Electrical - Baffling 120v circuit problem

[Pete Hanson]

I always thought I was pretty good with electrical issues but this one has me baffled. While sitting at the table this weekend eating and watching the news on the TV all of a sudden the TV went dead along with some 120v lights we had on. After checking the breakers (which never tripped) I discovered that the outage affected outlets and lights at both ends of the rig. We have 5 circuit breakers in our 2955.

1. AC
2. GFI circuit
3. Microwave
4. Fridge and Converter (I think)
5. Water Heater (I think)

Circuits 1-3 all work fine but I have no power to the fridge, bedroom outlets, living room outlets, television outlets or the slide out. I suspect there are two circuits involved and it appears to me that they are distributed from the fridge outlet. One for the front of the rig and one for the back. Why would I have power at the circuit breaker and not have power at the fridge outlet? The circuit breakers never tripped and they appear to be supplying outbound power. Unless there is a hidden GFI somewhere I am at a loss.

One thing that you should know is that I had the Dometic recall performed that morning. The circuits all worked fine for half the day after that before they went out. The fridge worked fine on gas. All 12v circuites are working fine.

Do any of you electricians out there have any tips on how to troubleshoot this? I have a call into my dealer to see if anything they did on the recall might have caused this.

[Charlie]

I have two GFIC's. One in the bathroom and another for the kitchen area. It supplies power to the things that you described. I had a problem with mine tripping and after some checking found a wire grounded underneath the kitchen slide against the frame.

[H. John Kohl]

Let me start with my tale of woe from our 02 BigSky. I lost the power to the ceiling fan, kitchen outlets and fridge. No circuit breakers were tripped.
Suggestion - I had to pull each outlet and finally the ceiling fan to find the culprit. The twist wire nut in the ceiling fan had come loose and dropped the power to the rest of the leg.

RECOMENDATION to ALL Draw a picture of your trailer with each outlet and light on it. Then go to the circuit panel and track which break controls the outlet. This will help with this type of problem because you know which electrical devices to check when you loose multiple outlets.

Pete, you need to check each point and if it is not at one of the electrical connections then you will have to check the "junction boxes" to see if a wire nut has come loose. Let us know what you find.
With your description of equipment out I would pull the circuit breaker panel and make sure all the wires are secured tightly. (REMEMBER to UNPLUG the 50 amp service).
You did not say what year but I think yours is a newer unit.
cheers,

[bncinwv]

If you are on a 50 amp pedestal with a 30 amp receptacle also, see if hooking up to the 30 amp restores everything. If so, one leg of your 50 amp pedestal is down. Had this happen to us before and called dealer and everything before a little checking uncovered the problem. Hope this helps.
Bingo

[H. John Kohl]

Oh you can unplug the fridge from the out side and plug into an extension cord so it will continue to run and keep food cold. you do need 12 vdc to the fridge also.

[racerjoe]

If they were just in the refrig area, I would look at the outlet itself where the fridge plugs into. open that outlet and see if a wire pulled out of the receptacle.

[thundercat]

If you are pluged into a 50 amp outlet make sure that you have power on both phases. If you are pluged into a 30 amp outlet make sure that you have a good connection in the 50 to 30 amp plug adapter. I had this problem and only had half of the Montana working. I took a pair of channel locks and sqeezed the female receptacle to tighen the connection.

[Pete Hanson]

I first posted this problem back in May and I finally found the problem. It took this long due to lack of time to troubleshoot it plus without diagrams it was very time consuming to trace out the circuit. Simply trying to figure out where the feed wire for this specific circuit went was nearly impossible. I ended up finding a loose connection at the outlet located at the rear of our unit behind the recliners. Keystone chose to run the feedwire from the converter to the outlet furthest away for some reason. They must have had extra wire kicking around on the day they wired our unit.
If you have ever looked at one of these outlets you know that they use a spade type connection that merely cuts through the wire insulation when the wire is pushed into the spade. Pushing two wires into each spade is not a problem but Keystone will push three wires into them where the feed comes in. This is a problem because the third wire may or may not make a good connection or may actually come loose over time. That was the problem in my case. All is well now and i can put away the extension cords I had to use to power the radio or television etc.

[HamRad]

Pete,

Glad you found the problem. Thanks for posting. It is appreciated.

Dennis

[H. John Kohl]

Yep you found it. Glad things are working.
Cheers,

[boat391]

well glad you found your problem mine still goes on we thought we had it when I found water in the two juntion boxes under the kitchen slide fixed that and was off and running for a bit now the problem is back but only interment so still looking will check out my plugs to the rear of the coach now I have two gfi's also and the one in the kitchen is the only one that breaks thanks for the heads up

[EagleRunner]

Pete,
Glad to hear you solved your problem. These can be a bit tricky to find as I am sure you have found.

Tim,
One of the causes of intermittent circuit problems is loose connections. These can be anywhere from the source to the destination outlets/light fixtures, and anywhere along the way where a splice is made. One of the more common places to find loose wire fittings is in the breaker box. Those two buss bars where the gound wires and white return wires are secured can be the cause of many problems. Some intermittent, others persistant. Make sure those screws that secure the ground and return wires are tight. You might want to pull shore power while messing around in that box to be on the safe side.

I had an intermittent problem that almost drove me to drinking about two years ago. After chasing the wires from the breaker panel in the coach to the lights and circuit outlets that were affected, I finally drilled down on the problem by accident. While tugging on the wires I noticed a spark at one of the buss bars and was able to determine which wire was loose by noticing a brownish tint of the insulation at one of the ends of the white return wires attached to the buss bar. Sure enough, the screw was loose, along with about seven others. Once I secured those screws, the problems vanished forever. Check those screws in the buss bars to make sure they are tight and periodically check them again. These screws can work loose when these rigs go hopping down our well maintained highways.... .

Also, as others have found, a splice using a wire nut can be the source of problems as well. If you pull the cover on an electrical box and find a wire nut splicing wires in there, check to make sure it is tight as well.