Air Conditioner and Outlets Stopped Working - Need Your Input

[flyfishrra]

Ok so after some interesting problems lately this one has stumped me. Better half went to turn on the ac today and it quit along with all of the outlets in the 1983 34' limited. Checked all of the fuses and they are all good. The other day i found a short that was blowing one of the fuses that ran the fridge. Haven't fixed it but know which switch not to turn on at this point. The breakers in the back of the trailer where the shore power comes in are all good and all of the fuses in the box up front are good. Is there another fuse or breaker in the trailer that I am not aware of yet? Is there a fuse or breaker at the ac unit? Not sure what would let everything else in the trailer work except the outlets and ac.. ideas?

Matt

[richinny]

how are you connected to shore power?

[Kevin245]

Hi Matt,

Have you checked the line power to confirm that you have 120VAC coming in? Maybe tripped the GFCI at the plug in source? Our breaker box in the closet of the trailer.

[flyfishrra]

Ok so we have the 30amp plug into a heavy gauge extension cord plugged into an outlet that has a 30amp breaker (not ideal).. it has worked perfect up until now so i didn't figure it was that (have run ac on several occasions). I know there is enough power to run everything since I have for a month now. I did double check the breaker in the house and it was not tripped. The only breaker box I can find in the trailer is in the cabinet in the rear bath. Need to see if I can find another one. Will check the closets. Any other ideas?

[flyfishrra]

Just had a thought.... Isn't the ac and outlets all on 110? and everything else on 12v? I thought I remembered that coming up before. So maybe my breaker from shore power took a dump or something like that? So maybe my 12v is working but lost the 110 from shore power..

[Kevin245]

Originally Posted by flyfishrra

Just had a thought.... Isn't the ac and outlets all on 110? and everything else on 12v? I thought I remembered that coming up before. So maybe my breaker from shore power took a dump or something like that? So maybe my 12v is working but lost the 110 from shore power..

That is the way it should be. I'd check the incoming line from your shore power source then work back into the rig from there.

[vswingfield]

OK, up front:

Fuses are for the 12v DC power
Breakers are for the 120v AC power

If the AC power is all off, it has nothing to do with the fuses. That leaves the breakers.

If it were just the breaker for the air conditioner, all the other outlets would still work. Conversely, if something plugged into one of the other outlets tripped the breakers for the outlets (one is the GFCI breaker and the other powers the rest of the outlets), then the air conditioner (or microwave since you have to chose in a 1983 Airstream) would work.

That means that either the main 30 amp breaker is tripped or bad, or the outlet to which you have the Airstream's main power plugged into is no longer functioning. Try turning everything off and switching the main breaker completely to off and then back to on. Sometimes they can trip and look like they are still in the on position. To reset them they have to be moved to the off position and back. Hopefully, you will get power back to the outlets. Then you can try switching the air conditioner on. Start with the small loads.

If that doesn't work, check the outlet for the main Airstream power. Using an adapter, (Assuming that you are plugging into a 30 amp outlet. You are, aren't you?) you could plug in something like a circuit tester to verify that the outlet is working. If there's no power there, the problem is outside the Airstream anyway.

(One exception the the separation of the AC and DC systems is the refrigerator. While the AC and DC are completely separate in the fridge, the refrigerators that have the automatic switching systems to require some 12v DC to power the circuit board that tells the refrigerator to switch to either propane or 120v AC. If you have the same one that was in my 1983 Excella, it is a Dometic RM 1303 AES (Automatic Energy Selector system, AES for short) and will be this kind. According to the Dometic manual, 1983 was the first year for the AES. However, blowing the 12v fuse for whatever reason should have no effect on your AC power.)

Good luck!

[Hummer]

I have had the converter used to convert the shore line to wall outlet power go out before. Pull it down and see if you don't see one of the angle plugs corroded etc. Those adaptors don't seem to hold up a long time in such use.

If you were in the South I would tell you to start looking for fire ants as they will do electrical stuff a number as well.

[flyfishrra]

Well I think I figured it out. After coming home from work and fixing the shower handle that exploded last night I started on the electrical. Thanks for the tips everyone. I started at the cord from the house. No power. Okay! Not the trailer! Figured out the cord died. Thought it was a bad end so I replaced it. Nope still dead. Ill buy a new 30 amp cord tomorrow and all good!
Matt

[Splitrock]

Note to self: Pick up a no contact voltage tester.

Gardner Bender GVD-3504 Circut Alert Non-Contact Voltage Tester - Amazon.com






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[Kevin245]

Originally Posted by flyfishrra

Well I think I figured it out. After coming home from work and fixing the shower handle that exploded last night I started on the electrical. Thanks for the tips everyone. I started at the cord from the house. No power. Okay! Not the trailer! Figured out the cord died. Thought it was a bad end so I replaced it. Nope still dead. Ill buy a new 30 amp cord tomorrow and all good!
Matt

Glad to hear that you identified the issue. Are you running an additional extension cord with the one supplied with your rig? If so, I'd encourage you to look into the wire gauge sizes and to run some voltage drop calculations to make sure that you're not placing any undue voltage restrictions on you're system.

Regards,

Kevin

[flyfishrra]

Kevin,
We did not get an extension cord with the trailer. Just the 13ft or what ever it is cord that comes off the rear of the trailer. I was using a heavier gauge cord I had but it wasn't enough. I am going to get the correct one today.

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by flyfishrra

Kevin,
We did not get an extension cord with the trailer. Just the 13ft or what ever it is cord that comes off the rear of the trailer. I was using a heavier gauge cord I had but it wasn't enough. I am going to get the correct one today.

30 amp extensions cords for RVs are actually pretty easy to find. I got one at the local WalMart. Any RV store should have them too.

[flyfishrra]

Vaughn,

Yep! Camping World is a few miles down the road from me. Headed over there after work!

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by flyfishrra

Vaughn,

Yep! Camping World is a few miles down the road from me. Headed over there after work!

Great. Not everyone is close to a Camping World. I am too, since there is one in North Little Rock, but the WalMart is much more convenient. And about three blocks from the WalMart is the Airstream dealer.

On another topic that hasn't come up yet (hard to believe), how about some photos of your trailer? In fairness, there are some of mine here, although it really isn't quite that tidy all the time. (Or even much of the time)

[flyfishrra]

I believe I have one or two up. Pretty sure my girl is supposed to be putting more up today! At least she asked me for the login information with the intention of putting up pics.. she might get distracted with all of this info on here!

[vswingfield]

Originally Posted by flyfishrra

I believe I have one or two up. Pretty sure my girl is supposed to be putting more up today! At least she asked me for the login information with the intention of putting up pics.. she might get distracted with all of this info on here!

One appeared almost instantly. I was duly impressed.

Yours is way, way better looking than my Excella. At least on the outside. I have heavy hail damage on the front cap, but the price reflected it.

[flyfishrra]

It has its damages for sure, but over all its in pretty good shape. Outside is pretty clean for the most part. Have my work cut out for me but being that I am renting out my house and am living there now I have plenty of time to work on things!