Electrical Problem - Bad Breaker

[dale farley]

I keep my bus under my shed and plugged in almost all the time. I have one of the PT 50C Electrical Management Systems from Progressive Industries, and I look at the readout every time I go by it, just to make sure everything looks right. It gives a readout of the voltage on each leg, the amperage being used and the Hz.

Yesterday morning I noticed that one leg had no amperage draw, so I proceeded to check this out. By process of elimination, I determined that I had power on my Main 50Amp box in my underbelly compartment, because it was drawing several amps due to my refrigerator and other things runnning at the time. I noticed I did not have power to one of my Cruise Airs since it runs off the Auxillary 50Amp box.

I removed the cover from my Auxillary 50 Amp box and saw that it had 220 V on the top and on the bottom of my breaker, so this really confused me. After checking my power cord, all inside breakers and everything that I could think of, I called Marathon. As usual, they were very helpful, and walked me through some checks. When we got to the 50 Amp Main breaker box, I told him it was working fine because I knew it was running everything in the coach at that time. To my surprise, I had 220V coming into the breaker and 110V going out. I had not checked this breaker since I knew it was currently furninshing power to the coach.

My reason for the post, is just to remind everyone that our assumptions get us in trouble some times. The design of this breaker allows it to work even when half of the breaker is bad. I went to Home Depot and got a $16 replacement and solved the problem. Next time, I will try to remember to not skip steps in my troubleshooting process even if I think it is working. Dale

[JIM KELLER]

Dale, I really enjoyed reading this Thread. It seems like something that would happen to me and I get to learn about it before it happens. Looks like those boxes we bought are paying off ! I feel a lot more comfortable each time an electrical storm is in our area.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We have learned over the years that when something is messed up with the electrical side of it, we always check the source first. More than once we have had a shore power defect show up.

Don't forget your own cord. I think a while back Jeff posted something about corroded terminals on the shore power plug. If there is any resistance in the circuit such as the plug being corroded, the voltage drops and the amperage goes up and that will trip breakers. Ditto with loose terminals, both in the shore power outlet box and in the bus.

[Just Plain Jeff]

Coupla things:

There is an article with photos on www.prevost-stuff.com which talk about the point Jon made. It's here: http://www.prevost-stuff.com/lovejuice-article.html

In the by-the-way-department: If you go to the p-stuff homepage and look in the upper left hand corner, we have a link called "Articles." These are archived articles which have appeared on Prevost-stuff over the last several years, kept their for your reference. They are general in information, but may be useful background reading.

Back to sleep.