Lights are out

[dragonflyspit]

Got back today to find all the 12-volt living area lights are out, and so is the refrigerator. The 12-volt plugs work, and the water pump works. There are only about 6 fuses and they look okay.

Dry camping. No generator on. 1987 Fleetwood Bounder motorhome.

Ideas?

[wa8yxm]

One of the things I'm fond of saying is that we RVers often have a few screws loose.

YOU have done a very good job of describing the symptoms of a bad connection,, Due to the way 12 volt wiring is done, Most likely a ground conection,, A screw, that holds a wire terminal to the frame some where.

Normal vibration from moving around re-made the connection.

NOTE: these are a witch to track down. UNLESS.. you know where the common to the things that did not work ground terminal bolts to the frame.

[dragonflyspit]

I don't know what today. Everything is working fine now, and I haven't done a thing. I deliberately didn't tighten wires because I wanted to see if the lights came on as I did it, but nothing has gone off since that one, isolated event. Very curious.

My converter is Progressive Dynamics, not the one suggested by a poster. The coach batteries are all good, full, etc. My 12-volt outlets are wired to the house batteries, not the starter battery.

I'm baffled. Must be voodoo. ;-).

[fischer]

Check the ground for your coach battery. Fleetwood runs the ground to the chassis and bolts it to the frame, mine came loose once.

[John_Wayne]

Are you sure your house battery is good? the two 12volt plug sockets could be wired to the starting battery. Your statement every thing worked when the generator was running but nothing in the morning, would point me to a low or dead battery or loose wire from battery. what is the battery reading with out the generator running?

[ChooChooMan74]

robatthelake wrote:
What do you mean by 12 Volt Plugs? All the electrical Outlets are 115 Volts!

NOT TRUE

[Chris_Bryant]

I am betting you have a Magnetek linear converter and the chageover relay is bad. A number of 12 volt items are hooked to the filtered battery line- these are the right hand 1 - 3 fuses in the panel, the rest are switched.

[dragonflyspit]

Rob, I have 2 12-volt plugs in this beast. They look just like the lighter in a car.

Mike, everything worked normally when the generator was on last night, but I awoke to no lights or fridge again this morning. I accidentally left a light on as I was dressing, and a few minutes later, damned if it didn't turn on all by itself. Then the refrigerator clicked on by itself, and magically, I have lights and a fridge now.

Obviously, I know it isn't magic. I don't know much about RV wiring, but I believe both of these support your loose wire hypothesis. With the gen on last night, there was enough current to jump the tiny gap of the loose wire. And as I stomped around getting dressed this morning, the loose connection made contact and, voila, lights. I will tighten everything I can reach at the fuse box, and PM you if I need help. Thanks very much for your help.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Without a hand-held meter or a test light go to the closet and drag out your Ouija Board.

No slide-out?

OK In desperation....

Drag your car's battery inside. Connect 2 wires to the battery. Making damned sure you don't get positive and negative reversed, CAREFULLY touch the ends of the jumper wires to the socket where you removed a bulb.

SPARKS! You have a short.

POSSUM! None of the other dead lights or refrigerator light up. You have a cut wire or bad connection somewhere. This includes a trunk ground wire for that circuit.

The symptoms as you describe them shout FUSE! so bad it isn't funny. But you claim you "checked" them.

But without you having a three dollar test light or four dollar electrical meter this is like playing a video game blindfolded.

Best of luck to you...

[Grandpere]

I had the same problem with my 87 Southwind and it was the GFCI outlet located in the bathroom. It was tripped and had killed all the power to every 120v outlet, refrigerator, etc. I pressed the reset button and everything went back to work. Mine tripped because my grandson plugged an electric tire pump into the outside outlet which turned out to have problems with the 120 to 12 volt adapter.

[Old-Biscuit]

Fuses look OK ?

Did you test each fuse, fuse position or just look at them. Looks can be deceiving. Need to test that 12V is at each fuse and goes thru each fuse.

[robatthelake]

What do you mean by 12 Volt Plugs? All the electrical Outlets are 115 Volts!

[Artum_Snowbird]

While it is likely the power feeds out to your lights and refrigerator are on separate circuits, back almost 30 years ago, who knows.

But it is more likely your return wires that may be loose. Start by putting your screwdriver on each and every wire that is not on the fuse box, but is on the return terminal strip, tighten the screw terminal, then pull the wire to see it is secure. Then do the same for each and every wire connected to the fuses on both sides.

If that doesn't fix it, you will have to go to your fridge and figure out whether it's the power feed or the return feed that isn't working. PM me for help.

mike