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chollenback

Odd Electrical Issue

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I have a 95 safari and the strangest thing happened. About a week ago I noticed the light sensor on the extension cord that i plug my rig into my house was off. I went ahead and went to garage and flipped breaker and nothing. I then checked the breaker in the RV and all breakers were on. I then reset the GFCI to the house and turned off all the breakers in the RV and then put them on one by one until it tripped breaker to garage. The breaker the RV never trips but I can hear the transfer switch pop out due to the fast I just popped to the house power. All fuses are good and not blown.

So here is the odd thing. I turned on RV generator and power to the breaker that makes the garage breaker pop works fine and I have power to everything. I then turned off generator and got my mobile generator out and plugged it into the cord that plugs into the house from the RV and everything works. I then plug cord back into the house and the breaker pops. I am usually plugged into a 15 amp breaker when plugged into house. I then tried it on another plug that was 20 amp breaker and it pops that.

Why would I get power when plugged into generator or mobile generator and not to house. All power works in RV when plugged into house except that one breaker (when turned on it pops house breaker).

 

My RV batteries are at 3/4 charged and are green. 

 

Any ideas? Bad breaker for RV? House batteries pulling to much to keep them fully charged?

Thanks

 

 

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Sounds to me that the charger / inverter is drawing a high bulk charge current and that current requirement is tripping the house  circuit breakers.

The second item I would check is the shore power cable connection, wire ends and the recepticles at both ends. The house? and the Coach.

Rich.

Transfer switch issue is a possibility.

The charger / inverter could be having issues. Do the input beakers on the inverter trip?

How old are the 6 volt house batteries and what is the water level in the cells?

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Blades to plug have been cleaned with sandpaper they are bright copper color. Batteries are about 5 years old. I will check water level.

 

The standard breaker trips but sometimes the GFCI will trip.

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What converter, or inverter/charger do you have?

If the latter, have you use power share/power safe to select 5 amps?  That limits the amount of 120 VAC that can be used for charging.  The resulting charge rate is around 50 amps into the batteries.

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I am unable to pop battery cover (maintenance free). I see corrosion on one of the battery terminals and I see what appears to be a exhaust "wet" spot on battery cover. This is same battery that has the gassing symptoms on the post. May be a bad battery. 

My inverter is a Heart Interface model is Freedom 20D (it is currently off and has been for a while as I use generator when I need power). I have a Inteli Power Model PD9160A for charging

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Have you checked the "dip switches" to verify that your inverter/charger is correctly set for YOUR batteries?

Sorry, I don't recall if that vintage Freedom 20 has power share/power save feature. Newer ones absolutely do.

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20 amp and it controls microwave kitchen lights. It appears to control my AC power light on the wall. Since this issue the AC power light is off. I unplugged microwave and tried to plug in and it still tripped so microwave is not causing it. 

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chollenback,  this is the closest wiring diagrams I have for your model coach. They should be real close.

The biggest problem I have is if your coach is wired for 50 amp or 30 amp shore power. There is no mention of it in all the post made. Could you clarify if you have 30 or 50 amp shore power !

Rich.

98 Sahara120InputDist 120 AC.pdf 98 Sahara12V BR FUSE DIST.pdf

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Since you are plugging into a 20 amp beaker check to see if by some chance one of your A/Cs might have left turned on. If so that might cause the breaker to pop.

Herman 

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Ok. I got an update. I went and turned on inverter and flipped breaker that kept tripping and it stayed on. 

I have never had to turn inverter on before being hooked up to shore power. Interesting!

 

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The inverter allows you to use you batteries for 120v applications, when your not on Shore Power.  

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If you didn't trip the breaker with the inverter turned on, I'm wondering if the inverter isn't taking some of the load that was being borne solely by shore power without it. That might have given you enough headroom so that you didn't trip the breaker. Some systems use the inverter to offset shore power which is inadequate to supply the needed power.

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Could be. It just seems that it worked before without me turning on inverter. Nothing was on when I flipped breaker and it would pop, so it should not have been pulling anything. However, I wonder if it was trying to compensate for something as the AC l(Alternate Current) light came on indicating power to RV. That breaker that kept popping controlled my AC light on my control panel. 

At least it works for time being. 

Thanks to all.

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You should be able to determine if the inverter is providing a portion of your 110 v AC load by checking the load on you coach 12 DC system.

Jim

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My take on this is; at least one battery is faulty, this causes the charger to draw more current than available, when the inverter is turned on it supplies 120VAC power to items other than the charger.  Since you have SLA batteries, remove them, take them to someplace like Interstate Battery and have them tested. I'd  bet the bank requires replacement, DO NOT just replace the bad one; the old batteries will quickly ruin the new one. What happens is, the old batteries keep demanding a higher charging rate in an attempt to reach full charge, this over-charges the new battery enough to sustain permanent damage.

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Replace both batteries if 12 volt or it will happen again...better yet replace with 6 volters you will have more usable amp hours and longer battery life. OIf you can find them use Crown 260s or Trojan 105s. 12V volt deep cycle marines are compromise but maybe that does not matter...

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Still unclear on one thing...Are the outlets you're plugging into at the house a GFCI outlet? If so, have you tried to plug into a non-GFCI outlet to test things? There are a few things in an RV which can go bad and cause GFCI outlets and/or GFCI breakers to trip when regular ones won't.

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