RV sudden electrical issues. Help needed

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Sam Casey

Member
Location
Washington
Occupation
Retired
I have a 2018 Nash 24M travel trailer. It was located on an RV pad that has a 50 amp shore Power connection. My son and his partner were living in it since winter of 2018. I had to move the trailer as a result of some work on the pad needing to be accomplished. Moved trailer about 50 feet to beside a pole building that has a 30 amp connection, which should not be a problem since trailer is 30 amp. All is well for the first couple of weeks. Then they start reporting that something is wrong. I check it out and the batteries are not charging. After a week of trying to pin down why batteries aren’t charging I decide to replace batteries. They are holding charge. So I ascertain must of been the batteries. I’ve left the trailer on the 30 amp connection for a couple of days to see if they drain like the originals did. Nope. Still good. But none of the 120 v outlets are working. I get a reading of hot/neutral when using the outlet checker device on all outlets and the gfci indicator light was red on the outlet in bathroom. Research lead me to outlets being reverse wired. My question is all was well before we moved so outlets being reversed wired wouldn’t have this problem shown up before I moved trailer? Also, what could have happened during the move to generate this problem? Due to stay at home orders in this state I cannot take to an electrician or have one come here to troubleshoot nor can I get any info from RV maker or seller and I need to get son out of spare room and back in RV. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 

iceworm

Curmudgeon still using printed IEEE Color Books
Location
North of the 65 parallel
Occupation
EE (Field - as little design as possible)
You are going to need a meter. I bought a lowes $50 AC-DC clamp-on ammeter. It has AC-DC volts and an ohmmeter, to leave in the RV. That is plenty of meter.

50A RV receptacles are 240V
30A are 120V

img_1089193_0_342e8adc569d3e353e878f63ca338515.jpg

The receptacles did not magically reverse. Check the 30A recerptacle first. See if it is reversed.

I don't know what your outlet checker is. And I would not necessarily believe one unless I knew what was inside. A meter will tell you true.
If you are stalled on how to do this - get some help. A mis-wire can energize the RV steel shell/frame.

As for the battery charger, check it using the clamp-on DC ammeter.
Unplug the shore power. Turn on some DC loads - all the lighting you can. Clamp over the main wire coming out of the battery positive post. Check the Amp reading. Is it + (plus) or - (minus). It doesn't matter. Just remember, the current is flowing out of the battery. So what ever sign it is, that is discharge.. Plug in the Shore power. Once the battery charger comes on, The reading should change sign. The current is flowing into the battery.. That will tell you the charger is working.

Really - get some help.
 

Sam Casey

Member
Location
Washington
Occupation
Retired
Thanks Iceworm. I apologize if this is the wrong forum for me to be using. The reason I went here is getting help right now is out of question. Our state is in a stay at home order due to the current world pandemic issue and there are no available electricians that can/will come out, so I agree on getting help. That's what I was looking for when I posted.

Moderators, I am not an electrician so you may want to delete my post. Thanks.

And iceworm, your reply did help me, thanks.
 

Hv&Lv

Senior Member
Location
-
Occupation
Engineer/Technician
Don’t the 120 volt outlets go through the charger/invertor all the time?
I have a buddy that happened to. Turned out his charger/ invertor was bad.
he never really used it away from shore power, so I just put the 120s on the shore power.
basically bypassed the charger/invertor And removed it.

he wasn’t going to replace it for $6-700

could be a bad charger/invertor?
 
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