Visit our Popular Forums

Brow324 · 11-17-2008, 02:03 PM

We spent a weekend camping at a nearby lake recently and while enjoying an afternoon boating excursion we left our pooch in the Airstream with the bathroom lights on as a night light. Upon return we found that the bathroom lights had gone off during our outing. I have diagnosed everything I can think of, short of removing them and the switch from the ceiling and wall and probing with a voltmeter. Fuse is ok. any thoughts?

SteveH · 11-17-2008, 05:08 PM

If the fuse is good, and the bulbs are good (or do you have floresants?), any way if all that is good, it must be an open circuit. I would guess there was a resistance joint somewhere either at the switch, or the fuse, or the fixture that got hot and went open. You will probably have to use a meter to find it.

Foiled Again · 11-17-2008, 05:21 PM

The lights in the bath can be turned on and off at the fixture (Just like the one in the closet or the one over the dinette). Pressing in on the little rectangular piece in the center does it. When boondocking I often turn one out to save the battery. Any chance your kids turned them off that way?

Paula

emdubyadee · 11-17-2008, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brow324

We spent a weekend camping at a nearby lake recently and while enjoying an afternoon boating excursion we left our pooch in the Airstream with the bathroom lights on as a night light. Upon return we found that the bathroom lights had gone off during our outing. I have diagnosed everything I can think of, short of removing them and the switch from the ceiling and wall and probing with a voltmeter. Fuse is ok. any thoughts?

I have the same model trailer as you and have had those lights replaced twice (that right, 2 times) under warranty. I bought my trailer near you in Rockwall but had North Dallas RV do my warranty work. The defect is in the light fixtures which come from JC.

Brow324 · 11-19-2008, 08:49 AM

Thanks for those responses. I can rule out the kid factor, bad bulbs, and the switches on the fixtures, which leaves me with heat related overload at the fixtures, a possible switch failure at the wall, or defective light units altogether. That both lighting fixtures would fail at the same time leads me to a possiblilty somewhere other than the fixtures, maybe the wall switch, but the meter will find it. (just need to find the time to do it

I have had those fixtures replaced once already to remedy the issue of the plastic bulb covers falling off. But, with that fixture design, once those covers are removed, they never stay on again. Even the replacements have the same problem with that. If it turns out to be the fixture I'm going to replace them with something that looks better and is easier to service with bulb changes. Even though it's in warranty sometimes it's just a lot easier to order the part and do it yourself instead of having to wait 3 weeks for the dealer to get to it. And since we're in Kaufman it's a long drive to the N. Dallas dealership...and the Rockwall Dealership always seems to be backed up with several weeks of service...even to get to a ten minute job.

Last year our sink sprayer sprang a leak due to a split in the plastic handle and I ended up taking the parts kit they ordered home, after my AS sat in their lot for a month waiting for them to get to it, and replaced the sprayer nozzle myself....it took all of 60 seconds. You'd think these service depts would triage their service jobs to increase efficiency and flow their their service depts. duh.

Brow324 · 06-05-2009, 03:18 PM

Update on the fix: I pulled the two light fixtures from the bathroom ceiling and found that both of them had broken switches. It looks like the assembly person may have over tightened the brass nut over the plastic threaded switch shaft that inserts into the switch housing. All I can figure is that with enough road vibration and just the right amount of heat they finally broke right between the plastic threads just under the brass nut. IT's an odd thing that both would break at the same spot and at the same time. My fix was to remove the switch from the light fixture, bypassing the switch altogether, and hardwire the lights to the wall switch, which was easily done at the fixture using a couple of wire nuts. We never used the switches on the fixtures anyway.

mandolindave · 06-05-2009, 04:11 PM

The supply and ground wires to my bathroom fixture had plug in connecters a few inches inside the bathroom wall, that only sometimes made a connection. Luckily the plugs didn't come apart in the wall when I was messing with the wires. It seems like a problem waiting to happen, and to prevent that from happening I cut off the connectors and soldiered the wires. Maybe it was aftermarket way to change out the switch. I wonder if anyone elses trailer has those little plugs to connect wires.
No they weren't crimps, but they did look like them, which fooled me at first.