Tri-Metric, Refrigerator & Blown fuse

[mjayjensen]

Greetings

Last week, on our drive from Laredo TX to Mazatlan MX we stoped for the night just East of Durango MX at a toll booth. The pavment was a little uneaven so I used our new leveling system was for the first time. I drove over the curved ramps and the trailer came down with a bang.

As a result the lights in the main room were all out and the Tri-Metric was blank. It took some fooling around and four 20amp fuses to get the 2 lights over the table and the 3 lights in the overhead storage compartment above the table back on. There was a short after the switch in the 10 light circut that was blowing the fuse. Being very tired and driven out we put the rest of the issues off untill later.

On our arrival in Mazatlan the next day the Tri-Metric had become intermitten and we ordered 20amp fuses for the light circut.

The battery monitor was purchased from AM Solar in 2012 and mounted by Woodland Travel of Grand Rapids MI. It was mounted on the rear facing
wall of the refrigerator compartment. Since the problem I have written to Bogart Eng. and AM Solar and I am fairly certain that there is a cracked connection on the circut board of the unit. I suspect that when the refigerator is removing heat the area behind the wall becomes hotter causing the cracked connection to expand and turn the monitor off. If that is correct, the unit will need repair by Bogart. It remains intermitten even though power is always being supplied to the monitor.


A couple of days after our arrival here, the fuses showed up and I began to check in to the cause of the short in the 10 light circut in the trailer's main room. When the lights were turned on they all came on and stayed on. That is untill last night when again the fuse let go. This morning I pulled all the LED lights, engaged the switch, - no short- and replaced the lamps one at a time. They all are operating fine.

If anyone has any ideas or experience dealing with either of these types of problems, please enlighten me.

Best Wshes
M. Jay Jensen

[mjayjensen]

Sending this through again. Hoping to get some ideas!
Jay

[trekerboy]

Originally Posted by mjayjensen

Sending this through again. Hoping to get some ideas!
Jay

Hi Jay, sorry to hear about your electrical problems. Always tough, and frustrating to try to track these kinds of things down.

I don't have much to offer here except from basic troubleshooting techniques... Since you've determined the short is happening AFTER the switch, the way I'd probably go about things is to unscrew all the lights, flip the switch, then screw each light in one by one until the fuse blows. The last light you screw in would indicate the approximate location of the short.

It could also be possible that one of the lights, if it's grounded to the frame, has a lose connection that got jostled when your trailer came down on the curb. Do you know if your lights are grounded to the frame at their location, or is the "negative" wire routed all the way back to the DC distribution panel?

Hope this helps!

[mjayjensen]

After a couple of reoccurences of the blown fuse, I have been able to isolate the problem to one of the switches that control the lights on the ceiling.
The problem now is how to get the switch cover off of the wall.
Anyone know how?
Jay