electrical panel wires

[don m]

i was adding a circuit for an a/c in our 5er and had to pull out the panel. what I found you might want to check. i found that when who ever made the connection for main cables to the panel cut half the strands of the stranded wire. if enough power would have been drawn, it could have heated up and burned. i disconnected the battery and cord power and cut off the ends of the power cable and re-stripped the wires and put them back in.

[richfaa]

Thanks for the heards up.We will add this to our list of things to check. Remember these things are made by people and people make mistakes.

[sreigle]

Good tip, Don. Thanks. I guess I need to shut down the power on this thing and check that out.

[Wrenchtraveller]

Thanks for the tip and I hope that Keystone has given some electrical training to the people that wire our coaches. Cutting off wire strands and then making up the connection anyway, point to poor training or dangerously lazy work habits and I still say that good quality control can pick up mistakes like this. Allowing shoddy workmanship in electrical wiring is truly playing with fire and Keystone should jump on this one.

[DL N K]

Last year, right after we got our '05 3500RL, I had the breaker panel open while I was adding a switch for the electric side of the hot water heater. I found every single ground wire in the breaker panel loose!!
Some I tightened as much as 2 full turns. Loose screws = resistance = heat and possible fire.

[richfaa]

quote:Originally posted by Wrenchtraveller

Thanks for the tip and I hope that Keystone has given some electrical training to the people that wire our coaches. Cutting off wire strands and then making up the connection anyway, point to poor training or dangerously lazy work habits and I still say that good quality control can pick up mistakes like this. Allowing shoddy workmanship in electrical wiring is truly playing with fire and Keystone should jump on this one.

\We never thought about asking the question about qualified electricians or at least those with some training are doing the electrical work. Perhaps someone who is going to the factory can ask that question. We will ask the factory rep this weekend.. We did note on our three tours that the electrical work is being done by those sames killed old world craftsmen that do everything else.

[Broome101]

Unfortunately I don't think on RVs their is electrical code that someone has to be accountable for such as your stick home. They don't have to be licensed to wire your RV, just like your car the electrical components on those nobody has to be licensed to do that wiring either.

[harleyrider]

Whats involved in pullin out the panel.To tell you the truth I have never really looked at it.Is it held on by screws???And is their enough slack in the wires to be able to pull it out?I would sure like to check if I have any loose connections.

[Broome101]

You have 4 screws holding it in and yes there is plenty of slack, mine had enough slack I could pull it out and lay it in the floor in front of panel box.

[Wrenchtraveller]

I just went out and checked my electrical panel.
Mine is an Iota and it has a little plexiglass cover over the breaker switches.

FIRST MAKE SURE THE COACH IS NOT HOOKED UP TO POWER.......UNPLUG OR THROW BREAKER

Take the plexi glass cover off and then the two inside bottom screws. Now the panel with the breaker labels will come right off and all your wiring connections are right there to check out.
Putting your fingers into the opening left by the plexigall panel will make it easy to remove this panel.

This is what I found. There was lots of sawdust inside my panel as well as 3 inch long pieces of scrap wire inside. One of these scrap wire cuttings was right in with the neutral wire connections . I found no cut wires as Don above did but I did find most of the connections on the neutral (WHITE) needed tightening . The 3 main # wires were all tight as well as the hots (BLACK) connected to the breakers and the grounds (BARE) were all tight so it appeared two different people did the wiring but two of the scraps were white and one was black so they were both pretty unskilled workers to leave short pieces of wire among these connections.

Rich and Dave, another item to have checked on your new rigs and thanks to the other Don that started this thread, take care, Don.

[richfaa]

We just added that to our list..That would be item # 27 on our list of . "How come " things and possible" poor workmanship" issues. Taken directly from the real life experiences of real Montana owners.. The issues we list have had to be reported several times in order to make the list. In fact some things have been removed from the list such as the thermostat problem that was reported a gazillion times but is now a non issue.You know it is my opinion that too many folks go out a buy a shiny new camper without ever doing any or enough homework or research to understand exactly what they can expect when the shiny new Rv shows up in their driveway. These are the folks that you see on this forum and other forums bashing the manufacturer for all the things that may and can go wrong with them..Rich and Helen will not be surprised we pretty much know exactly what to expect and more importantly..how to deal with them.We may not be happy campers..but we will not be surprised. After 4 years of research we know the Montana for exactly what it is..the good, the bad and the ugly and we know that all things considered it IS the best bang for the buck..And..there is always the chance that all will be just peachy...

Six days to order day...

[Wrenchtraveller]

On the positive side ( no pun intended ) the rest of my wiring looks pretty well done and where wires pass through the metal wall into the front compartment , that hole is all lined with plastic hose to avoid wire rubbing.

Also my Monty is wired pretty heavy now that they come with 50 AMP service. I have a total of nine circuits, five of them are 20 amp, four are 15 amp. This is heavier wired than small houses used to be at one time. They used Square D brand breakers which I think is a good make.
If you were plugged into 50 amp service , if you had two A/Cs on the go, the clothes washer on and were using an electric heater and someone tried to dry their hair with every light in the camper on you could kick your main 50 AMP breakers. That would be a pretty extreme use of power and I think none of us would ever expect to get away with that. Every heavy drawing appliance gets it's own 20 amp circuit and that is a good thing. Mine is wired for the 2nd A/C

My last Kit 5th wheel had a little wall switch beside the micro wave and you had to throw the switch to use the Microwave and that disconnected the electric heater in the hot water tank.
That was fairly common in some low end RVs, that is how light they were wired.

[don m]

if i remember right the national electrical code does cover rv s ill have to check my book to make sure if anyone has an electrical question by all means ask i am a license electrician in the state of colorado