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Old 10-07-2006, 06:24 PM   #1
Montana_6099
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Homie don't like electricity!

Hey everyone. I have a puzzling question (for me anyhow).

This evening, I was going to do a good deed and vacuum the house. I went to turn on the 'central vac' and the GFCI in the kitchen popped.

I went to reset the GFCI and it would not reset.

Checked the breakers. All okay.

Went to Home Depot, got a new GFCI (And a spare).

Went home. Installed it. Still won't reset.

???

Started playing with the breakers. I took two breakers and switched places with them. Then I was able to reset GFCI and that circuit worked.

Switched them back, not working.

So, it appears that one of the two 50AMP sides on the breaker panel wasn't getting juice.

My limited electrical experience had me thinking for about an hour, and I finally concluded that I must have a bad 50A breaker.

So, went outside, turned off park power and unhooked/hooked back up all connections.

Turned power back on, and now everything works like it should.

What the?!?

I guess my question is this: WHen I blew the GFCI, could it have done something with the 12V/120V system(s) that caused the malfunction until I turned off power completely and it reset?

Do you have to unhook 120V and stay unhooked to reset anything on board?

I am not familiar with the 12V/120V thing.

And this is baffling to me.

Any ideas?

Does any of this even make sense?
 
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Old 10-07-2006, 07:49 PM   #2
JH Sechelt
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That's a bit of a tricky one alright. Sounds like a wire somewhere.... maybe into the panel of your trailer is not tight enough ? Try tightening all the wires and grounds that go into it.( I'd unplug the power to the trailer a disconnect the battery first). Maybe one side of your power cord has a connection inside it that is not up to snuff. You can run 120 volts through a not so good connection if you aren't drawing much in amperage, but once you start drawing amperage, any thing that is not just right will show up. The GFCI in the kitchen can, and probably is protecting more then just the plug with the reset on it. I wouldn't think the vacuum should be on it, but it might be. Did the vacuum work after you reset the campground breaker ? Maybe it was just a bad connection you had into the campground power box, and now its fixed. Does make you wonder.

J&D
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Old 10-07-2006, 10:42 PM   #3
H. John Kohl
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Since the 50 amp service has two sides feeding the circuit breakers in the trailer and you cleared the problem by shutting off the outside breaker and re-seating the plug I think you will find one of the pins on the out side plug may have been arching or one side of the breaker did not have a good connection.

The fact you had a working condition by moving the GFI breaker in the trailer points to that suggestion.
This is my assumption from what little I know about electricity.
Good luck and glad you got it working.
Cheers,
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Old 10-08-2006, 03:56 AM   #4
Ozz
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All good answers.
Many times I go on a service call, reset power and switches, unplug things and after all of these moves, the item works fine and I don't get a call back. Breakers, outlets and switches' contacts sometimes just have a dead spot, or bad connection. Also, when changing breakers, Did you find any connections or wires loose? When changing them, sometimes we tighten the offending connection.
My money would be on the campground breaker. But I would have had to been there with you when you did all these things to really be sure.
Glad it works now. Them little electrons running all around sometimes do nutty things.
Ozz
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Old 10-08-2006, 08:27 AM   #5
Parrothead
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We had a similar problem last spring. One of the poles on the 50 amp plug had come loose. Once it was reconnected (and $75 later) everything worked fine. We had checked everything. Half of the unit had power, half did not. The converter wasn't working and the battery ran down. Finally called for service and he found it and said he had never seen that before.
Happy trails.....................
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Old 10-08-2006, 09:49 AM   #6
Montana_6099
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Well, took a look at all the wiring I could see and tightened everything up.

I will be looking at the 50Amp poles to see if either are loose.

Had what may have been a couple of loose wires on the common bus-strip (?) in the breaker panel where all the white wires go in.

Maybe that was the cause? Not sure, but all is well today.

I even got to use the vacuum, which made my wife very happy!

THanks for all your input!
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