Why did my shore power just quit working?

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I used to be the motor home guy at a Chevy dealership.  I had a brand spanking new coach towed in one time(not a cheap deal, towing a big class A)because the guy's wife turned off the battery disconnect switches and he didn't realize it.
I noticed the LEDs on the panel were off as I walked up to the coach and just reached over and hit the switches.  Presto!  He was fixed even before the tow truck driver had him disconnected.

I didn't have the nerve to actually charge him anything, but the tow company wasn't so sympathetic.
 
Had a neighbor pull in while I was in GA no power to coach..... I was on my way out on business so the park hose helped him.. Reset the breakers inside the RV.

Had another who had no power to half his coach. We found his inverter (he did not know if he even had one but we found it Nice Tripp-Lite unit (Very high end) and reset the breaker He went inside and his wife ask "Does he think he can help" and the husband..turning on one of the "non working" devices (TV) said "He's already fixed it".

THose are the easy ones.. Now my fee is normally a cup of coffee. (though the one person insisted I taker a check. it went on to a charity. By not accepting money I save myself a lot of Tax Paperwork).
(Plus I offer the ultimate money back guarantee... Your FREE is hearby cheerfully refunded).

I've even done major Diesel engine repair.. And I'm not certified on Diesels (Ok so it was algae growth in the fuel tank and I pointed out the pre-filter to the mechanic who confirmed and prescribed the cure).

That as a 25+ year old Blue Bird Bus that looked as good as one of the last to ever come off the line. Absolutely pristine  but the 10 year rule park down the road don't want him.  Oh well.

 
John From Detroit said:
Had a neighbor pull in while I was in GA no power to coach..... I was on my way out on business so the park hose helped him.. Reset the breakers inside the RV.

Had another who had no power to half his coach. We found his inverter (he did not know if he even had one but we found it Nice Tripp-Lite unit (Very high end) and reset the breaker He went inside and his wife ask "Does he think he can help" and the husband..turning on one of the "non working" devices (TV) said "He's already fixed it".

THose are the easy ones.. Now my fee is normally a cup of coffee. (though the one person insisted I taker a check. it went on to a charity. By not accepting money I save myself a lot of Tax Paperwork).
(Plus I offer the ultimate money back guarantee... Your FREE is hearby cheerfully refunded).

I've even done major Diesel engine repair.. And I'm not certified on Diesels (Ok so it was algae growth in the fuel tank and I pointed out the pre-filter to the mechanic who confirmed and prescribed the cure).

That as a 25+ year old Blue Bird Bus that looked as good as one of the last to ever come off the line. Absolutely pristine  but the 10 year rule park down the road don't want him.  Oh well.

Oh and his Canine companion (Georgia) is sweet too. He got her at the nearby shelter. She's Brown.. Sweet Georgia Brown (And that is not a pun or joke. She really is).
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I dealt with one of these on Christmas day walking someone from the that had just recently bought the same model coach as I have through where to find the breakers and GFCI for their inverter via Text message from a thousand miles away.
 
SpencerPJ said:
Glad you found the problem 
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Wellll-- as with many things in my life lately it turned out that it wasn't that simple...

We plan on leaving Saturday and the coach has been parked here at home beside the garage connected to 50 amp shore power. Given it's below freezing at night I figured I'd warm the inside up a bit an plugged in an pretty new electric heater. I believe it's 1,500 watts.

In any event when I went back out to the coach later, the power was out again.  :( Another breaker? No, all those were normal. Even reset all to make sure there was no issue there. Unplugged the heater and tried a number of other things. Turned the inverter on & off, unplugged from shore power and started the generator, still no power.

But somewhere along the way, with no discernible cause/effect, the power in the coach came back on. Other than the tester I can tell that easily by the small, red LED lights on the TVs either on or off. Problem solved somehow? Nope. While I was standing there, doing nothing in particular, heater unplugged, power went out again.

One thing I did notice was when I reconnected shore power one time, I could hear a "clunk" somewhere around that connection and the power came on. Would that be the transfer switch making that noise? I've read a number of posts re. issues with one's transfer switch and a number of folks responding here have suggested that could be the issue here. Could a faulty transfer switch cause power to cycle power on & off? Given the heater wasn't turned back on and there are still issues leads me to believe that doesn't really have anything to do with the problem. Also doesn't seem it can be an issue with breakers anywhere given the power comes & goes without resetting anything.

 
are you on an EMS when your are on Shore Powerat home?
 
Electric Managment System. It is either a portable or hard wired unit used to protect your electric systems in your unit. It gets confussed with a Surge Protector quit often.Surge Protector protects from High Voltage spikes only. If you had an EMS it would explane your power on and off. The device turns off the power when voltage is below 104 volts and above 132. It turns it back on when within set limits. This automatic on and off is why I asked.
 
EMS has two meanings  IN this case it is a device that as ther other poster mentioned is either plugged in or hard wired in that delays power to the RV and performs many other functions. Two major companies are Progressive Industries (HW or PT 30 Or 50 C (The 30 is used for 30 amp rigs)

the other company is TRC (The brand is Surge Guard).

they will make a CLUNK 15 seconds to just shy of 3 minutes after plugging in

The other is the Generator Automatic Transfer switch.. Two flavors.. One (mine) does nothign when you plug in  but clunks about a minute after generator starts.

The other clunks when you plug in. or when the generator starts.
 
Well, as an update directed at all the very knowledgeable, helpful folks here who contributed suggestions-- here's the final, somewhat embarrassing (again), resolution.

When we arrived at our 1st campsite in Columbus, OH and plugged in-- the shore power worked just fine. And, it's continued to work just fine for a full week since there and at our latest site in Nashville. Bottom line: there's obviously an issue with the shore power connection AT HOME. Did not give that a lot of consideration given it appeared the coach was getting power and it was a relatively new install completed by a very competent electrician who I've worked with for many years.

I just wanted to thank all for their input and to say that while it was a bit stressful dealing with this I've learned a helluva lot about transfer switches, surge protectors and such along the way. Knowledge that might serve me all i the future.
 
I'm not going to say, 'Glad you found the problem', we know how that ended last time in this thread.  ;)

How about, Happy your electrical problems seem to be at bay, and I would guess you need to check (or have checked) your connections at home, they probably fail under a load, possibly even caused by an outdoor temperature shift? 

Enjoy your trip, keep us posted with your adventures  :))
 
I would also like to THANK YOU for letting us know the resolution..
Multiple reasons
1: Far too many tell us the problem and we never find out if it's resolved let alone how it was resolved

2: This is how WE learn and thus we can pass on the knowledge to others who need the same help.
 
jymbee said:
Starting to get organized ahead of our January departure and as of last week everything was working fine in our coach. But when I went out today to do some things, none of the AC outlets or appliances were working. We're connected to 50 AMP service here at the house and I tested the power from the pedestal to the coach and everything seems normal there-- power getting to the coach.
Don't even know where to start looking to see what the issue might be. On generator, everything inside works fine so that would seem to rule out any kind of breaker issue. (?)
Any ideas?
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jymbee
Look for a tripped breaker on, (or in), your inverter itself.
On many RVs the incoming shorepower passes through the inverter, (and therefore through the inverter breakers), on it's way to the AC outlets and appliances.
 
With apologies for resurrecting an OLD thread, I just wanted to report the final/final solution.

As reported previously while traveling all was well power-wise. But returning home after 90+ days on the road, the same malfunction occurred when plugged in at home. Arrrggghhhhh...

Our electrician is top notch so I was quite certain the fault was not with anything he did, but after another round of investigation-- checking every imaginable connection both inside & outside the coach, the actual problem was finally discovered. Something I never considered.

We live in a very rural area and our power comes underground about 1,000 feet from the road. Turns out that due to some issues a commercial operation was having on up the road from us, the power company installed a new pole & equipment one up from the pole our power comes from. On this pole they had... well-- I don't know what it actually was all about but was told it was some kind of "regulator" to resolve the power issues beyond us.

In any event, the end result for us was a spike in voltage on our property which apparently caused the surge protector to keep tripping. But as the voltage level was "normal" off & on it made it really difficult to analyze.

Once it was figured out the power company sent a bunch of trucks and somehow (way over my head) resolved the matter so we're finally back to normal.

http://byz.com/power/pole_2.jpg

http://byz.com/power/pole_1.jpg

Lessons learned on multiple fronts.  :)


SpencerPJ said:
I'm not going to say, 'Glad you found the problem', we know how that ended last time in this thread.  ;)

How about, Happy your electrical problems seem to be at bay, and I would guess you need to check (or have checked) your connections at home, they probably fail under a load, possibly even caused by an outdoor temperature shift? 

Enjoy your trip, keep us posted with your adventures  :))
Click to expand...
 
Glad you found it and hope the Power company fixed it.  Those can be a witch.

And one final comment THANK YOU (That's a big shouted THANK YOU) for coming back and telling us what it was..  Far too many forget to do that.
 
jymbee said:
We live in a very rural area and our power comes underground about 1,000 feet from the road. Turns out that due to some issues a commercial operation was having on up the road from us, the power company installed a new pole & equipment one up from the pole our power comes from. On this pole they had... well-- I don't know what it actually was all about but was told it was some kind of "regulator" to resolve the power issues beyond us.

In any event, the end result for us was a spike in voltage on our property which apparently caused the surge protector to keep tripping. But as the voltage level was "normal" off & on it made it really difficult to analyze.
Click to expand...

When the Western Railway Museum near Rio Vista, CA was established back in the 1960s, we connected the substation that supplies the power to run our electric streetcars to the PG&E grid.  It's in a rural area and every time we'd accelerate a streetcar the voltage would dip for everyone downstream from us.  When we shut off the streetcar motors to coast their voltages would spike.

The streetcars drew anywhere from 50Kw to 250Kw each from the overhead 600 volt power line and we often ran two or three simultaneously.  This was a big, varying load on our rural power system.

It's the same principle as having your lights dim out when you start a load like an air conditioner.

PG&E came out and installed similar regulators on a power pole just downstream from the museum.  Kind of like Hughes Autoformers on steroids. This solved our neighbor's problems.

Thanks for letting us know the solution to your problem!
 
Arch Hoagland said:
Do you have a "Salesman switch" by the entry door?  It will shut off all power.

I have mine taped to the "ON" position.
Click to expand...

Salesman switch is for 12 volts. Op is having 120 volt problem
 
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