electrical help

[ccl]

I have an electrical problem that i cant solve. I have my camper hooked up to a 30 amp circuit at my house. it's been working fine for about 3 weeks, a few days ago i noticed there was no power in the camper upon my investigation i found that the breaker at the house had tripped, every time i reset the breaker it immediately trips. I cant figure out why. My suspicion is that it is in the camper somewhere between the shore line receptacle and the main breaker panel.
Here's what i have done so far:
Tried a new cord from house to camper, still tripped.
turned off main breaker in camper, still tripped.
Checked the 30 amp plug, working fine.
Pulled out the shore line receptacle at the camper did a visual inspection and it looks fine.

Any thoughts?

[PNW Fireguy]

Check another dog bone adapter?

[jeffba]

breakers can also age and trip easier if they have tripped a number of times.
Have you turned everything off in the camper before plugging it back in?

Turn off key in convenience center to isolate converter from batteries.

Start with knowing you have no load and slowly turn things on.

[ccl]

I've turned off all breakers, including main breakers, turned battery off. Breaker is only 2 years old and has never tripped until now.

[PNW Fireguy]

Based upon your original post the issue is between your feed and the coach’s main breaker. The main inside the 5er is off and the feed breaker still trips. If you have an adapter in the line since you feeding with only 30A that is the place I would start by swapping or removing if you have 50A available. If you have visibly inspected the 5er 50A recep then you are into real troubleshooting area. You can check resistance to ground on both hot legs with all power sources removed. This will confirm wire integrity.

Don’t rule out the 30A breaker because it’s only 2 years old. I have seen failures with less age. Also on the rear of the 50A reception check carefully that there are no stray strands of wire outside of the connections or small slices in the wire insulation where stripped.

[BB_TX]

I would start with nothing but the dogbone adapter plugged into your 30 amp outlet. And see if the breaker trips.
Then plug your power cord into the adapter with the trailer end unplugged. And see if the breaker trips.
Then, with all trailer breakers off, connect the power cord to the trailer and see if the breaker trips.
That should at least tell whether the adapter or cord is bad. Then it is time to move on to the trailer.

Is the 30 amp breaker a GFCI breaker?

[ccl]

at first i thought maybe it was the 30 amp recep so i replaced it. The breaker does not trip when i unplug the cord from the 5er.
I used my 50 amp cord with the dog bone (brand new) on the shore end and it still tripped.

I just pulled out the breaker panel and there is no evident signs of burned wires or shredded wires.

Whats the odds of the 50 amp recep on the 5er being bad?

[RoadRunnerTR21]

Maybe the receptical on the 5th wheel that is used by the black power cord has a loose wire or is bad.

[twindman]

I haven't had to do it, but when people have the recep. at an angle and need to rotate it so the cord hangs straight down, they remove the screws and just rotate it. So I would assume you could maybe have a look at the wire connections from the inside a little bit that way.

Next thing I would try is find the wires coming into the fuse panel and disconnect them there. Then see if the breaker trips. If not, must be something bad in the panel?????

[mtlakejim]

Never underestimate the power of a mouse to chew thru you wiring under the trailer. Like maybe the main feed wire!?

[ccl]

I'm really hopping its not the main feed wire. I just ordered recep for the 5er. Keeping my fingers crossed that that's what it is.

[PNW Fireguy]

Did you already rule out the dog bone? I didn’t see that in your earlier posts. I am not saying it’s not something else but I am assuming you would have seen rodent evidence and you have mentioned that no visible damage to the 5 er recep.

[ccl]

Originally Posted by PNW Fireguy

Did you already rule out the dog bone? I didn’t see that in your earlier posts. I am not saying it’s not something else but I am assuming you would have seen rodent evidence and you have mentioned that no visible damage to the 5 er recep.

i ruled out the dog bone. I switched it out with a brand new one and a different cord.

[rohrmann]

If you don’t already have a decent volt ohm meter, you should get one. With the trailer main breaker open and the shore cable disconnected from the trailer receptacle, and the meter set to ohms, you should be able to test the trailer main cable inside. You should get no continuity from either of the hot legs to the ground or neutral terminals. You can do this at either end, from the receptacle or in the trailer panel.

[twindman]

rohrmann, Good advice! I always have a Volt meter (unless I forget to pack it!)

[Renegade1LI]

Is the 30 amp receptacle wired 120 or 240? It should be 120 as almost all rvs are only 120 volts. If its wired 240 you could be grounding a hot leg & tripping the breaker, just a thought.

[klewis6787]

I have read a post on here before that the connection where the 50amp cable plugs into the RV can have loose wires inside the recepital should be able to unplug and check the wires in that connection to see if it has a loose or wires touching inside the plug before it goes to the panel in the RV.

[ccl]

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and help. I have an update. I had an electrician over today and he spent about 5 hours working on it, although we haven't fixed it, we did isolated the problem. It appears that the main ground wire coming into the camper is "hot". When we disconnect that ground wire from the terminal everything works but the ground wire is still hot. Tomorrow i will be taking the underbelly off to look at the main wire going into the breaker panel.

[beeje]

Sounds like the main feed wire from the back connection point to the panel box has been rubbed through somewhere along the way grounding it self out on the frame of the camper.

[sdetweil]

Originally Posted by ccl

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and help. I have an update. I had an electrician over today and he spent about 5 hours working on it, although we haven't fixed it, we did isolated the problem. It appears that the main ground wire coming into the camper is "hot". When we disconnect that ground wire from the terminal everything works but the ground wire is still hot. Tomorrow i will be taking the underbelly off to look at the main wire going into the breaker panel.

just to clarify, "coming into the camper is "hot"." u mean into the camper breaker panel, but not on the power cord (from the house recepticle)