Loss of Shore Power

CA Traveler wrote:

CabinetmakerII wrote:
And the REALLY sad part about this... I have a very nice surge protector, but I failed to use it. Paint my face red and call me STUPID! I will never connect to shore power again without first plugging in my surge protector.

And that is why I have the hardwired version as it's always plugged in!

+1 for sure

CabinetmakerII wrote:

09FLSTC wrote:

64thunderbolt wrote:
wouldn't the park be responsible for that?

You would think but they always play dumb. A surge protector is the way to not have to worry. They do work

And the REALLY sad part about this... I have a very nice surge protector, but I failed to use it. Paint my face red and call me STUPID! I will never connect to shore power again without first plugging in my surge protector.

By the way, as a gesture of good will, the park offered a free night stay. We took them up on it

And that is why I have the hardwired version as it's always plugged in!

09FLSTC wrote:

64thunderbolt wrote:
wouldn't the park be responsible for that?

You would think but they always play dumb. A surge protector is the way to not have to worry. They do work

And the REALLY sad part about this... I have a very nice surge protector, but I failed to use it. Paint my face red and call me STUPID! I will never connect to shore power again without first plugging in my surge protector.

By the way, as a gesture of good will, the park offered a free night stay. We took them up on it

No I did not camp for 3 days with out any ground disconnected. The ground was always on the ground bar, the only thing I did was disconnect the ground that was terminated on the neutral bar. There was a second ground wire coming from the transfer switch to the neutral bar on my breaker panel. When I did that everything was ok. BUT for some reason, and I don't quite understand why when I got back home I reversed everything that was done at the CG, plugged it in and everything works fine. That was 2 months ago, since then I have been in 4 other campgrounds and never had any problems.

I know it seems strange but maybe someone could check it out and look at their CB panel and see if there is a ground on the neutral bar. The unit have is a 2014 Winnebago Adventure 37F.I had a 1999 Chieftain before that , and honestly I don't know if it was wired that way or not, I never had a power problem with that one, never took the CB panel cover off.

Keily wrote:
Same thing happened to me this summer, I by passed the transfer switch and tried again , still no shore power, every time I plugged in the power cord it would trip the breaker on the pedestal. After a couple of hours of tracing wires looking for a problem, I found out that the #6 or #8 ground wire was on my neutral bar on my breaker panel in the coach. I removed the ground wire from the neutral bar and everything worked fine. Put the ground back on the neutral bar and pop goes the breaker on the pedestal, so removed the ground wire again , everything worked fine. So for 3 days we camped with power, and no more problems.
Just so happened that the next morning, my wife saw an electrician working on another pedestal across the road from us, I went and talked to him, he was the electrical contractor who's company did the work in the park ( BTW this was an older government park just upgraded this summer) and the electrician told me they have been having all kinds of problems with newer class A motor homes tripping breakers. He said that the type of breakers the government requested are to light to handle the load when these units plug in, and he mentioned the grounded neutral bar.

When I got back home, I reversed everything I had at the park, everything back to normal, plugged back into my house, no problems at all. I was happy, after just purchasing a brand new motor home and only 3 months old , I was worried that I had bought a unit with major problems, and it would be in for repairs before I had a chance to really enjoy it for one season.

Hope some of my story helps

There must be more to this story! Did you spend 3 days with the ground disconnected? This is potentially dangerous.

The ground and neutral should NEVER be bonded in the rig. The ground is connected to the rig frame and other grounds in the rig including the rig CB panel frame but NEVER to the neutral wire. The only place that the neutral and ground are bonded are at the CG or home service panel.

If your rig is wired as described then get a qualified electrician to get it wired correctly.

09FLSTC wrote:

64thunderbolt wrote:
wouldn't the park be responsible for that?

You would think but they always play dumb. A surge protector is the way to not have to worry. They do work

And it would have already paid for itself unless of course you get the CG to pay.

I've had a PI HW50C installed so it's always connected with a remote display inside. I've had a lot of cases of low voltage and one with 160V. Two cases of 30A reverse polarity. I was protected.

64thunderbolt wrote:
wouldn't the park be responsible for that?

You would think but they always play dumb. A surge protector is the way to not have to worry. They do work

wouldn't the park be responsible for that?

Thanks all for your input. As it worked out the 50 amp shore power was miss-wired. There was power at the pedestal and I assumed it was clean power. It was not. The miss-wiring caused an over-voltage to the system which fried an alarm clock, a personal fan, and most importantly the installed microwave. The microwave is now acting really strange. There is no "display" illuminated and the buttons do not respond but when I open the door, the interior light comes on and the turntable rotates... No trouble shooting information provided by the manufacture. I'm hoping there is a blown fuse internal to the microwave. I will have to remove it to find out.

This looks like a 50-AMP coach, but I'll still share what's been found on 30A units with Shore Tie permanently wired to the coach on the coach end:

The Wire Nut Connections in the Flexible Shore Tie to Hard Coach Wiring fail. If there's a junction box where Shore Tie enters Coach, look there.