Are the circuits split on either side of the 30A plug?

[Bob Blarney]

Hello, I've just brought home a '94 Excella 1000 28'. There are no batteries in the trailer at present. I taped off the 12V battery cables and then attached the 30A to 15A pigtail and plugged it into a 15A circuit in my garage. Approximately 1/2 of the trailer's 120V receptacles have power, and the overhead lights do too. There are four breakers in the box in the rear bedroom plus one GFCI circuit. I assumed that the 30A plug was for 220VAC with two 15A supply, and so that the pigtail would only supply 1-2 circuits. Is that so? I suppose I could run an extension from basement workshop that has 22V0 receptacle with 20A on either leg. Would that be the way to fully power the trailer?

[thehandyman]

Trailer is 110 . Check your breakers reset all of them.

[HiJoeSilver]

NO 220v!!!!!

30 amp is just like a regular extension cord just heavier and shaped different. One hot one neutral one ground.

50 amp gets the split.

Along with handymans recommendation. Fully open(off position) then re close(on position) all the breakers. Then reset the gfci outlet.

With your circuits 4 breakers, they are as follows. One 30A main breaker, this is where the shore power comes in. One circuitvfot the air conditioner, and two circuit breakers for thevrest of the trailers.

The lights in your trailer are all 12vdc so they are getting power from the converter since there's no battery. Make sure you tape the battery terminals well.

This will be a start, hopefully an end too. Otherwise tracing down wiring problems can be a pain. If you determine which breaker/circuit isn't working it might need a new breaker or possibly gfci.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Welcome to the "other side" of the 50A confusion. 30A, 20A, 15A are all single hot / 120V circuits. There are three wires on the plug:

Ground (for safety)
Neutral (to return power on)
Hot (to supply power on) at 120V

That's how it *should* be wired in all cases.

If half your "stuff" does not power up, you have a bit of work ahead of you. The good news is that not every item is on it's own circuit. Get your owners manual from the AS site. It has a schematic in it. Use that to figure out what goes where. Standard troubleshooting applies from there. It could be some bad breakers. If that's it the next question is "why are they bad?". They don't just die ....

Lots of fun !!

Bob

[Bob Blarney]

Thanks all.

>First, I'd better check to see if the aluminum skin of the trailer is hot - the trailer is parked on bone dry concrete and everybody has been wearing rubber footwear.<

When I looked at the AS plug, I assumed that it was a NEMA configuration. I guess the RV world has its own convention for that specification.

I looked at the breaker box, and the four regular breakers were in the untripped position, and the GFI breaker did not trip with the test button, so I assumed it was getting no power. After talking with the previous owner who reported no problems, I got the original manual and other literature, and so if it's necessary I should be able to do some continuity checks. There was evidence of mouse infestation, and I'm hoping none of them got too hungry and bored enough to munch on the wiring.

[TxDave]

I had the same issue when I started renovating my 1971 Sovereign. The two 15amp breakers were for the outlets. I had two GFCI outlets...one behind the fridge and one for the outside plugs on the curbside. Half of my outlets were not powered because of a tripped GFCI outlet. If one of those is tripped, all of the outlets past that will be dead. The outlets are daisy chained.

[dcasr]

Originally Posted by Bob Blarney

Thanks all.

>First, I'd better check to see if the aluminum skin of the trailer is hot - the trailer is parked on bone dry concrete and everybody has been wearing rubber footwear.<

When I looked at the AS plug, I assumed that it was a NEMA configuration. I guess the RV world has its own convention for that specification.

I looked at the breaker box, and the four regular breakers were in the untripped position, and the GFI breaker did not trip with the test button, so I assumed it was getting no power. After talking with the previous owner who reported no problems, I got the original manual and other literature, and so if it's necessary I should be able to do some continuity checks. There was evidence of mouse infestation, and I'm hoping none of them got too hungry and bored enough to munch on the wiring.

_______________

Recently we came back to our AS and the AC was off....so we checked the power at the Campground power post...on. Our circuit breakers were OK but with a meter we were getting strange spurious voltages off of the various poles. Got an electrician familiar with RVs and he took one look and said...it looked like one he had seen previous week..."I'll bet its a short in the inlet box," so we propped a twin bed up and took the cover off of the power inlet box and we smelled burnt wiring. A wire had jiggled loose over many thousands of miles and shorted against other wires and the box. Simple fix once you know what it is...baffling until you figure it out.

[Bob Blarney]

The soup thickens.

A voltage check between the exterior skin and a ground rod revealed a 6VAC offset, that was also present on the garage door track. When I plugged the trailer into a different 20A house circuit, the trailer skin voltage reading was less than 0.1V. Although all my garage outlets are GFCI protected, there must be a leak somewhere in the garage wiring that needs to be investigated.

Meanwhile, 5-6 off/on cycling of the breakers restored power to all trailer circuits, but the roof A/C didn't work. I suspect that many of the 12VDC switches will need a spritzing with contact cleaner or replacement.

[ITSNO60]

Originally Posted by Bob Blarney

When I looked at the AS plug, I assumed that it was a NEMA configuration. I guess the RV world has its own convention for that specification.

.

It actually is a NEMA Specific Purpose configuration, TT-30

[ITSNO60]

Originally Posted by Bob Blarney

The soup thickens.

A voltage check between the exterior skin and a ground rod revealed a 6VAC offset, that was also present on the garage door track. When I plugged the trailer into a different 20A house circuit, the trailer skin voltage reading was less than 0.1V. Although all my garage outlets are GFCI protected, there must be a leak somewhere in the garage wiring that needs to be investigated.

.

I suspect you are seeing a phantom voltage on a digital VOM. If you have current returning on another path other than neutral while plugged into a properly working GFCI the GFCI should trip.

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by Bob Blarney

The soup thickens.

A voltage check between the exterior skin and a ground rod revealed a 6VAC offset, that was also present on the garage door track. When I plugged the trailer into a different 20A house circuit, the trailer skin voltage reading was less than 0.1V. Although all my garage outlets are GFCI protected, there must be a leak somewhere in the garage wiring that needs to be investigated.

Meanwhile, 5-6 off/on cycling of the breakers restored power to all trailer circuits, but the roof A/C didn't work. I suspect that many of the 12VDC switches will need a spritzing with contact cleaner or replacement.

Hi

Seeing 6V to a ground rod is not a big deal. Drive in a variety of ground rods and you will find all sorts of offsets like that.

All A GFCI does is sense and trip. It does not do anything past that. Either it is passing current (it's on) or it's blocking current (it's off).

Daisy chaining more than one GFCI does no good. Since they do fail from time to time, it's not a real good idea.

Bob

[TG Twinkie]

I don't think Txdave is saying the GFI'S were daisey chained. Just the outlets down stream from each is daisey chained to the GFI. This is common practice and a less expensive way as compared to a GFI breaker.
And we all know that A$ is into less expensive.

[HiJoeSilver]

Considering you had to cycle the breaker a bunch of times you might want to consider replacing them. Cheap insurance.

[Bob Blarney]

Originally Posted by HiJoeSilver

Considering you had to cycle the breaker a bunch of times you might want to consider replacing them. Cheap insurance.

That is on my list. The trailer has been sitting unused for about 4 years through winter and summer, and so I think that many of the 12VDC switches & bulb contacts need cleaning or replacement. The univolt unit will be replaced with a modern unit. Is there a good source for warm white LED replacement bulbs at a reasonable price?

[HiJoeSilver]

Is there a good source for warm white LED replacement bulbs at a reasonable price?

Depends on your definition of reasonable. Look for 1156 base led's. You pay more for more lumens.
M4products.com and led4rv.com are good. You can get a bunch on Amazon for cheap, but most of the time you can't find lumens. For the price of one I got from m4 I could get 10 cheap ones on Amazon.
Keep in mind that any light covers can significantly reduce the amount of light that is useable. My while covers really cut down my warm white lights and warm them even more due to the very slight yellowing of the plastic. I'm going to double the sockets later and go to natural white bulbs. It'll still use a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs.

[Bob Blarney]

A little bit of rummaging around the internet revealed something about the bulb abbreviations, aside from the base size:

e.g., for a 3528 60SMD bulb:

3528 refers to the physical size of the LED chips: 3.5 mm by 2.8 mm

60SMD means there are 60 Surface Mounted Devices (i.e. LEDs)

A 3538 60SMD bulb gives about 400 lumens and consumes about 5 watts, and is the approx equivalent to a 40W halogen incandescent.

https://www.12vmonster.com/blogs/pro...-5630-5730-led

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Everybody is a little different in how they react to bulb "colors". I would suggest picking up single samples of a couple of candidates and try them out. The bulbs last forever (not really, but almost). It's a one time buy when doing the replacements. I would avoid buying the "full swap" batch piecemeal. Even with the same brand of bulb, the output varies as they change LED suppliers.

Bob

[SilverHouseDreams]

I also wanted "warm" LEDs, but was converting from halogen bulbs with the 1156 base (2011 Sport 22FB). I took a gamble and ordered bulbs on Amazon, they seem to work well. Its really difficult to actually take a photo to show the color of light, or I would, but the camera auto-white balance skews it. I can measure the "warmth" in degrees K if you would like that as a comparison. I went with these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074HYWZLW/ Hard to beat the price of $1/bulb.

In our fixed position house we use all 2700K LED bulbs, though even those vary from what is on the box to the reality. I have a strong dislike for the cold/blue LED lighting, but I also dislike the overly warm yellow coloring of some of the "warm" LED 120V bulbs. I've purchased and returned at least a dozen different 120v bulbs for our house because they didn't match what they claim on the labels.