50 ~ volts in door/doorframe, intermittently

[rforehand]

Greetings friends,

I have a 2014 Coachmen Leprechaun C21QB with about 30K miles on it, and last week It began shocking folks at random in the door frame/door steps region. It's happened at 3 separate locations, so I know it's not a faulty ground at the power source. I wasn't there the first 3 times it happened, but I was out in it this past Friday turning things off and on with a polarity tester plugged into one of my GFI outlets, and a volt meter hooked up to the door frame and ground, and after about an hour of turning things off and on, breakers, lights, wiggling wires, inspecting connections, etc, all of the sudden my polarity tester was indicating an "open ground", so I looked at my multimeter that I had connected to my door frame and ground, and it was reading 50 volts. I began flipping breakers one by one to try to ID if it were isolated to a specific breaker/appliance, each time I'd flip a breaker from an appliance like the microwave, the volts would go from 50 to 40ish, then back up to 50 when I turned the breaker back on. I plugged the polarity tester into all of my outlets and they were all indicating "open ground". I then unplugged the whole RV from shore power and plugged it back in, and everything went back to normal, no more voltage in the door frame and no more "open ground" indicator on the polarity tester. I've been trying to repeat the process for the past 3 days and it hasn't happened again, but I know for a fact that somethings not right because it should never have 50v running through the doorframe. I've had 2 RV tech's trouble shoot it, and one licensed electrician, and it's still a mystery what was causing the issue. Keeping in mind, the RV wasn't having the voltage issue when the techs were troubleshooting, but they looked through everything that they believed may had been causing the issue and couldn't come up with anything. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Travelcrafter]

I hope he hasn't fried his bacon. not meant to be funny but the potential is there. needs to fix it or park it.

[Butch50]

In case no one else has noticed the OP has not been back here since 9/16/14. So he must not be to interested because he didn't come back. I think he might be gone.

[ron_dittmer]

Without reading through 4 pages of replies, I would check the grounding of the power transfer switch, assuming you have such a devise. But like j-d says just above, is this a warranty issue? It is a 2014 model.

[Travelcrafter]

One common thing in all the discussions I have read about this thread would lead me in the direction of replacing the shore power cord its self. The reason I say this is it is a strain point at the connection to the shore power source and again at the M H entrance point. over time a ground wire may have broken on either end inside the cable/cord and left to open when the wind blows or some one walks on the floor and the home sways. This is a common problem in the industry i worked in. One way to trouble shoot it is to disconnect it from both ends and put a continuity meter on the ground lead and one of the power leads on one end and jumper the same two leads on the other end REMEMBER BOTH ENDS ARE DISCONNECTED.have one person watch the meter for deflection while another one starts at the other end flexing,bending and twisting the cable to produce the open if it exist in the cable.go slow about do a few feet of cable at a time.try not to move the meter end as this could cause a false deflection.I would also at this time be looking for pin holes and abraded areas on the cable/cord. A lot of times we look for a major problem when its the simple ones that bight us in the butt.

[j-d]

This is going to sound like a bad pun, but I was "shocked" to see that the coach involved is a 2014. Has Dealer/Manufacturer/Warranty been involved?
That said, major Boating Safety organizations like Boat/US are weighing in on what's called Electric Shock Drowning (ESD for short) in the marine community. The Coast Guard has led a recent charge to promote awareness and the inspection (along with modification in many cases) of marina electrical systems.
So the remark "dead in the water" above led me to want to post This Boat/US Link about ESD. As Coast Guard Auxiliary we work to educate and warn the public. Our mantra is "Don't Swim Near Anything Using AC Power."
I know one of the article authors (David Rifkin) personally and have adapted his material as part of our Water Sports training.
The OP is being warned of the risk of the RV version of ESD. The boy in the YouTube article experienced the full tragic force of it. Browse the webpage, you may find something useful.
In your checks, if you tear into the coach yourself, check where the flexible shore tie cable splices into the coach's solid wiring. Be sure that connection is tight.
I'm not one of the Campfire Lawyers, but I see the possibility the coach builder/dealer do not want to get involved in this because of liability concerns. I am also concerned that they might also try to deny liability if you have been tinkering with the unit. Problem is, I don't know how to divine that concern.

[Harvey51]

Wow, that is so sad. I'm over 60 now with very dry skin and 120 volts doesn't hurt much. The touchless voltage sensor check after plugging in the RV is a heck of a good idea. I use mine whenever working with 120 Volts at home - it is just so easy to check everything for voltage before touching. Doesn't have to be a fluke as in the YouTube video - a $10 one from the hardware store works great.

[1492]

Hope you get this solved? To say it's an unsafe condition is an understatement, and can have tragic results. Came across this YouTube video Boy dies from touching RV. What went wrong?.

[opnspaces]

I'm going to say it's your shore power end. When you had the failure and you unplugged and then plugged in, the problem went away. the plug connection is the only thing that changed at that point.

What if the plug end has a loosening terminal. When you unplugged you pulled the plug body but the blades stay in the socket. As you pull harder a loose pin can attempt to stay behind and be pulled slightly out of the body from the friction on the pedestal slots. when you plug it back in the ground pin and blade get pushed more firmly into the plug body, resetting a loose connection.

I would replace the plug end at least if not the whole cable. I just find it hard to believe that the actual cable is faulty, but maybe it's been damaged from pulling it out and pushing it back into the cord storage.

Maybe turn on a bunch of lights or a 1,500 watt space heater. Hook up from the door to some wet ground. Then have someone watch the meter while you plug in and unplug from the pedestal. Also try plugging in firmly and with someone watching the meter start kinking the cord like you're trying to kink off the flow of a garden hose.

If it's a problem with the plug or cord I think that should make it show up.

[Dusty_R]

Put a new cord on it. If the problem goes away and stays away, then make an extenion cord out of the old on by putting new ends on it.
Sounds to me that you have a bad male cord cap. I cut one open once and the wires are not all that well attached to the prongs.

Dusty

[rforehand]

Thanks Matt. I appreciate your input. My only dilemma now is that everything is functioning perfectly at the moment, and has been since last Friday. With that said, everything I test, grounds, polarity, continuity, etc etc, tests out fine, no problems. Other than visually inspecting connections and tugging on wires, I'm dead in the water unless I can get that "open ground" reading again on my tester and pick up some voltage running through my door frame or elsewhere that it shouldn't be. Whatever I test, it's going to show that all is well with the ground, because at the moment, all IS well with the ground.

You should come down, the sun is shining and the water is warm my friend!

[Matt_Colie]

Rfore,

Not that you don't have enough responses, but I have seen this before with the boats that I used to work on before the depression.

My bet is that you have two problems.
First: There is poor connection in the safety ground bonding between your coach and the house ground. As you say this happens in more than one place, I would bet dollars to doughnuts that there is a problem in you main panel or your shore power cable. When you get the located and repaired, then all kinds of other things will look wrong.

Second: There is a leakage of power to ground that should be going to the neutral. This is a very common failure in heating elements. "But I'm not heating anything!" Just the water heater, the coffee pot and the reefer (uncommon on boats). Any one of these can leak a lot of power to ground and still operate as expected.

Too bad you are in Florida.

Matt

[Harvard]

I too started my knowledge base on this topic with a "hockey puck" style adapter. Once I realized it was the adapter as the root cause of my hot skin I determined the round female ground hole was too large for the mating male.

In my case the puck had CSA markings so I contacted CSA about the matter c/w with a picture. CSA response was they have never tested or approved such a device and were sure the CSA markings were faked. But they could not go any further unless I was able to ID the place I bought it for them to follow up. Of course I have no idea where I picked it up.

[rforehand]

KristinU wrote:

rforehand wrote:
I'm currently plugged in to my home using a 15/30 amp Hockey puck style adapter. However, the same thing happened at a campground while plugged directly into a 30 amp plug. So the adapter isn't suspect because it's happened both with it, and without it, and it's happened at 3 separate locations regarding power connections (my home, a campground, and someone else's home). All 3 locations, at some point, the voltage appeared to run through the doorframe, intermittently.

I was just out testing, I'm getting ~ 2v between ground and neutral in my GFI receptacle. Is that a problem?

Is it possible to have a huge coincidence going on where the hockey puck adapter is to blame at home and the CG pedestal ground is to blame for the incident at the CG? Were you using the adapter at the other person's house?

We had the hot skin issue show up on our old camper using a hockey puck adapter.

[KristinU]

rforehand wrote:
I'm currently plugged in to my home using a 15/30 amp Hockey puck style adapter. However, the same thing happened at a campground while plugged directly into a 30 amp plug. So the adapter isn't suspect because it's happened both with it, and without it, and it's happened at 3 separate locations regarding power connections (my home, a campground, and someone else's home). All 3 locations, at some point, the voltage appeared to run through the doorframe, intermittently.

I was just out testing, I'm getting ~ 2v between ground and neutral in my GFI receptacle. Is that a problem?

Is it possible to have a huge coincidence going on where the hockey puck adapter is to blame at home and the CG pedestal ground is to blame for the incident at the CG? Were you using the adapter at the other person's house?

We had the hot skin issue show up on our old camper using a hockey puck adapter.