An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure...

[Arcticfox]

Greetings Folks:

I thought I would take a minute to post on a topic that could be catastrophic if not looked into....

I'm guessing many of you are like me and have a Reactionary Maintenance Program more so than a Preventative one. What this means is, we fix stuff when it breaks. But generally we don't look very close at things that are working - heck why should we?

Well there is one thing everyone should do because there is a better than even chance that you have an issue lurking just behind your breaker panel door and you won't know it till it becomes a problem.

We all know that as we drive down the road our trailers go through a great deal of movement and some have said its like an mini earth quake. Well in this case, you have a good chance that your electrical connections in the breaker panel are loosening and the result will not be good for either you or your trailer. Now there will be some who will feel this is not a big deal and as long as they still have power, all is good. Well, all might not be good and you might actually be risking not just your trailer, but your life!

So take a minute and open your panel....

First thing to do is make sure your NOT connected to Shore Power and make sure your battery is disconnected. This will ensure you don't have any power going to your panel.

After opening your panel remove the two screws on the metal cover on the left side of the panel (as per image #1)

Next take a blade screw driver (that fits properly) and tighten ALL the screws on the termination block on the left. (as per Image #2)
Tighten as much as you can and then wiggle the wire and tighten again. I find a "needle-nose" plier helps when trying to wiggle the wire. Repeat this tighten/wiggle process till you cannot tighten it anymore.

In many cases you will find that this will allow you to tighten the screw another 1/2 - 3/4 turn after what you thought was already tight.

If you find that some of your termination screws were loose you might want to take this to the next level and confirm the tightness in the connection box on the backside of your panel. In my case, I removed the cushion and plywood seat above the panel and that gave me direct access to the connection box. Take the cover off as in (Image #3) and tightened these screws in the same fashion as I did the front one. In my case, I found these to require tightening - so I was glad that I took the time to get into that area.

Some might wonder if this is worth the effort? Well I guess that's something you will have to decide on your own. For me it was VERY MUCH worth the effort as this is what my wiring looked like because a couple of the screws being loose... These wires melted to this level before the beaker finally popped. (image #4) As you can see this could have been catastrophic.

So take a few minutes to confirm your connections are all tight - I'm sure you will sleep better knowing they are!

As a side note:
Our trailer is not old so this is not something that takes many years to happen. Last week while camping next to a brand new trailer, we took the time to check his connections and to our surprise, we found several that were loose.

So take the time to confirm your connections. You will sleep better – I promise!

Travel Safe

Cheers
Doug

[GMFL]

I will be checking mine tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up

[GinaNBob]

Great tip!!!! I will check mine as part of the winterize routine. Probably should do it annually.

[A W Warn]

These can also be over tightened too, causing damage.
I suggest checking the specs for the specific service panel in your vehicle, then follow those specs instead of just cranking down as hard as you can.

[MelGoddard]

Originally Posted by ginanbob

great tip!!!! I will check mine as part of the winterize routine. Probably should do it annually.

ditto!😕

[paiceman]

Good post, Thanks

Bud

[greghoro]

Great posting. Had the same thing happen to me.

Note, the item you refer to as the connection box is properly called the Transfer Switch. Isolates the front and rear AC power inlets.


Greg

[SSquared]

Right on! We found similarly burned wires (a little worse, actually) in our trailer this spring. Our trailer (2013 25FB) was three years old at that time.

I don't know if these connections really work themselves loose over time if they are tightened properly to start with. But we'll be checking ours annually.

Our insulation was damaged enough that we replaced the wires. My wife the electrical engineer insisted on using high-temp-rated-insulation wire, which was hard to find.

[Arcticfox]

Originally Posted by SSquared

Right on! We found similarly burned wires (a little worse, actually) in our trailer this spring. Our trailer (2013 25FB) was three years old at that time.

I don't know if these connections really work themselves loose over time if they are tightened properly to start with. But we'll be checking ours annually.

Our insulation was damaged enough that we replaced the wires. My wife the electrical engineer insisted on using high-temp-rated-insulation wire, which was hard to find.

Thanks for the comments. Our trailer is also a 2013 and I have felt that part of this issue is the movement, but the other part is the work done during the original installation. The 2017 that I mentioned had the same issue and it had not been used enough to shake anything loose. So the original installation is coming into play here - no question.

In our case, I replaced (2) of the wires and had enough room to cut the others back to get rid of anything that had been effected by the heat. I didn't think about the heat rated wire, but that sounds like a good idea also.

[Louie Dee]

This is some new preventive maintenance insight I have never heard of before. But, truly worth a look. Fun starts this weekend!!
With batteries off & not plugged in but with solar continuously charging the batteries, will there be current at the box??

[Arcticfox]

Originally Posted by Louie De

This is some new preventive maintenance insight I have never heard of before. But, truly worth a look. Fun starts this weekend!!
With batteries off & not plugged in but with solar continuously charging the batteries, will there be current at the box??

Sorry. I don't know much at all about the solar systems other than they cost a lot of $$ to put in and they charge ones batteries. With luck someone else will jump in and shed a little light....
Cheers
Doug

[blkmagikca]

Originally Posted by Louie De

This is some new preventive maintenance insight I have never heard of before. But, truly worth a look. Fun starts this weekend!!
With batteries off & not plugged in but with solar continuously charging the batteries, will there be current at the box??

The original issue dealt with the 110-volt AC system - wires attached to the breakers in the 110-volt breaker box. Solar panels charge on the 12-volt DC system, so while there would be current in the 12-volt system, there should not be any at the 110-volt AC system unless the inverter, if there was one installed and it provided power directly to the 100-volt system, was switch on.