Breaker blows when hooking up to shore power

[napatoy]

I've been having an occasional problem..When hooking up to 50a shore power, the circuit breaker that controls the converter blows. I reset the breaker and everything works normally.

I've done some research and one post said that it is possible that more things are connected to the circuit and upon powering up it overloads the circuit.

I know the converter is a WFCO 8700 series on a 2015 Winnebago RLSS 31'

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated

[Arch Hoagland]

Are you turning off the shore power breaker on the pedestal  BEFORE you plug your 50 amp plug into the show receptacle?

[John From Detroit]

What is the FULL model of the converter (The last 2 digits) and how big the breaker.

I've had that happen ONCE.. just ONCE.   I added additional batteries and they were very low.. I"m guessing the dealer plugged it in "hot" (It was at the dealer) meaning they did NOT turn off the breaker before plugging in.. If you do it that way and the plug arcs a  bit it can trip the breaker,

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Yes, odds are that more than just the WFCO converter/charger are on that circuit breaker, so you need to figure what set of things share it and which of them (or combination of them) is causing the breaker to trip. The breaker responds to the total load, so it could be an intermittent short in one thing, or the combined amp load of several things.

If the batteries are fairly low on charge when you plug in, the WFCO's charger would kick in at a relatively high amp rate. If there are other things sharing that circuit that are plugged in & turned on, it might exceed the breaker capacity. Things like electric space heaters, hair dryers, coffee makers, etc, all have a fairly high amp draw.  I mention the WFCO power draw specifically because it has a fairly broad range depending on the circumstances, so that could explain why sometimes the breaker trips and other times it does not. That's not a flaw in the WFCO - just a fact or life.

[napatoy]

Hi All-

To answer a few of the questions..

Yes, the breaker on the pedestal is always off prior to plugging in the power cord.

The WF-9835 is the convertor installed.  I'm going to contact Winnebago and see if they can tell me what else is connected to that breaker other than the converter.  One possible work around is to install a seperate breaker just to power the converter. 

[Rene T]

Hi All-

To answer a few of the questions..

Yes, the breaker on the pedestal is always off prior to plugging in the power cord.

The WF-9835 is the convertor installed.  I'm going to contact Winnebago and see if they can tell me what else is connected to that breaker other than the converter.  One possible work around is to install a seperate breaker just to power the converter.

Just turn everything on that's 110 Volt AC and then shut the breaker of. This will tell you what's on that circuit.  You can go around with a meter or a small light and check the outlets. 

[napatoy]

Will do that...Thanks!

[HappyWanderer]

It's not a bad idea to identify what's on every circuit, then label the outlets and breakers. It's helpful to prevent doing things like plugging a space heater into the same circuit as your coffee maker.

[DHCamper]

I had this happen with my TT.  My trailer is only 30 amp but the cause was a short in the cord itself.  It started with blowing the breaker, the one at the house, when I taxed it by using the air conditioner and something else.  It then would trip with just the air conditioner.  It finally got to where as soon as I plugged the trailer in the breaker would trip.  I noticed that the end of the chord looked like it was slightly melted.  This was the plug end.  My son, who knows much more about electricity than I do, decided to cut the plug and check out the wires.  We found that the chord was black for about 2-3 feet.  We wound up shortening the chord and installing a new plug and all was well.  I must have gotten a surge at a campsite that didn't hurt it bad enough to do damage to the trailer but did do damage to the chord.

Hope this helps.

[napatoy]

I will definately check the cord.

[John From Detroit]

Speaking of the cord.. About a month or month  or two ago I lost power to half my 50 amp RV.
It was the plug (Wire came loose)( did not short but it could have.. I fixed it on my next move.

[napatoy]

So, I pulled out the breaker panel and noticed that they spliced the plug for the converter into the 15amp breaker.  I added another breaker to the panel and wired the converter plug to it's own 15amp breaker.  I did this a week ago, this weekend I will see if it is still operating and hopefully that solved the problem with the breaker blowing.  Thanks for all the advice.