Seminoe Joe
Texas, Wyoming, or somewhere in between
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Just installed a new camper side plug because the old one was damaged. Connecting everything right, camper was drawing power from the truck yesterday when I left home. Last night and today, no dice. The driving lights all work, so the plug’s not the problem. A voltmeter tells me that the wire in the camper is getting 14.6 volts when the truck is running. Looking around for any fuses or breakers that might be bad, but all is good. So…what the heck is going on here?! Anyone experience this before? Any suggestions for what to try?
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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OK on alternator but not battery suggests bad battery or connection. Load test the battery and test the voltage from the battery posts - (not the cable connection) to frame ground and battery post + to the 12V wire to the camper.
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Bob
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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And a failure after a repair suggests to check the repair, don't assume the new connector is still OK. ie In particular the lights working is not the 12V charge line.
* This post was
edited 09/08/23 10:38pm by CA Traveler *
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Seminoe Joe
Texas, Wyoming, or somewhere in between
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Just to clarify: the camper interior lights and tv, etc were working off the truck battery (truck running) when I switched off the house battery switch in the camper. Now, when I run the truck and switch off the house batteries, nothing is working from the truck battery. But a voltmeter applied to the connector wire indicates plenty of juice. So the repair worked. Electricity is coming in from the pigtail. It’s just not making it to anything else. I’ll keep probing with the voltmeter and see what I can find I suppose.
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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Volt meter tests can be misleading because they virtually draw no amps. Test with a load.
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opnspaces
San Diego Ca
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It's too early in the morning for me to process and give an idea what's happening. But my suspicion is somehow you are miswired and have intermittently 12v positive on the ground wire. So you can read 12v in the camper but that 12v can't get out of the camper because there is 12v positive on on the ground.
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mkirsch
Rochester, NY
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Flipped the switch, it worked. Flipped the switch again, and it didn't work...
I would suspect the switch.
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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Check for reverse polarity. Connect a long wire to the truck frame and measure the voltage in the camper. Ground should be 0V and positive 12V.
Then using the same ground connection turn on lights and track down the 12V disconnect. l'd double check the ground again. A voltmeter will read OK with a high resistance connecton without a load because the voltmeter draws virtually no load.
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Seminoe Joe
Texas, Wyoming, or somewhere in between
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opnspaces wrote:It's too early in the morning for me to process and give an idea what's happening. But my suspicion is somehow you are miswired and have intermittently 12v positive on the ground wire. So you can read 12v in the camper but that 12v can't get out of the camper because there is 12v positive on on the ground.
The white wire is the ground and I wired it to the ground. Black is positive and I wired it as such. As I mentioned before, everything was working for the first few hours of the trip, then somewhere along the line, it stopped working. Is the battery seperator in a 2012 Lance susceptible to failure? I was thinking it was somehow shutting off the charge coming in from the truck battery.
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EricCO
Colorado
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Just double checking on this...
Are you checking all this with the truck engine running and the truck camper battery disconnected at the battery posts?
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