of us spend alot of efforts doing the PLAN B thing. Most of our camping is off the power grid so my PLAN B thing is probably abit overboard.

    Roy Ken
  • kemeisland's avatar
    kemeisland
    Explorer
    Jan 24, 2015
    SWEET! Between these last two comments from RoyB and turbojimmy it's FIXED!

    Sorry to be such a n00b here but having it spelled out like that did the trick. YES: one of the "switches" was tripped and sitting in the middle between OFF and ON. This is the one I thought was disabled, but felt like something was strange about that. With the prompting given, I pushed harder and it did flip completely to OFF, then I went back to ON and put my outlet tester in, and it's all good now!

    WOO HOO!

    Yeah, thankfully I'm not boondocking right now and doing this all on a generator outside of cell range. I'm at a camp site at a lake, about 40 miles from pretty familiar territory with a car available. Stuff like this is really priceless to get to know this classic rig and RV'ing in general, building up confidence in this whole thing.

    Much thanks to everyone! Now I can get back to writing code in peace, beside a creek, beside a lake :)
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Jan 24, 2015
    ALL - Excuse me for repeating what others may have said - I am a slow typer and by the time I get my post out four or five others have said the same thing haha...

    I usually don't discuss things that I am not very familiar with like the motorhome and truck/van RV's as they are not always configured like the RV Trailers.

    Sounds like you may have found the tripped breaker...

    Roy Ken
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Jan 24, 2015
    I suspect the panel you found that has switches and fuses is the right place to be at. The switches you mentioned are probably circuit breakers for your 120VAC items and the fuses should all be for your 12VDC items...

    Operate each SWITCH ON and OFF and see if one of them may be in a slightly OFF-SET position. Sometimes when you operate a circuit breaker OFF you can can move it a little farther which RESETS the breakers.

    good luck tracking down everything. Its always a good idea to learn all of these things sitting at your house driveway as in my case when something strange happens it will most likely happen when I am 20 miles down a winding cow path out of cell phone range...

    Roy Ken

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