Electrical Issue?

[homeschoolin]

We have our Cedar Creek parked in front of the house for loading for a trip. Our driveway is too steep to get the fiver up near the house, so it is parked on the street. We have a 100 ft extension cord that we run from a standard house outlet (15 amp) down to the coach just to run the converter and charge the battery.

We also have the Progressive EMS-HW50C installed on the coach.
(http://www.progressiveindustries.net/ems_hw50c.htm)

The EMS starting cutting off the power as soon as I plugged into the home outlet. The EMS is claiming low voltage on line 1. I have not had this problem before. When I switch off the 20 amp breaker inside the coach that relates to the converter, kitchen GFI and fireplace, the low voltage error message goes away and the EMS shows the voltage from line 1 to be within normal ranges.

Why is shutting off that breaker eliminating my low voltage problem?

The only thing wired to that 20 amp coach breaker that should be drawing power is the converter. Anything else in the coach that might be drawing power from that 20 amp circuit has been turned off. The power draw from the converter should be well within the capacity of the 15 amp house circuit, which has nothing else drawing power from it.

Furthermore, my understanding is that the EMS just reads the voltage coming into the coach. If the voltage is low it just shuts off the power to protect the electronics. We have had this happen at a few campgrounds.

Why would the voltage readings changes just because the breaker has be turned on?

Thanks for any ideas.

[time2roll]

What is the converter model? How many batteries?

100w of solar would sure do the trick to keep batteries up.

[homeschoolin]

I am the OP. We have been traveling and away from the computer, but I wanted to return to this thread to confirm what my problem was determined to be.

I was able to use my main 50 amp power cord, my 50 amp extension cord and another shorter, higher gauge extension cord in my garage to reach from my fifth-wheel to my house's nearest outlet. This solved the problem with the EMS clicking on and off due to low voltage as the voltage coming into the EMS was now above the minimum requirement of the EMS.

In the future I will have to either cobble together these three cords or just buy a new, long, higher gauge cord for hooking up the RV in front of our house.

[MrWizard]

when parked at my brothers house
i had two run a long cord out,
i have NO EMS, but i bought a 10ga cord and put on good name brand '20 amp' female end on it, before plugging in my 50amp cord with '115v adapter'

load * length = voltage drop

even with 'only the converter'
low batteries equal full draw , equal voltage drop, with too small a gauge cord

are you sure the fridge and water heater are OFF ?

[Canadian_Rainbi]

tvfrfireman wrote:

2112 wrote:
If you have a standalone battery charger charge the battery for awhile with that and then try it again. But for long term, get a larger cord.

X 2

X3

Ours did a similar thing trying to put 75 Amps into the battery. The coach was parked "near" the well pump house and connected to the "15A" outlet there with a 100' 12ga extension cord. The power to the 120V 15A outlet at the pump house is a fed by a 8ga run from the house which is probably 300 feet over all. I ran the generator for half an hour after which the extension was ok, voltage only dropped to 105V from the 120! I now wish that I had run 6 or even 4 gauge to the well but that is pretty $$$$$$$ since it is all direct bury cable.

[tvfrfireman]

2112 wrote:
If you have a standalone battery charger charge the battery for awhile with that and then try it again. But for long term, get a larger cord.

X 2

[2112]

If you have a standalone battery charger charge the battery for awhile with that and then try it again. But for long term, get a larger cord.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

This is a good one to consider...

[rrupert]

You may not have sufficient power/voltage coming out of your 15 amp house outlet. Check the voltage there with and without the extension cord plugged in.

[homeschoolin]

Thanks for the quick replies. I think the problem is probably a bad extension cord after reading all of the possibilities suggested. I will probably have to spring for a more heavy duty cord.

<>

With that breaker on, voltage seems to dance around as the EMS shuts down then turns back on after the protective delay. I have seen voltage as low as 92 at times.

The main thing I wanted to confirm was that my converter was not having issues. The converter was working fine at the end of our last trip so I did not think that would be the problem and none of you have suggested that to be a likely issue. We are getting on the road today and I will experiment with a better power cord when we get home. If we have time this morning before we leave, I will look to see if we have higher gauge cord of enough length to see it the cord is the problem.

[accsys]

Your extension cord is probably not a 12 gauge one and you are drawing enough current through your ext cord to drop the voltage to unacceptable levels as far as the EMS is concerned. Initially the converter will draw several amps until it reaches float charge levels. What voltage does the EMS remote say is coming into the coach with the converter breaker turned ON?

Two ways to solve this: get a heavier 12 gauge cord or bypass the EMS with the switch provided on the EMS remote. As long as the converter is the only thing drawing power, the lower voltage will not hurt it if you have at least 100V.

[BB_TX]

With a good meter I would check the voltage readings in the coach with the breaker on and with it off and see just what is happening. If the voltage is really dropping that much then you have some problem with the connection. Could be a bad extension cord. Could be a loose connection somewhere in that circuit. Or something else that would cause the voltage to drop due to increased current.
If you are near the 15 amp limit you could be dropping 6-10 volts thru the line depending on wire sizes and tightness of connections.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

The converter is trying to charge batteries that are demanding lots of amps.