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Cajun_Bill's avatar
Cajun_Bill
Explorer
May 13, 2021

electrical problem

Looking for suggestions: The situation is that I went to my camper today and found out that I did not have 120V into the camper. I found that my shore cable had a burnt spot on the female end of the cable where it plugs into the side of the camper. I'm 30VAC in a Grey Wolf. I remembered that the last time that I was there, about 3 weeks ago, my TV would go on and off occasionally, but I attributed that to the power company. Apparently, it was problems with my cable. Anyway, when I got there today, I turned on the AC and it started, but then quit. In searching for clues, I found that my voltmeter that I keep plugged into a receptacle inside was showing 0 VAC so I began trying to isolate the issue. I ended up cutting out the female plug completely and wiring it directly into the #10 wire leading into the camper using wire nuts so I would know that I had a solid connection. Bottom line, I have measured the voltage on the outside of the camper where I put the wire nuts and it is a stead 125VAC , but when I checked the voltage on the inside receptacles, I'm only getting about 75V so something is shunting down the voltage. Another clue is that I turned off all the breakers in the camper control panel and I continue to read 110V on the outside cable at the wire nuts as I turned on the circuits one at a time until I turned on the breaker labeled "converter". At that point, the voltage drops down to the aforementioned 75V. Wondering if maybe the power arced at the outside plug causing something to go wrong in the converter. If so, how best to check that? substitute a new converter or what? Any assistance will be appreciated.

14 Replies

  • wnjj's avatar
    wnjj
    Explorer II
    OP direct wired around the connectors so they are no longer the issue.

    As CA Travler said, the converter is likely just a heavy (normal) load that is highlighting a resistive connection. If you’re measuring the 75V at the wire nuts, the poor connection is between there and the park pedestal and not inside the RV. With connections poor enough to burn the connectors and cause outages, it’s likely you have other issues, ideally you would replace the shore cord or at least all of its connectors.
  • You have a partial open which allows the voltage to drop to 75V w/o tripping the CB. I'd bet a donut that if you connected a high draw appiance with the charger CB off you would see the same results.

    Start with connecting new male and female plugs with the wire cut back to good clean wire.
  • Get on line trouble shooting instructions for your converter. Should tell if you have a bad converter.
  • You need to replace the female connector of the male connector that was burned. Maybe even the male connector is well if it’s burned to badly. That should fix it all. You may call me if you wish.

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