No 110 AC at all

[BurntAsphalt]

I know there is a recent thread similar to this but my situation is slightly different. Tried a search and didn't find anything. My 110V AC stopped working altogether on my 2011 AI with Tripp-Lite inverter. (No TV, outlets, A/C,microwave). The inverter "appears" to be working. When the inverter's switch is moved to "Auto/Remote", the fan runs for one second and then shuts off. It hums and both the battery led and the "inverting" led are lit. The remote switch in the upper cabinet is switched on as is the house battery disconnect.
I've pushed the black reset button on the Tripp-Lite, reset every circuit breaker and GFCI in the lounge electrical panel, but no luck. I've not run the generator or gotten the multimeter out yet but will try more troubleshooting tomorrow. What am I missing...hidden fuses or breakers? Thanks in advance!

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by BurntAsphalt

My 110V AC stopped working altogether on my 2011 AI with Tripp-Lite inverter. (No TV, outlets, A/C,microwave). The inverter "appears" to be working. When the inverter's switch is moved to "Auto/Remote", the fan runs for one second and then shuts off. It hums and both the battery led and the "inverting" led are lit. The remote switch in the upper cabinet is switched on as is the house battery disconnect.
I've pushed the black reset button on the Tripp-Lite, reset every circuit breaker and GFCI in the lounge electrical panel, but no luck.

On the theory that you should always check the easy things first, what is your house battery voltage? The inverter won't make 120vAC unless there is 12vDC coming in. There may be enough battery power to run the inverter/charger's cooling fan, but not enough to power any appliances.

And for the record, the A/C and microwave don't work on inverter power anyway, so televisions, outlets, and fridge are the only things that would be powered.

Which brings up a point… check the temperature in your fridge. If the 120vAC goes out, but 12vDC still works, the fridge automatically switches over to 12vDC. So if your fridge is getting warm as well, that means in addition to not having any 120AC, you don't have enough 12vDC power to run the fridge, either.

[BurntAsphalt]

Protag, thanks for the help and clarification on the appliances. The TV and outlets definitely aren't working and I assumed the A/C and microwave weren't either (but I didn't try them yet). I think the voltage was showing 12.7 on the control panel solar meter and 95% charged. I will check the fridge, A/C and microwave tomorrow and let you know.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by BurntAsphalt

I think the voltage was showing 12.7 on the control panel solar meter and 95% charged. I will check the fridge, A/C and microwave tomorrow and let you know.

If those numbers are accurate, you should have enough power to run the inverter.

Now I'm stumped, too. The inverter's fuse is probably good if the cooling fan runs at all, so that's not it.

[BurntAsphalt]

Found the problem! I gotta quit assuming things about this vehicle. Since there is a GFCI breaker in the panel under the lounge, I figured there would not be any outlets with a GFCI. Wrong! One of my passengers had used the outlet (which I had forgotten about) which is hidden beside the driver's side second row seat. It had been tripped. I reset it and all is again right with the world.

[73shark]

Originally Posted by BurntAsphalt

Found the problem! I gotta quit assuming things about this vehicle. Since there is a GFCI breaker in the panel under the lounge, I figured there would not be any outlets with a GFCI. Wrong! One of my passengers had used the outlet (which I had forgotten about) which is hidden beside the driver's side second row seat. It had been tripped. I reset it and all is again right with the world.

Don't feel bad, that happened to me on our last trip. Another design flaw AFAIAC.

[UKDUDE]

Originally Posted by 73shark

Don't feel bad, that happened to me on our last trip. Another design flaw AFAIAC.

I haven't a clue whether this is standard wiring practice, but all the GFCI sockets around our house (bathrooms, etc) are wired together. So if one trips, they are all out.


Sent from my iPhone using Airstream Forums

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by 73shark

Don't feel bad, that happened to me on our last trip. Another design flaw AFAIAC.

The flaw is to have a GFCI outlet on the same circuit as a GFCI breaker. One GFCI per circuit is plenty.

[73shark]

I'm not even sure if the NEC allows this. Bought another house several years ago that had two bathroom GFCI outlets in series. Took me a while to figure out since I wasn't really looking for it. Almost as bad as a miswired three-way lite switch.

It is OK to have several (8 I think) regular outlets downstream from a GFCI outlet.

[BurntAsphalt]

Well, curiosity got the best of me so I started checking out the GFCI outlet that had tripped. After resetting it I noticed that it was humming. I had a spare GFCI outlet and swapped it out. The new one showed a fault and wouldn't reset so I bought another one and ended up with the same result. I put the original back in and it reset but it continues to hum. My plug in outlet tester shows it is wired correctly and I checked to make sure the line and load were correct. Now I don't know if the humming GFCI is defective and I have a fault or the new ones are too sensitive for the shoddy wiring that RVs are known for. Are there RV specific GFCI outlets?
Anyway, during this exercise in futility I learned some more electrical facts about my bus. None of the circuit breakers under the lounge shut off this GFCI outlet's circuit, which includes the TVs. This circuit is hot when the Tripp-Lite inverter is switched to inverting mode but it is also hot when the generator is running, REGARDLESS of whether the inverter is on or off. I'm not sure what happens when plugged into shore power but I'm going to consider it hot until proven otherwise. The other interesting thing I found was the inverter could only produce 100v on battery power but the generator produced 120v. I know that many electronic devices can handle a range of voltages but a 20v drop seems like a lot.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by BurntAsphalt

The other interesting thing I found was the inverter could only produce 100v on battery power but the generator produced 120v. I know that many electronic devices can handle a range of voltages but a 20v drop seems like a lot.

It's important to realize that the TrippLite inverters are not pure sine wave inverters. They are modified sine wave inverters, and a 20% voltage drop is not unusual with modified sine wave. This is why you should never plug in your computer or other high-end electronics on inverter power. If you want to get a full 120vAC, you need to retrofit a pure sine wave inverter like the Magnum that replaced the TrippLites in the later-model Interstates.

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

It's important to realize that the TrippLite inverters are not pure sine wave inverters. They are modified sine wave inverters, and a 20% voltage drop is not unusual with modified sine wave. This is why you should never plug in your computer or other high-end electronics on inverter power. If you want to get a full 120vAC, you need to retrofit a pure sine wave inverter like the Magnum that replaced the TrippLites in the later-model Interstates.

The other possibility is that your multimeter is not capable of reading the actual voltage output of the inverter. In that case your 20v drop is imaginary.

Unless you are using a True RMS meter the reading can easily be off by as much as 20% from the actual voltage. A non-RMS meter dos not measure modified sine wave voltage correctly.