sudden loss of power to my TT

[sp]

Hi Everyone,

I haven't been on in awhile but I'm back with a recent issue. Last night, around 10 pm we are in the Sunline and lose all 110 power. I was heating something in the microwave, the ac was on, a fan and two tv's. I checked all the breakers and nothing was tripped, I checked the parks supply and it wasn't tripped, and the park guys came out and said there was power to their recepticle.

I unplugged from the parks power and reset that breaker along with all of mine. Still nothing. I'll check all the GFI's to see if any are tripped but then I still have no power to the AC

Where should I start looking?

Thanks,
Steve

[TexasClodhopper]

Figure out where AC power comes into your breaker box. See if you have it there.

On mine, last summer, I found that the molded plug on my power cord had gone bad.

When I cut it apart later, I found that the wires were spot-welded to the connection internally and the weld had come loose. It touched at times depending on how I had run the wires.

[Kirk]

Depending upon your skill set and tools available, it could be easy or difficult to find. If you have a meter, there should be little difficulty. I would start by checking for power myself at the outlet that supplies the RV. As an electrical type person, I have found that many RV park people do not know nearly as much about the power in the park as they think that do. Assuming that you have power there, I my next check would depend upon what you are comfortable in doing. I would open the power distribution box inside of my RV and check for power at the point the RV's cord connects to the panel. If it is not there you need to check the cord for resistance on each lead to the plug and you may well find the problem that Clodhopper suggests. Another common problem is the connections inside of your RV distribution box getting loose due to vibration. Even if you do not have a meter, you could remove the power plug for safety and then tighten all connections inside of that box and it could solve the problem. If you distribution box has more than one circuit breaker, it is a good bet that they are all good, unless there is one single one which the power entering the box must pass through. That one will be a 30A breaker just like the one at the pedestal and if it is there it could fail and prevent power to any of the others. My RV has such a main breaker but the pop-up and the TT we owned did not.

If you have a 30A/15A adapter you could use it and a lamp to check for power at the pedestal just to be sure. If you don't own a meter, there really isn't a lot you can do other than to try tightening connections and if you want to spend some money you might try replacing the circuit breakers or the power cord or plug.

[hertig]

Possibilities:

1) No power coming from outlet. Stick a test light or meter into it.
2) Power fault or power protection failure (SurgeGuard). Find the unit and see if there are any informitive lights shining.
3) Problem with the transfer switch. Try seeing if you get power when running the generator. IF so, shut off the generator and try tapping on the transfer switch.
4) Breaker problem. Switch off and back on the main breaker and the breaker for something you know works.

If none of these fix the problem, you will need to use a voltmeter and/or non contact voltage detector to trace the wires to find the fault.

[DL Rupper]

It sounds like you fried something before the breaker tripped. I lost power last week with my air conditioner on and I had the TV, 4 small fans and the AC running my refrigerator. I had turned off the AC to the water heater and it was on gas, so I thought I was safe on my 30 amps service. Nope. I tripped the Park 30 amp breaker to my receptacle. It was located remotely so I had to get the owner to reset it. By the way, my 30 amp male plug was really hot, hot when it tripped.

I always turn my air conditioner off if I run the microwave, well my wife always reminds me to. Hope you find a breaker or fuse tripped somewhere and not something more complicated.

Do you know if you were getting a least 110 V AC at the time? If your voltage was low (below 105 V) it may have caused heat related problems to your circuits. Low voltage causes high current and heat.

[sp]

Thanks to all of you for your responses.

It seems that the guys testing the park receptacle didn't know what they were doing or didn't read the meter correct. Once we returned to the park the following morning one of our friends said that one of the maintenance guys came and said that we were all set and the problem was fixed. Which it was. Then an hour of so later another park guy came by and said we would lose power because they had to change out a bad main breaker. No...Really!

So I'm assuming they had a weak breaker that kept tripping so they finally changed it out the next morning instead of at night when they should have.

The park manager was nice enough when I explained that we paid for full hook ups and that it was so hot we had to go home (30 min ride) to sleep and gave us a full day credit for the next time we visit.

Not the best way to finish up a long weekend but I'm just glad I didn't have to chase down an electrical problem.

[TexasClodhopper]

Steve, thanks for clearing that up. You might get you a simple plugin electrical outlet tester so you can test out those "electricians" next time.

[hertig]

I got a 2 lead 'light' style tester which has a light for 110 and a light for 220. About $5 at Lowes or Home Depot. Great for testing 50 amp sockets (220 between the 2 hots, and 120 between each hot and the return). It does take care and courage to stick wires into those big holes with 100amps hiding in there Then I have a 30 amp plug to 15 amp socket (the one piece, not a 'dogbone') and plug in connection analyser to insure the wiring is correct (3 lights on the back of a plug, also about $5 from the same places). And finally, being anal, I have a plug in digital voltage meter which alternates displaying the voltage and the freqency (got it at Camping World).

Saw someone who built an 'all in one' tester which included all of these in one box, but its way down on my to do list...

[sp]

Texas, no problem. I do have a voltage tester that I have for home electrical jobs that I didn't have with me. It reads D.C. 120 to 600 and A.C. 120, 240, 480 and 600. It has a spring set up with a little red line that lines up with what voltage it is picking up. It also has a light that comes on for negative. I hate the little buzz that it does though when it reads power.

To be honest, I don't think it would have mattered since they seemed content to work on it the following morning.

[DL Rupper]

The first check we do at a new Campground is plug in the circuit polarity analyser/checker (I think it is like the 1 hertig described) and make sure we have 120 V A.C. and the circuits are wired right. We have come acroos RV Parks that have had open grounds and bad polarity issues. Not often, but I wouldn't want to plug into onewith my RV and be sorry.