DKLilly67
California
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Hello all- I sure hope you can help me! We have a huge problem. We are in the middle of a trip, and our youngest daughter ( we became guardians at age 50 because the girls were being abused) in one of her episodes - tried to turn on the A/C units both at the same time by rapidly dragging the levers up and down thru all settings four times before I could get to her. My husband and I are both disabled - he is 70 I am 60. Anyways, when she did that everything went black. No power to anything. I assumed we tripped a breaker, so we reset everything. It didn’t work so I repeated it several times( definition of insanity) then I tried unplugging the autoformer from shore power waiting a bit and rebooking everything up. Back inside I turned on each breaker . For some reason everything was back. I went thru the coach and put all the unused lights in off position. I made sure anything not in use but plugged in was not plugged in.
We had lights and air again fridge was working- world was back to normal.
Then after several hours - blammo- everything out. We were able to restore power to our not shore side - but outlets are out a/c is out everything is out. We tested and found that we were getting power to the two gfci outlets but plugging anything in got nothing to turn on. So we replaced the two gfci. Well we thought we did. Turns out if you have your adult son do it and he does it backwards they will never work. So we got up this morning and the entire coach was dead. Had to call roadside assist to jump the battery.
I am lost. I have no idea what we should do now. I’m in tears. I just have no clue what I’m missing. Please anyone - if you can help me figure his out- I’m desperate.
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LouLawrence
Traveling the US fulltime since 2000.
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Sorry to hear of your problems. However, we need to know so much more. What kind of coach and is it a 30 amp or 50 amp coach? What are you plugged into (home, campground, 15amp, 30amp, 50amp)? Have to connected the power without the autoformer in the loop? You said you had power at an interior plug but if you plug something in it will not work? Is that correct? I know you are typing and thinking fast but if you could slow down and give us some usable details it would help us try to help you.
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opnspaces
San Diego Ca
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Hi Stephanie welcome to the forum. So others don't have to ask I can see in your profile you have a
1999 Discovery by Fleetwood 40 ft Diesel, two slides
As far as the issues at hand can you take a moment and describe what you found about the GFCI being installed backwards? Was the white wire attached to the hot (brass) screw? Or were the line and load connections reversed? And more importantly has the miswire been corrected?
As far as nothing working I would suggest do again what you did to get it all working again. Make sure both AC units are set to off. Then unplug the shore power and do not start the generator. Then flip all the breakers off. Push all breakers in the off direction to make sure they are actually off.
Now plug in shore power and then flip on the main breaker. Select another breaker and flip it on and verify that whatever is in the circuit actually turns on or works again. Repeat until all the breakers are back on.
If anything is still not working let us know and we can help you figure out what is wrong.
Also as aside for the future. Your daughter rapidly flipping the AC's off and on possible caused a rotor lock. If it happens again just turn off the affected AC and wait 10 minutes for it's internal pressures to stabilize and then turn the AC back on. Providing a breaker didn't trip the AC should be able to recover.
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wolfe10
Florida
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Yup,15/20 OR 30 OR 50 amp shore power?
Was the CG breaker tripped?
What is Alternating Current voltage when heavy loads are turned on?
Very likely this is something that can be easily diagnosed, but only with FACTS.
Brett Wolfe
Ex: 2003 Alpine 38'FDDS
Ex: 1997 Safari 35'
Ex: 1993 Foretravel U240
Diesel RV Club:http://www.dieselrvclub.org/
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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X2 on more info needed. Some thoughts:
If you are on 30A best to run only 1 A/C as 2 can be marginal. 2 on the gen might be OK depending upon the gen capability. Your A/Cs etc may require 12V for control and hence with discharged batteries they don't work. Assuming you are not using the inverter I would hope that the batteries would last overnight without shore power. Suggest you have them load checked to determine their condition. Apparently you know the GFCIs were incorrectly replaced, suggest you leave that circuit off until corrected. Maybe your charger is on the GFCI circuit and hence dead batteries?
Assuming road side assistance jumped the chassis battery how long did you drive or run the gen to get the house batteries charged - hours need for this.
Hope some of this helps.
* This post was
edited 09/10/23 05:30pm by CA Traveler *
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Bob
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DKLilly67
California
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Hi again everyone - I am so grateful that you are willing to help me!!
I will try to answer everything I can and tell you what’s going on as I do- I am so grateful!
We are members of Thousand Trails. We stay 21 days park to park and so far have only been to two parks because this happened. I do for an extension week so we could try to fix this.
We plug into 30 amp shore power. Pedestal- to autoformer- to our line - to our coach.
We tried unplugging everything and taking a beat then acting as if we just pulled in, thinking we somehow forgot a step.
I was told to make sure gold screws went to positive on the gfci, and silver to negative. I know they ( my son and friend) went round and round about how to hook it up and then the friend told my son he was supposed to put the yellow sticker in a certain spot and copy it exactly, and that since he didn’t the two new gfci were hopelessly locked up. This morning we got plain outlets ( just trying to close circuit and go from there) my husband very carefully hooked them up ground to ground, white to gold, black to silver. We can now read power to the outlet but nothing to the outlet works . Just now, he tried to start the engine and it would not start. I immediately had him disconnect from shore power and start the generator, then start the engine. Thankfully it is running right now but we still have no a/c or any working outlets on the right side , and one outlet ( under kitchen table) is working on the shore power side. Before this catastrophe, everything worked- fridge, lights , lava fan - a/c , outlets, tvs. Now fridge is on propane. One outlet on shore side, and no joy anyplace else and something is stealing my battery charge as well , right? It was just jumped this morning-
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DKLilly67
California
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A few more details as requested:
We have not fixed the gfci- we just put normal plugs in even though I cringed at the thought because I am positive I’m supposed to have them. Our goal was just to get power going then fix power.
We are doing the breaker by breaker test right now as you suggested
Breaker panel update:
1- front a/c panel lights up but no action
2 microwave / clothes washer ( has separate switch under cabinet to toggle back and forth no joy)
3 appliances- no receptacles work
4 rear a/c - lights up panel - but no action
5small appliance - we can’t determine what that is even supposed to control.
Tested all poles on breaker and all have 118
We get 118 on the tester at both plugs. Last night we were getting 118 at one end and 2 at the other and I knew it was hooked up wrong making a bad issue even worse. The hook up was line and neutral reversed.
I learned that there are two push buttons on my inverter that I have to push simultaneously to reset that.
Love the tip about rotor lock- I will remember that
. Please please please keep it coming we are so grateful. You guys are amazing angels- every single one!!!!!
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Rick Jay
Greater Springfield area, MA
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DKLilly67 wrote:This morning we got plain outlets ( just trying to close circuit and go from there) my husband very carefully hooked them up ground to ground, white to gold, black to silver. We can now read power to the outlet but nothing to the outlet works .
I hope you have a typo there. It should be ground to ground (usually a green screw), black to gold screw, and white to silver screw. The black is the hot line, the white is the neutral line. If wired the way you described, things connected to the outlet should work, but they are a shock hazard. Outlets have a "load" and a "line" side. The "line" side received the black, white & ground wires from the breaker panel. The "load" side is used to feed the power and protect the other outlets downstream. The fact that they don't works suggests that either they are wired incorrectly (more so than you mentioned) or that the breaker which feeds the those outlet(s) is tripped.
ON EDIT: Reading your next reply, I see that you figured out the hot & neutral reversal. That's a step in the right direction. I might also suggest, if you don't have one already, that you purchase a GFCI receptacle tester similar to this one. There are many variations, all do about the same thing, and any hardware store should have them. Personally, I recommend the ones with the GFCI test button. Oh, and the yellow sticker is there mostly to indicate the "load" terminals on the GFCI. Where it's placed has no bearing on the circuit operation. I have no idea what "hopelessly locked up" means. If they were tripped, hitting the "Reset" button should fix it.
And you really should reinstall the GFCI outlets. Without them, you have a serious shock hazard. I don't really think the GFCI outlets had anything to do with your original issues.
I don't like to say this, but it sounds like the people you have working on the electrical issues don't really understand what they are doing. Understand that electricity can be lethal and it's important to have a good understanding and respect for it.
You might want to consider hiring someone who is skilled in electrical work to straighten this out.
Good Luck,
~Rick
* This post was
edited 09/10/23 06:40pm by Rick Jay *
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Rick, Gail, 1 girl (27-Angel since 2008), 1 girl (22), 2 boys (23 & 20).
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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RV wire color standards don't exist. Yes there are conventions that may/may not be followed unlike homes with standards and inspections. The best way to know is to measure the voltage using frame ground as a reference. You could try the standard household tester and see if the 3 lights are correct. I'll bet a neighbor has one. But it sounds like you have a very small voltage leakage to the outlet which allows the voltmeter to register voltage but appliances don't work. Perhaps there is a tripped CB somewhere.
I'd also guess that your charger doesn't have AC input and hence the batteries die. Did you fully turn off every CB and then fully back on? Are there any CBs on your inverter or charger or charger/inverter depending upon what you have? If so then the same on/off drill.
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CA Traveler
The Western States
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Also and this is meant to be helpful: Electritcy can be dangerous and from your description 2 amatures have made electrical changes. Consider a good mobile tech to get everything right and up and running.
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