Recently while dry camping in Yosemite we had a problem arise. During generator hours my lovely wife plugged in her flat iron/hair straightener and the hair dryer at the same time in the GFI outlet in the bathroom. As I stood in the kitchen I thought I got just a hint of some electrical burning. I look under the sink and saw nothing but looked up and saw the microwave and coffee maker both not lit up.( No flashing 12:00) I plugged them both in directly into the generator and neither one worked. No coffee or microwave the last two days of our stay. We get home and I let the rv sit for a day and plug in to the house and now everything works fine. What happened? I thought her heavy electrical draw maybe damaged the micro and coffer maker even though they had not been in use. No problem with the fuses either. One more thing, all the outlets stopped working as well until I reset the GFI. Could the electrical wiring have been damaged? I thought the GFI would prevent that. I don't know. I hate electrical issues!!

Probably tripped the breaker on the Genny!

SPRING STREET wrote:Probably tripped the breaker on the Genny! Yeah I thought it might be the generator(Yamaha 3000iSEB)and I checked it. The overload light was not flashing and it seemed to be working fine. One curious thing though, when I plugged her blow dryer directly into the generator, the high speed worked on the blow dryer but not the low speed. Both speeds on the hair dryer work now at home.

Do you have a breaker on the converter or inverter? If so, they may have tripped. What about fuses?

You need to open the RV electrical panel and using a screwdriver make sure all connections are clean and tight.

RckyMtnVia wrote:Do you have a breaker on the converter or inverter? If so, they may have tripped. What about fuses?Ok, I'll check the converter. All the fuses in the fuse box in the rv are fine.

What the #@!! happened?? | Good Sam Community

15 Replies

Ex-Tech
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
Water-Bug wrote:
Circuit breakers and circuit fuses both protect the wiring. Appliance fuses protect the appliance.

Fuses for 12-volt DC wiring, circuit breakers for 120-volt AC wiring.
Water-Bug
Explorer II
Apr 22, 2014
Circuit breakers and circuit fuses both protect the wiring. Appliance fuses protect the appliance.
Ex-Tech
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
Fresno Tundra Driver wrote:
super_camper wrote:
Fresno Tundra Driver wrote:
Recently while dry camping in Yosemite we had a problem arise. During generator hours my lovely wife plugged in her flat iron/hair straightener and the hair dryer at the same time in the GFI outlet in the bathroom. As I stood in the kitchen I thought I got just a hint of some electrical burning. I look under the sink and saw nothing but looked up and saw the microwave and coffee maker both not lit up.( No flashing 12:00) I plugged them both in directly into the generator and neither one worked. No coffee or microwave the last two days of our stay. We get home and I let the rv sit for a day and plug in to the house and now everything works fine. What happened? I thought her heavy electrical draw maybe damaged the micro and coffer maker even though they had not been in use. No problem with the fuses either. One more thing, all the outlets stopped working as well until I reset the GFI. Could the electrical wiring have been damaged? I thought the GFI would prevent that. I don't know. I hate electrical issues!!

I would carefully inspect the GFI. The GFI does not protect your wiring (fuses do that), the GFI senses a ground fault and cuts the circuit to protect YOU! If you have ever seen the inside of a GFI its full of goodies that can burn up.

Thanks for the GFI advice. My engineer neighbor said the same thing. I'll check it when I get home.

Actually, circuit breakers protect the 120-volt circuits, not fuses.
Fresno_Tundra_D
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
CaptPicky wrote:
Most appliances have some type of thermal cut off protection built into their circuits. There are different types, some blow like a fuse and others will reset when they cool off. I betting the TCO's were still hot when you tried the appliances at the generator, by the time you got home everything was cooled off and worked just fine. Many moons ago, Mr. Coffee machines were starting fires left and right because they had a bad batch of TCO's.

Interesting point you bring up about cooling off of the "TCO's". Another thing I tried while it was happening, my neighbor camper had me plug the microwave and coffee maker(separately of course)directly into his generator and they still didn't work.
CaptPicky
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
Most appliances have some type of thermal cut off protection built into their circuits. There are different types, some blow like a fuse and others will reset when they cool off. I betting the TCO's were still hot when you tried the appliances at the generator, by the time you got home everything was cooled off and worked just fine. Many moons ago, Mr. Coffee machines were starting fires left and right because they had a bad batch of TCO's.
mich800
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
That does not explain why the items did not work directly plugged into the generator. So the problem should be isolated to the generator overload.

But there still could have been other collateral damage in the TT as well like stated above.
rockhillmanor
Explorer II
Apr 22, 2014
Open your GFI box asap.

I took a hit and reset the gfi and all was fine. Thought I was good to go.

Then a couple of days later I kept getting a faint wif of burning wires.
Narrowed it down to the bathroom sink area where the GFI just happens to be.

Here is what was inside behind that switch plate........:(

Just glad I caught it before something more serious happened.
Fresno_Tundra_D
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
super_camper wrote:
Fresno Tundra Driver wrote:
Recently while dry camping in Yosemite we had a problem arise. During generator hours my lovely wife plugged in her flat iron/hair straightener and the hair dryer at the same time in the GFI outlet in the bathroom. As I stood in the kitchen I thought I got just a hint of some electrical burning. I look under the sink and saw nothing but looked up and saw the microwave and coffee maker both not lit up.( No flashing 12:00) I plugged them both in directly into the generator and neither one worked. No coffee or microwave the last two days of our stay. We get home and I let the rv sit for a day and plug in to the house and now everything works fine. What happened? I thought her heavy electrical draw maybe damaged the micro and coffer maker even though they had not been in use. No problem with the fuses either. One more thing, all the outlets stopped working as well until I reset the GFI. Could the electrical wiring have been damaged? I thought the GFI would prevent that. I don't know. I hate electrical issues!!

I would carefully inspect the GFI. The GFI does not protect your wiring (fuses do that), the GFI senses a ground fault and cuts the circuit to protect YOU! If you have ever seen the inside of a GFI its full of goodies that can burn up.

Thanks for the GFI advice. My engineer neighbor said the same thing. I'll check it when I get home.
super_camper
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
Fresno Tundra Driver wrote:
Recently while dry camping in Yosemite we had a problem arise. During generator hours my lovely wife plugged in her flat iron/hair straightener and the hair dryer at the same time in the GFI outlet in the bathroom. As I stood in the kitchen I thought I got just a hint of some electrical burning. I look under the sink and saw nothing but looked up and saw the microwave and coffee maker both not lit up.( No flashing 12:00) I plugged them both in directly into the generator and neither one worked. No coffee or microwave the last two days of our stay. We get home and I let the rv sit for a day and plug in to the house and now everything works fine. What happened? I thought her heavy electrical draw maybe damaged the micro and coffer maker even though they had not been in use. No problem with the fuses either. One more thing, all the outlets stopped working as well until I reset the GFI. Could the electrical wiring have been damaged? I thought the GFI would prevent that. I don't know. I hate electrical issues!!

I would carefully inspect the GFI. The GFI does not protect your wiring (fuses do that), the GFI senses a ground fault and cuts the circuit to protect YOU! If you have ever seen the inside of a GFI its full of goodies that can burn up.
RoadLife
Explorer
Apr 22, 2014
X2 on the breaker for the genny. Ours is located next to the genny in its compartment. Don't ask me why I know.