RV electrical

astraelraen wrote:
I pulled out the electrical box in the camper and here is what I found. I have no idea what I'm looking at, does anyone see something out of the ordinary?

Electrical 1

Electrical 2

Electrical 3

On several of the wires, some of the strands do not go into the lugs/terminals. The neutral connections especially don't look the greatest and some of the strands appear to be nicked which isn't good. You should pull all these out, cut each one a bit and strip (not with a knife), twist the strands and re-insert. 120V connections in the panels are sometimes not tightened enough but I don't like some of what's in the pics. I would go over each one and make sure they are all tightened up including grounds. I would make sure the end of each wire is neatly cut so all strands are the same length. The wire should go slightly through to the other side of the connections on the bus bar. Check all the ground connections as well for each cable. For heavier gauge stranded wires, tighten them and then wiggle them a bit and re-tighten.

It could be a faulty AC unit, but I am wondering if you do perchance have a loose connection on the AC circuit at the panel or on the 30 amp main wiring. When an AC unit starts up, there is a brief momentary inrush current of up to 6 times the running current. If there is a loose connection, it may not be evident at lower current draws. Also check the wiring connection right at the AC unit.

If it appears to be the AC unit and going over all the connections doesn't help, try plugging into another GFCI in your house and see if that trips. If it still does, it's likely the AC unit.

What are the blades on the shore power cord and adapter like? I would make sure they are clean and not pitted and dirty.

Any GFCI outlets in your house would be there because the NEC requires them. I'm not sure what the NEC says about a dedicated 15/20 amp recept. for an RV, but at the very least, there should be a permanent warning label stating "for RV use only" if it's not GFCI protected.

Can you post a pic of the other side(s) of the panel? How do the hot wires connect to the breakers? What type of panel? Why are there 2 larger gauge hot and neutral wires which are for the 30 amp main I assume?

Wayne Dohnal wrote:

myredracer wrote:

Huh?

It does not inject a signal. Have you got a credible link to something that shows this?

Too bad the large percentage of "How GFCIs work" pages on the Internet leave out half of its functionally. The ground-neutral fault function has been discussed on this forum multiple times for several years now. Links?

Ground Fault Current Interrupters by Sam Goldwasser
LM1851 Datasheet (Pages 6 & 7 are a good place to start)

If you want proof, just connect the ground and neutral pins on a GFCI or downstream outlet together, and the GFCI will trip unless it's a really ancient one. You can do this on an installed device or on the workbench. It doesn't take a zero-ohm connection to do the trip. A lower resistance value that required for a hot-neutral trip to be sure, but nowhere near a dead short.

How a GFCI works: Nema organization

Need to read that document more carefully. It talks about grounded neutral detection at least a dozen times. The 120 Hz signal injection is how it's generally implemented.

I'm well aware of how long discussions on this have been around on this and other forums and how long GFCIs have been around.

The link to a page from a hot tub supplier isn't exactly something I'd call credible. The second one is better. There is no "signal injected onto the downstream neutral". The National Semiconductors data sheet says "..... detection is accomplished by feeding the neutral coil with 120 Hz energy continuously and allowing some of the energy to couple into the sensing transformer....". Nothing in the data sheet indicates that there is a "signal" generated by the GFCI and nothing is placed onto the neutral conductor downstream of it.

Anyway, I don't want this to digress into an argument over tech. stuff.