Power surges constantly

[capriskier]

The power in our fifth wheel seems to constantly change. The lights go from bright to a dimmer color once every few minutes. We experienced this at the past two campgrounds. We have 50 amp service. Is there something wrong with our camper or is this normal?

[westernrvparkow]

We had a guest in the park with similar problem. He ended up needing to replace all the battery cables, they were heavily corroded into the insulation jackets and failing intermittently even though the copper terminal connectors looked OK. This is a tricky problem to identify, since you will get good voltage readings until you put a load on the system. Easiest test is to tug on the cables, if they move easier than it seems they should, they may have internal corrosion.

[Denny___Jami]

Check the conections were the power cord comes into the trailer and the connections in the panel, sounds like a loose neutral.

Denny

[RoyB]

Your lights are 12VDC and run from both your converter/charger unit or the battery. Sometimes if the battery is going bad the converter/charger is trying to keep up with it and power surges.

The first thing to do is check the fluid levels in your battery. If one cell is empty and the battery case is warm to hot then you are probably experiencing a failed cell in your battery.

You can also disconnect your shore power connection and read the DC voltage across the battery terminala... It should be around 12.5-6VDC for a charged up battery..

If you battery is reading below 10.5VDC then it may be toast now...

Roy Ken

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Check the batteries.

Check the converter output. It may be failing.