Expanding AC distribution panel

The 30a "reverse polarity" fuses on the Parallax board are for the hard wired converter "lower portion"

PD converters are like deck mounts with the reverse polarity fuses on the converter itself.

Can't help with the DC wiring. You just have to hunt around and see what works with one connected, doing one at a time. Huge PITA.

Just put the pos and neg output from your DC power supply (converter or whatever) to the battery lugs on the board front or back ones doesn't matter. --- But it does matter if you use the 6300 split board. Then you have to jumper the two pos lugs where before one was red and one was blue wire from the 6300 converter, so it now all works as one pos for all DC fuses.

This 1991 MH had a 6300 and somebody got in there in the past. I have DC lights and fans that work even when all the DC fuses are pulled, and not all the fuse slots are filled. No loose wires! It is hopeless, so I am ignoring it.

There are two ways to measure ground continuity.. I am assuming you used a common multimeter.. This will show count unity or near continuity to ground on any lead that has a load. Like the water heater. Fridge, Air conditioner (If hot enough) Furnace (If cold enough) any light that is turned on and much more.

A better tool is a TEST LIGHT.. this is an Ice pick looking thing with a light bulb in the handle. in this case you clip the clip on the HOT wire (RED) and then touch each formerly fused wire.. IF the light is very bright and nothing else indicates it has power you likely have a ground.. (But read on)

IF it lights dim you should find someting somewhere that either thinks it hs power or complains "Low voltage" Like the LP alarm Fridge or such.


Lights (if incandascent) will light itfairly bright LED's dim but the light may be bright.

Now Grounds.. There may be no grounds connected to that board.. Rare in an RV but possible..

OH. when you IDENTIFY a wire.. LABEL IT .. Adheasive tape and a marks a lot work or bread ties. or a P-Touch with wire label tape.

I found the frig pos+ by running an extension cord from the frig's pcb 12 volt pos+ and checking continuity for each wire. It's one of the green wires. However the other green wire that last time I checked had continuity via a DMM's continuity beep to the large white ground that has ground continuity to all neg- side of the lighting.

Iirc the same colored wires where connected together on each fuse when I pulled the Parallax 6300 DC dist panel.

The lower converter was removed a long time ago so the only wires I recently pulled from the 6300 are the AC bare, white and black wires and their breakers and separately pulled all the fused DC wires plus the main wires for battery pos+, converter pos+ and ground neg-.

using DMM continuity beep setting I'm finding continuity between the ground a converter connects to and black, yellow, green and a large red. black, yellow and green smaller ga. I recall them connected to a fuse out I thought iirc doubled up with the same color wire.

Before disconnecting the AC and DC the Parallax 6300 DC panel was connected to an Xantrex 10 amp truecharge, which I've reconnected to test the frig which is now getting 12 volts with one of the green wires connected to 12 volt pos+.

I probably should have just removed their fuses and then observed what lost power and then labeled them but didn't do that so I'll need to hunt and find the rest of them.

However I'm a little confused why some of the wires iirc originally connected to the dc fuse panel's 12 volt Pos+ have ground continuity? these wires are all bunched up with the wires that go to the 12 volt on the dc fuse panel.

Also the AC fuse panel bare / green wires (ground) has continuity to the DC 12 volt neg- ground and the AC white (neutral) has an intermittent continuity (beeps on and off really fast).

So do you think I should connect any wires that have continuity to converter/battery neg- ground should be connected to a grounding block on the other side of the panel that's labeled GND and connect this DC GND block to the battery/converter neg- ground?

----------

So basically I have approx. a dozen wires most of which are 12vdc pos+ hot and several others have continuuity to ground all bunched up together part of the same harness. All were all originally connected to the dc fuses (pos+) on the parallax dc fuse panel.

The RV 120v "ground" to the frame is the same as the 12v DC "ground" to the frame. They share the frame as "ground".

However the 120v also has white neutral, but the DC has white as "negative" (if black is "positive")

In an RV you can find one or more DC 12v clusters of white wire that then go to the frame.

The 30a 120v shore cord goes to the Main breaker for Black, to the Neutral Buss for White and the bare wire goes to the RV frame via the metal chassis for the 6300 power centre.

The lower portion 6300 converter only has two 120v wires, black and white to breaker and neutral buss. It is grounded by its metal chassis touching the main metal chassis, which is grounded via that bare 120v wire to the frame.

The DC fuse panel is "grounded" to the frame several ways as mounted, (including the screws holding it in place AFAIK)

BFL13 wrote:
The RV 120v "ground" to the frame is the same as the 12v DC "ground" to the frame. They share the frame as "ground".

However the 120v also has white neutral, but the DC has white as "negative" (if black is "positive")

In an RV you can find one or more DC 12v clusters of white wire that then go to the frame.

The 30a 120v shore cord goes to the Main breaker for Black, to the Neutral Buss for White and the bare wire goes to the RV frame via the metal chassis for the 6300 power center.

The lower portion 6300 converter only has two 120v wires, black and white to breaker and neutral buss. It is grounded by its metal chassis touching the main metal chassis, which is grounded via that bare 120v wire to the frame.

The DC fuse panel is "grounded" to the frame several ways as mounted, (including the screws holding it in place AFAIK)

Just to claify I removed the lower converter portion of the 6300.

I'm wondering why some of the wires that were connected to fuses have conntinuity to ground?

e.g. there are two green wires one is connected to the Norcold's frig PCB 12+ input the other green wire has continuity to ground.

That doesn't make sense I currently have the one green wire that goes to the frigs 12 vdc connected to the Xantrex charger pos+ and the frig runs as it should.

There are two or three more wires that also have continuity to ground that were removed from the fuse connection on the Parallax 6300 DC fuse/dist panel.

I don't remember every removing any ground wires from the 6300 dc panel except for the top middle labled battery Neg.

The 6300 dc panel besides the fuse connection has a Conv. Pos+, Battery Pos+ and Battery Neg- that connect to the larger gauge wires that supply power from the converter and the battery to the DC fuses.

I'm stumped why ~three of the wires originally connected to fuses have neg ground?

The Progressive Dynamics DC fuse panel by default is not grounded to the frame.

There is a a long GND block on the back where a wire can be run to it to ground the fuse block to the frame and the converter and battery neg-.

The 6300 DC dist. panel has three main connections battery neg-, converter neg- and converter pos+.

I'm wondering why some of the RV wires that originally connected to the 6300's fuses have continuity to ground? i.e. continuity to the RVs DC large white neg- wire (conv neg-)

I suppose you just have to ignore colours and put your own label tags on instead when you find whatever it runs.

The 6300 DC fuse panel has two positive connections for the converter's DC output--one for its blue wire and one for its red wire. It is a "split panel" for fusing some DC circuits for dirty converter power, and some (last three ISTR) for "filtered by the battery" power.

The 7300 was all clean power from the converter so no need for a battery as filter for any of the DC circuits.

If you have a real 6300 fuse panel (and not a 7300) you must jumper the two pos converter lugs so your new DC power supply with only one positive wire will run all the circuits.

BTW Parallax bought out Magnetek after the 7300 came out, so there are Magnetek 7300s from late in the day (around 2002), but AFAIK it is impossible to find a Parallax 6300.

The AC and DC connections are being moved from a 6300 to a Progressive Dymanics AC/DC panel which is same or similar to a PD5000.

Actual part number is PD50B2T2GP comes with more breaker spaces than their "standard" PD dist panels included with their converters.

I've already moved all the AC connections using the breakers from the 6300 except for one which I need to verify the which amp breaker it requires. The 6300 had installed 30, 20 and 15 amp breakers.

Anyway my concern is moving the DC fuse wires that were connected to the 6300 to the new Progressive Dynamics AC/DC fuse panel that can accommodate up to 9 AC branch circuits and one AC 30 amp main. It's capable of up to a dozen DC fuses.

I've managed to locate most of the dc lighting circuits except for one that I know of and also refrigerator 12 volt DC. Tomorrow I'll test some more to locate where the rest of the dc fuse wires go. I'll then need to take an educated guess of the fuse size for each of the DC circuits.

However what I'm concerned about are the DC fuse wires that have ground continuity.

Though I have wiring schematics for the entire RV, they really aren't clear where the dc fuse panel wires go exactly. I'll look them over again tomorrow but they're not the best electrical schematics I've seen, sort of difficult to read and leaving out details.

It does have an AC receptacle with wires, installed on the back.

PD5000 Series AC/DC Power Distribution Panel – 30 Amp, 120 VAC

The progressive dynamic ad/dc panel cost me $73.00 with shipping I could have more easily added a small breaker box to the 6300 for around $15.00 and wouldn't have needed to disconnect any wires from the 6300's DC panel.

The AC installation was fairly easy in comparison to the DC that's proving to be a bit more difficult as I never tested where the dc fuse wires go to and the size fuses.

Also I'm uncertain why some of the DC Fuse wires have continuity to ground?

I remember while removing the 6300 these wires being connected to the fuses.

I think perhaps there's continuity to ground is because what ever there connected to is NC (normally closed), where most devices and relays are NO (normally open). So I'll need to trace each wire to determine what it connects to which is likely to be time consuming but at least now I'll know which wires go where.

DC circuits normally go to lighting, pumps, fans and refrigerator.

so there's a furnance fan & thermostat, water pump, range hood with light and fan and gas detector connected to a lpg switch (which is no longer used). Possibly other DC controlled devices such as remote switch to start and stop the genny, water level meters for fresh and black water and meter that shows via lights the battery conditions, and 2 x 12 volt cig. sockets, COAX jack with LED and possibly a few others.

Once I figure out what wires goes where then I'll create some sort of color code wire fuse chart to help others.

However as far as fuse size for each circuit may be only an educated guess. I really should have written down the fuse size for each colored wire(s) as some fuses had more than one wire connection.

I did find from one of the schematics some wire color codes

white #8 Ground
red #8 (aux. battery positive)
12ga orange (TV antenna)
12ga red (water pump)
14ga blue (furnace)
12ga red (optional power roof vent)
14ga purple (aux. start switch)
14ga black (lights & rangehood)
14ga green (lights)
14ga yellow (lights)

I don't understand "ground continuity" but I am no electrician. All the DC fuses are for the positive wires in a circuit, the negatives go to the neg buss.

All of my DC fuses (except the RP 30s)in the 5er were 15s except ISTR a 10 for the Winegard TV panel. This MH has all 15s. There are other DC fuses and breakers of higher amps here and there away from the DC fuse panel.

The AC breaker size in amps "goes with" the AWG of the wire going to that breaker. If the question is for the 120v input to the new 75 amp charger, it needs #14 and a 15a, but you can use #12 and a 20a to play it safe. It almost does need 20a. It is borderline by code. The PD 80 amper does need a 20a.