Forum Discussion

thejustin's avatar
thejustin
Explorer
Aug 22, 2013

Power (charging) problem with pre-owned Host camper

Sold my Lance 1161 and was able to get a Host Tahoe 1050 DS Dry bath. Gave it a brief shakedown but was having problems with the power side of the camper. I tried plugging in the shore power cable to my garage power outlet and it immediately trips the test/reset circuit and I cannot get any power inside the camper, and as a result, unable to charge the batteries. I tried several outlets in my house with a long extension cable, and none of them worked. Now these same outlets all powered my 5 other RV's/trailers without issue. Now oddly, it will not work plugged into my garage, but I tried plugging directly into my portable Yamaha 2000W generator and everything inside powered up fine.

Another thing I am not sure of, on ALL of my other RV's, when the generator was running the monitor panel would show the battery being "full" or 100% (even if it wasn't) so as to indicate the fact that the battery was currently being charged. Now when I plug into my Yamaha generator, or if I run the onboard Onan LPG generator, the battery is still at 75%, it does not jump to 100% leaving me wondering if the battery is even charging. I suppose I will need to go get a cheap Voltmeter and see for myself but it just seemed off to me. I should mention this is the first RV I have had with 6V batteries but not sure if that would make a difference or not.

Lastly, when I picked up the camper, I noticed the seller was using a portable battery charger wired directly to the battery terminals. I had asked why he didn't just run the shore power cable and have it charge that way but he didn't really give me an answer (I suppose he was most likely having the same problem I am).....


Any ideas?????
Truck Campers
  • ticki2's avatar
    ticki2
    Explorer
    Aug 22, 2013
    Just a thought but GFI outlets do go bad . Or perhaps on the new camper the neutral and ground are bonded together which will trip a GFI .
  • thejustin's avatar
    thejustin
    Explorer
    Aug 22, 2013
    mark_be wrote:
    thejustin wrote:
    I tried plugging in the shore power cable to my garage power outlet and it immediately trips the test/reset circuit and I cannot get any power inside the camper, and as a result, unable to charge the batteries. I tried several outlets in my house with a long extension cable, and none of them worked. Now these same outlets all powered my 5 other RV's/trailers without issue. Now oddly, it will not work plugged into my garage, but I tried plugging directly into my portable Yamaha 2000W generator and everything inside powered up fine.


    I had the same thing when my electric water heater element was broken. Even when it was turned off. To test, remove the wires from the heater element and plug it into the plug that was tripping the first time.


    Where are the wires to the element located? Do I need to take out the water heater?
  • mark_be's avatar
    mark_be
    Explorer
    Aug 22, 2013
    thejustin wrote:
    I tried plugging in the shore power cable to my garage power outlet and it immediately trips the test/reset circuit and I cannot get any power inside the camper, and as a result, unable to charge the batteries. I tried several outlets in my house with a long extension cable, and none of them worked. Now these same outlets all powered my 5 other RV's/trailers without issue. Now oddly, it will not work plugged into my garage, but I tried plugging directly into my portable Yamaha 2000W generator and everything inside powered up fine.


    I had the same thing when my electric water heater element was broken. Even when it was turned off. To test, remove the wires from the heater element and plug it into the plug that was tripping the first time.
  • billtex's avatar
    billtex
    Explorer II
    Aug 22, 2013
    Re-setting the GFCI's should fix the outlet.

    Considering how the seller was charging...I wonder if the charger/converter is toast?

    Get the multi-meter and start poking around.

    B
  • thejustin's avatar
    thejustin
    Explorer
    Aug 22, 2013
    Old-Biscuit wrote:
    That 15A breaker could be feeding outlets......perhaps one fridge is plugged into.
    Fridge electric heating elements (bad ones) and GFI breakers don't play well together.

    Converter/charger DC output should be 13.6V when connected to AC power

    Microwave is too much amp draw for extension cord and regular outlet


    Fridge works fine, I am going to get a Voltmeter from Lowes and poke around tomorrow and see what I find.

    Also, as I mentioned before I have had a history of several different RV's and trailers and ALL of them powered on and charged just fine with the same power outlets from my garage. And whilst being plugged in the microwave ran just fine off my shore power cable on the other RV's......... I remember this specifically because when I sold my Lance camper I had it plugged into the same outlet and was demonstrating the microwave functionality to folks who were looking at purchasing my camper.

    This Host camper seems to have a much more complicated electrical system than the Lance. There are all kinds of wires and gadgets and gizmos under the step access panel.
  • Old-Biscuit's avatar
    Old-Biscuit
    Explorer III
    Aug 22, 2013
    That 15A breaker could be feeding outlets......perhaps one fridge is plugged into.
    Fridge electric heating elements (bad ones) and GFI breakers don't play well together.

    Converter/charger DC output should be 13.6V when connected to AC power

    Microwave is too much amp draw for extension cord and regular outlet
  • thejustin's avatar
    thejustin
    Explorer
    Aug 22, 2013
    Wanted to mention that when I am plugging into shore power, *EVERYTHING* electrical is turned off. Water heater, fridge, etc...

    Just did a bit more poking around, I found if I turn off all the breakers and plug into shore power, GFCI doesn't reset. Going down one at a time, there is a 15A breaker (3rd one from top) that trips the GFCI, I can turn on all of the breakers except this one and the GFCI doesn't trip. The inside power panel is not labeled so I do not know exactly what the 15A breaker is for.

    The microwave lights up but as soon as I try and use it, I can hear the reset button popping and everything powers down. There are also a few dead power outlets in the kitchen area. I will try and hunt down all the GFCI outlets and resetting them tomorrow and see if that helps any. There is also an inverter on board and it is plugged into a GFCI plugin in the access panel below the entry step, was told to check for some reset buttons at the base of the inverter, will try that tomorrow. It is about midnight here and I can't see anything very good in my driveway heh.

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