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allen8106's avatar
allen8106
Explorer
Apr 09, 2015

Strange Electrical Issue

So we've been at the lake for a week and a half now and Tuesday I went to the house to mow. On the way back to the lake my daughter calls me and tells me the television won't come on. I get to the camper and start looking things over. This camper is a Jayco with a TV that pops up out of a cabinet at the back of the living quarters. Inside the cabinet space where the TV is stored during travel there is a duplex electrical outlet for the TV power. Early on I had installed a six outlet adapter on the duplex outlet in order to have an extra outlet for the satellite receiver and my wife's Sensey burner. I unplugged the TV and move the cord to a different outlet on the six plug adapter and viola! The TV is working again. Hmmmmm I thought.

A few hours of watching TV and the TV just randomly shuts off. So I remove the six outlet adapter and plug the TV directly into the duplex outlet. Removing the six plug adapter was no big deal because I don't have the satellite anymore. No harm, no foul I think.

The next day after watching TV for a few hours the TV randomly shuts off again. By now I'm starting to get a little frustrated. This time I plug the TV into a different duplex outlet on the outside front of the cabinet. Everything works fine for a few hours then the TV randomly shuts off for no known reason.

I unplug the TV from the front outlet and plug it back into the outlet inside the cabinet and once again viola the TV works.

So this back and forth unplugging and plugging has gone on for several days now with no explanation that i can think of except that the power draw the TV has is maybe overheating the outlets and causing them to shut down until they cool off. My problem is that I've seen or heard of anything like that before.

Any feedback anyone would care to give on this issue would be most appreciated.
  • So once when this happened my daughters cell phone charger was plugged into the front cabinet outlet. I plugged it into the outlet inside the cabinet and it had power and the sleep timer is off on the TV.
  • Our tv shuts off after about 4 hours of continuous play if we have not changed the channel. We do get a brief warning screen before it happens. If we quick change the channel and then change back to the one we are watching, it will stop it from shutting off. We have not been able to figure out how to stop it from happening. There is a timer, but that is shut off.
  • Also, go into the "menu" on the TV and check to see if there any timers that are set to shut the TV off after a certain period of time.
  • Run an extension cord into a source other than your RV and confirm if TV still goes off.

    BTW, does it always go off after the same amount of time? Some TV Menus have a timer feature to enable auto turn off.....could this have inadvertently been turned on....if your TV has that feature?
  • I would verify the outlet is still alive when the TV shuts down. If so then the TV has an issue.
  • Outlets don't shut down due to overheating and then reset.
    Outlets are fed fro AC circuit breakers (just like house) and TRIP when amp rating is exceeded.......then YOU have to reset cause tripped circuit breaker stays tripped until manually reset by a person.


    Your TV power supply (internal) is shutting down (thermal-switch???) and then resetting later.
    The issue is with your TV not the camper outlets.
  • Are you watching without changing channels, volume or anything? My TV, especially on satellite, will put itself to sleep if you don't do anything over several hours. It always surprises me when it does it, because I don't usually watch without changing something fairly frequently.
  • 3_tons's avatar
    3_tons
    Explorer III
    Sounds like the problem is not due to the six outlet adaptor...I'm assuming that you are on shore power and not an inverter...So for a good place to start, I'd determine which breaker (in main 120v panel) is feeding the AC circuit and upon the next shut down episode confirm (using a volt meter) that power is still active across the breaker. Could even be an intermittent loose circuit wire...Also, confirm power across the main breaker...
  • The relay on the powerboard is heating up and shutting down when you unplug it you are reseting the board
  • I bet it is a problem with the television, not the outlets. To verify, plug something else, like a lamp, into the outlet when the TV shuts off.

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