Fridge Power Problem or Not
My motorhome is plugged into 30 amp power in my garage. Have been running microwave and air conditioning for check out. Today I turned on my Norcold. It runs fine on LP, but when I turn it on elect...
Forum Discussion
MrWizard wrote:sealevel ram wrote:MrWizard wrote:
i would suspect a bad 120v heater element leaking to ground aka the metal tube of the heater
you can turn off the ems, or you can pull out the heater element and test it for resistance between the shell/case and the power leads
it should read infinity on the ohms scale any lower reading and its defective
Wouldn't it be bad under generator power also?
The generator does not have a neutral to ground bond
Without the bond, there is no neutral to hot short detected because of leakage
It's a simple test.. pull the heater and test it with the meter
Chris is probably right, EMS problem, not really 40 amps
If it's a built-in generator on the motorhome, it should have a neutral to ground bond (that is switched in with the transfer switch). If it's an external portable generator, it generally would not be bonded. If there's an inverter in the mix, things get that much more complicated.
If the heater element has a hot to ground short (as opposed to a neutral to ground short), what you suggest does make sense. A slow-blow fuse, for example, might be slower than the EMS/circuit breaker in detecting problems. (A GFCI would probably be even quicker).
At any rate, testing the fridge element seems like a decent place to start troubleshooting. It is a relatively common failure mode, after all.
