Weird electrical problem

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JoeandJane

JoeandJane

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Posts
188
Location
Tucson AZ
I've got my unit into the shop to replace the rock guard/mudflat that was destroyed when my rear tire blew out three weeks ago.  As I dropped it off with low batteries, I asked them to plug it in while they worked on it to charge them up.

When the went to cut the metal rock guard, they got an electric shock.  Found out there is 53 volts AC, 135 volts DC on the chassis when plugged in and charging, which went down to 13 or so if all breakers were turned off.  All AC appliances are off.  They unplugged the fridge as first step because often the heating element goes and shorts but that was not it.

He is going to start chasing that down in the morning.  I tried to talk him out of it, just repair what I need done but he does not want me to take it with a risk of it getting worse and electrocuting someone. 

How would you even start trying to track that down since with all appliance breakers off, there is still voltage there.  It could be in any outlet, power converter, etc.

Any experience with a problem like this?


edit by staff - changed message icon to topic solved
 
First let me say your mechanic is right to insist that he trace the stray voltage and not let you take this home with the electrical risk as it sits, so good on him and good on you for not insisting that he not trace the issue.

This might take a minute, it could be from something miswired, what are the last three (3) things you had done to the bus electrically, start there.  Check your batteries to ensure there is nothing crossed between them.  If its not something simple like that than he will need to isolate electrical items one at a time until the stray voltage goes away and whatever was last removed is the problem, in other words he will reverse engineer the problem to find it.  My initial guess is it will be something with the battery wiring and or battery ground to chassis or maybe even your hot water heater.

If you don't mind please post back what he finds.
 
ClickHill said:
First let me say your mechanic is right to insist that he trace the stray voltage and not let you take this home with the electrical risk as it sits, so good on him and good on you for not insisting that he not trace the issue.

This might take a minute, it could be from something miswired, what are the last three (3) things you had done to the bus electrically, start there.  Check your batteries to ensure there is nothing crossed between them.  If its not something simple like that than he will need to isolate electrical items one at a time until the stray voltage goes away and whatever was last removed is the problem, in other words he will reverse engineer the problem to find it.  My initial guess is it will be something with the battery wiring and or battery ground to chassis or maybe even your hot water heater.

Water heater is gas only.  Two years ago I replaced house batteries, power inverter, and added a monitoring system and device (can't think of name) to charge the chassis battery when house is plugged in.

Water heater is gas only.  Last three things were all done two years ago when I replaced the batteries, power inventor, added a monitoring system, and a device (can't think of name) to charge the chassis battery when the house batteries are charging.

If you don't mind please post back what he finds.
Click to expand...
 
Well my reply with quote did not work.

Last changes made were two years ago when I replaced house batteries, replaced power converter with Progressive Dynamics,  added Trimetric monitoring system, and a device (can't think of name) to charge the chassis battery when house is being charged.
 
ClickHill is exactly correct - the mechanic shouldn't touch your rig until the electrical problem is mitigated.

Get one of those plugin circuit testers and make certain the AC wiring is correct, test each outlet.

Print out your wiring diagram and start disconnecting circuits one at a time, I would also take the battery charger/inverter(?) completely out of the circuit. If I was troubleshooting, I would start by pulling every circuit breaker (pulling it out and not just flipping the breaker off) and then measure for spurious current.

Examine all grounds, both DC and AC (green wire) - when I say examine I mean grab each wire and wiggle.
 
I went up there today with an outlet tester to check every outlet. I started with the extension cord that they had the unit plugged in with and guess what I found? The ground pin was broken off the extension cord. They plugged it into a new caord and everything is fine.
 
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