hot wires

[doc]

Just want to give everyone a heads up. If you smell hot wires in your camper, it may be a good idea to check the circuit breaker box. We have an'06 Montana 3400RL. I thought the toast had burned in the toaster but the smell was a little different than burned toast. Later in the day I decided to start the air conditioner. It ran only a couple seconds and quit. Upon checking the breaker box, I discovered a hot wire, so hot it melted the insulation off the wire about 3 inches from the end and partly melted the cover on the breaker cover that is screwed onto the box itself. Luckily the wire had burned itself into where it attaches to the lug. The lug that the wire attaches to had become loose and and thus the heat buildup. The wire was a white wire that attaches to the neutral bar at the bottom of the box. I shut off the electricity at the source and reattached the wire and checked the other connections. There were a couple others that weren't completely tight. I tightened them up and everything seems to be working fine now.

[BB_TX]

Thanks for the heads up. This problem has been mentioned before. I have been meaning to check mine. But it is in storage for the winter and I have not gotten around to it yet. Thanks for the reminder.

[bsmeaton]

It's unfortunate but necessary. We found several loose screws on the breakers, the neutral bar, and pulled out the IOTA panel and found several more on the ground bar behind it as well as the 12V ground bar (07 3400 above john in water closet).

[illapah]

What is the procedure for getting to the wires? Is it pretty easy?

[bsmeaton]

Step 1 - Unplug the shore line

Step 2 varies by the model and year. Ours is all packed in the void above the W/D closet and under the stairs. I'm not sure on your model Illipah.

[richfaa]

Depending on how much you travel down the road it is a real good idea to check those connections on a regular basis. We do it twice a year. It is not a easy task but IMO worth the effort. We found nothing loose when we purchased the camper as we checked that as a result of post on this forum..but... when our Convetor had to be replaced about 7 months later there were several loose connections.

[Fire5er]

I know where the electrical panel is, but like Illapah I have not been able to locate how to open it to get to the wires. I have been into the circuit breakers and replaced a few 12v fuses. Pictures would be great if anyone has them.

[bsmeaton]

Fire5er,

Remove the lower panel on the Iota to access the neutral wires and breaker connections. Then remove the 4 corner screws in the whole panel and pull it out of the wall. Behind it mounted to the exterior wall is the ground bar and the 12V ground bar (white zip cord type wires).

Sorry, no pics

[waldo238]

After reading about this on some earlier posts I went through every plug, socket and breaker panel to check for loose connections. I did find a couple loose one on the backside of the power panel and on the bars in the back. And this was a brand new trailer.

[Waynem]

Would it be advisable to remove each electrical screw and put one drop of Blue Loctite on the threads?

[bsmeaton]

No

[illapah]

I am now one of the believers! I just got back from checking ours. Several of the white coated wires screws were loose. The one that bothered me the most was the black wire connected to the 50 amp circuit breaker. Most took less than 1/8 turn, the main cb took several full turns to tighten. At first I thought that maybe it was stripped but it did finally tighten.

Re-reading the posts, I guess I need to remove the large circuit breaker assembly and look behind? I found red, black, white, and bare copper terminal blocks inside the enclosure by just removing the cover panel on the circuit breaker box. If mine is different than the one you have (bsmeaton) I may not have to pull the full box out of the wall???

The smaller fuse panel was fine. No loose connections there at all.

[illapah]

Had to go check once more. Ours is the Iota IDP-240. All the wires come into the panel and are accessable by just taking off the 2-screw cover panel to reveal the barrier strips. Good to know. Nothing behind to get loose. Sure is a lot of sawdust in there though as I usually find when removing a cover anywhere.

[bsmeaton]

Illapah,

Sounds like you have found most if not all of the 110VAC stuff. There should be a 12VDC grounding bar somewhere close. Essentially all of the 12VDC is run in a white lamp cord type wire with a colored stripe on one side and plain white on the other. The colored side gets screwed into the each individual fuse in the small fuse panel, the white side gets tied into this common bar for ground. It has to be close, I'm just not sure exactly where on your model. I suspect it is behind the fuse panel if there is any kind of void back there. Ours also had an additional grounding bar back there for bare copper returns.

Just think, you probably already saved a potential outage finding that loose connection of the 50A!.

[illapah]

bsmeaton - Outage I can live with, now electrical fire is another story. I will take another look in the hole for additional 'potential' (pun intended) problems. I did see something that looked like an aluminum finned something mounted in there too. don't know what that is.

[Fire5er]

bsmeaton thanks for the info. will look next shift home.

[bsmeaton]

The finned item would be your Iota converter Illapah.

If you feature taking a piece of lamp cord and splitting the two conductors down the middle so you can install a new plug or something (so the end makes a "Y"), that is how the 12V is installed at the panel - one lead going into the panel screw and the other into the ground bar - so the ground bar cannot be too far away from the panel. I think if you trace one of those 12V wires out of the panel to the "Y" where they were split, you can trace the other side of the lead to the ground bar.

[bsmeaton]

Next 4-day Fire5er? I remember those

[illapah]

I will take a look and post what I find. It is dark outside now.

[sreigle]

Excellent information in this thread. I need to check ours soon.