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06bowtie_guy's avatar
06bowtie_guy
Explorer
Sep 21, 2014

48 hours on genny. Electrical shorted now.

Dealer installed the onan 5500 into my trailer. This weekend it was running fine. Turned it off without any issue, had been running coffee machine.

Later in the evening went to fire it back up. Powers up fine, no codes listed on the hour meter screen. Will not power up the trailer. I checked all breakers and nothing was tripped.

I followed some wiring to a junction box, have an ohm meter with me so was going to check if it was putting out power. Here is what I found.

20140921_102321 by funinmud, on Flickr

Unsure if you can tell but the white wires were in a marret with electrical tape on them. The plastic of the marret is now melted off. Not pictured is the cover that was removed, had some marks on it.

Unpacked the trailer once home and dropped it off at the dealer (they are closed today)

Curious if anyone may have an idea of damage caused, could the generator side of the unit have gotten fried because of that? They did the install so that's why it's back there now.

Thx for input!
  • That looks like an over heated neutral connection
    It got really hot to melt everything that way

    It's very likely now very corroded and loose inside where the wires were twisted together

    That connection should be cleaned and reworked
    But because it's all new it's good to have the RV dealer/installer fix this under warranty
    Then measurements should be made to check the load balance on the circuits
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Not sure what coffee maker you have but we save alot of coffee maker time by having the CUISINART GRIND and BREW coffee maker that is only drawing a large amount of AC current for just around 5-6 minutes. Then the coffee maker shuts completely OFF. The finished coffee than pours up into a thermos CARAFE which keeps the coffee brew hot all day long. This was big power savings for us...

    Just a power savings tip for you...
    Roy Ken
  • Did you check breakers on the generator?
    Box looks a mess. Looks like large and small wires connected... is everything the right size?

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