Electrical Issue

[aliceinanthemaz]

Need your advice for a novice RVer. I have a class C and now know that I was hooked up to 240V. I believe a power surge came through and knocked out my microwave, outlets, and ac. Everything that can run off the house battery is still running ok. But now even after correcting the hook up, the other items have not come back.

My dad is a dyi guy and we checked the fuses, one was burnt, we replaced it. We also tried to check the breakers. We had a test light and it appeared that electricity was coming into the breaker and then to rule out the breaker, we completed the circuit and the outlet to the microwave was still not working (we had a light bulb plugged in to see whether it would come on).

Any idea on what else is wrong? We plan to take it in on Monday, but was feeling anxious and would appreciate your opinions.

[wa8yxm]

If the unit has a generator, then it has a device called an automatic transfer switch.

Now these come in at least two types.. The one I have would not be bothered by 240 volt shore power since it does not detect or measure shore power.. It simply passes it on if the generator is not working.

I have seen some, however, that DO sense shore power and if it's there and the generator is absent (not working) then they pull in a relay set.

Those, would not like 240 volts.

[westend]

You should have a neutral bus and a ground bus in the load center of the RV. Those should not be connected but a ground lead should extend from the ground bus to the frame. Both buses should be checked. It's possible that the higher current when hooked to 240v destroyed a GFCI receptacle that is upstream of the microwave receptacle. This would result in no power to the microwave receptacle.
Good luck with the repairs.

[aliceinanthemaz]

YC 1 wrote:
You may have burned the neutral wire open and possibly the ground too. Use an ohmeter to check the ground lug on the shoreline cord to the ground strip inside the breaker panel in the rv. Do the same for the other leads.

We checked the outlet and there is a hot wire, but the neutral is open and the ground is grounded. Do you know if it's normally grounded to the chassis, if so, do you know where it would be located.

[YC_1]

You may have burned the neutral wire open and possibly the ground too. Use an ohmeter to check the ground lug on the shoreline cord to the ground strip inside the breaker panel in the rv. Do the same for the other leads.

[aliceinanthemaz]

We hooked up to the house 240v. My dad put this together and we've used it several times before but this time didn't remove one of the 120 wires. We had 2 hot and 1 ground instead of previously it was 1 hot and 2 ground.

[CA_Traveler]

Altern wrote:

aliceinanthemaz wrote:
I have a class C and now know that I was hooked up to 240V.

:h Please explain how this was possible. The power cord on Class C's is usually a 30 amp, three wire.

It's common for some "electrician" to mistake the 30A RV plug for the 240V 3 wire dryer plug and wire the RV plug for 240V. Some in their wisdom have forced the 30A RV plug into the 240V dryer plug. But there can be other reasons.

[2oldman]

aliceinanthemaz wrote:
I was hooked up to 240V. I believe a power surge came through and knocked out my microwave,..

If you were truly hooked up to 240, you were already toast before any surge came through. By '240' do you mean a household outlet?

[CA_Traveler]

aliceinanthemaz wrote:

Mandalay Parr wrote:
If you really had 240volts instead of 120volts, the microwave is probably fried along with other stuff.

Yes, we are pretty sure the microwave is a goner, but was wondering what else we may have screwed up in the electrical system itself since even the outlet the microwave used is no longer working.

Potentially all 120V devices could be toast like: MW, HW, TVs, charger, refer, etc. But if you're lucky it could just be device fuses.

GFIs could also be toast which could explain the MW outlet.

[time2roll]

All you can do is test everything and replace or repair as appropriate.

A Progressive EMS or Surge Guard would have prevented this overvoltage connection.

[Altern]

aliceinanthemaz wrote:
I have a class C and now know that I was hooked up to 240V.

:h Please explain how this was possible. The power cord on Class C's is usually a 30 amp, three wire.
For the rest, reset the GFCI's.

[aliceinanthemaz]

Mandalay Parr wrote:
If you really had 240volts instead of 120volts, the microwave is probably fried along with other stuff.

Yes, we are pretty sure the microwave is a goner, but was wondering what else we may have screwed up in the electrical system itself since even the outlet the microwave used is no longer working.

[Mandalay_Parr]

If you really had 240volts instead of 120volts, the microwave is probably fried along with other stuff.