A/C quite working

Stude55Dog wrote:
Woke up A/C had quite working. Anything that was 110v was not working in 5th wheel. No breakers were tripped. Smelled smoke, found convertor was smoking. 12v lights work. Breaker at pole was not tripped. Need suggestions on what to check next. Will try and get electrician out asap. Thanks

The converter has burned up, the 12 volt stuff runs directly from the battery.

Had electrician out to help diagnosis problem. Ends up being a bad converter. Replaced and all is well. Interesting during diagnosing was we unplugged converter/turned breaker off but still had issue. Removed bad converter red and black wires and we then had 110v at all circuits that did not have 12v displays or controls. Not sure what that means or why that was the case. Thanks to all who offered input.

To Diagnose an ATS you need a volt meter

30 amp rigs measure voltage on teh SHORE input.. Black to white if they are color coded. ignore green
50 amp Rig measure both hots to neutral and hot to hot

Hot to hot 240 volt Everythign else above 120 give or take 5 volts is normal.

NOW.. do the same on teh LOAD terminals. IF you get all zeros or close to it. Yup the ATS is AT-Fried. and if the ATS is close enough to the converter might be the source of the smoke.

Tempory "FIX" First unplug

Now disconnect and tape off (Identify if not color coded) the GENERATOR leads
Move SHORE to the same connectors as LOAD. NOTE you will not be able to use Generator.

It's almost as fast in most areas to go get a new ATS

Still no fix for no power. I think the automatic transfer switch is the problem but will have to figure out how to diagnosis as I took cover off, all looks well inside, nothing burnt, no smell. Convertor is toast will have to replace. Checked all breakers, on/off multiple times. 5th wheel is 7 years old, Infinity, 37 foot

I think "Unit' meant disconnect converter wire at Breaker box or turn off off converter breaker. With the exception of open neutral on a 50 amp rig I can think of nothing that would kill 120 volt and smoke the converter at the same time with the possible exception of a power source issue... LIke I sort of had (i only lost power) when we did a version of BANG-NO POWER... What happend.

Car went straight
Road curved BANG (Car hit power pole) no power

newman fulltimer wrote:

2oldman wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
.. unplug or unite converter reset gfci

What does 'unite' converter mean?

Unit* seeing we have spell check police

Yeah, I tried that. What does 'unit' converter mean?

2oldman wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:
.. unplug or unite converter reset gfci

What does 'unite' converter mean?

Unit* seeing we have spell check police

If converter was smoking then it needs replaced because things melted in it, hence the smoke. Could be just a faulty converter (how old is converter). I had a similar case and just the converter was bad. You can disconnect converter from all rv circuits and test it by just feeding shore power to it and see if it is converting to 12 volts and does not smoke at same time. If all is good, hook up each circuit from rv until smoke comes back or breaker trips. That circuit will be the one with short in it.

Before you hook up a new converter, you need to make sure there are no shorts in the rv circuits both 12 volt side and 120 volt side.

If no breakers were tripped then I would suspect and test the converter first.

Converter smoking likely means that's toast. Check out your exterior power source .. if that's OK then reset all your circuit breakers and report back.

newman fulltimer wrote:
.. unplug or unite converter reset gfci

What does 'unite' converter mean?