Community Forums

Pogo · 07-12-2011, 06:40 AM

Can anyone tell me why we have 115V power to the receptacles and microwave, when hooked up to shore power, but when we are disconnected and on the generator, we don't have it.
The 2 A/C units work fine on the generator, but not the other items. The breakers did not trip and I did not do anything to them when I hooked up to shore power. This had not happened before and I cannot undestand what has happened.
Thanks in advance.

Buford B · 07-12-2011, 07:21 AM

Check the breakers on the inverter.

radams · 07-12-2011, 07:59 AM

Hmmm. I'm assuming the A/C units work on shorepower as well and you say they run on generator power so that would seem to rule out a transfer switch failure. The circuits for the outlets and the microwave are typically run out of the inverter, I'm assuming you have one. On my inverter, a Xantrex RS-2000, the unit must be enabled for those circuits to work. Any chance yours has tripped off and needs to be reset? It could happen if your inverter experienced a fault and shut itself down. If so, you will probably need to clear that fault and reset. Do you have a breaker on the inverter and have you checked that? There generally is a relay in the inverter that chooses either battery power (it's normal position) or AC when it sees it. That relay in the inverter can be temperamental and not always shift when it sees AC on the input. The inverter doesn't know whether the AC is coming from shorepower or the genny so it could be an intermittent problem with that relay. Hopefully some of these ideas will help you. Let us know how you progress on this. We all like to learn.

wa8yxm · 07-12-2011, 09:21 AM

I love knee jerk responses "Check the breakers on the inverter"

An inverter that only is "In line" when the generator is running.. How .. Uncommon.

Check the breakers on the generator itself.. Though I am kind of surprised at both A/C's working and not the microwave... IN fact I can think of nothing that will cause the type of failure you describe.

Also check the screws in the main 120volt distribution panel, and if (I stress if) you ahve one the sub panel Make sure all power is off when you do this, Shore UNPLUGGED, Generator off and if you have in inverter it's off too.. 12 volt for lights is OK but no 120 anywhere.

NOTE: This last (Loose screw check) even if everything is working.. it's a good idea to check those screws at least a few times epically if it's a new rig.

Buford B · 07-12-2011, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wa8yxm

I love knee jerk responses "Check the breakers on the inverter"

An inverter that only is "In line" when the generator is running.. How .. Uncommon.

Check the breakers on the generator itself.. Though I am kind of surprised at both A/C's working and not the microwave... IN fact I can think of nothing that will cause the type of failure you describe.

Also check the screws in the main 120volt distribution panel, and if (I stress if) you ahve one the sub panel Make sure all power is off when you do this, Shore UNPLUGGED, Generator off and if you have in inverter it's off too.. 12 volt for lights is OK but no 120 anywhere.

NOTE: This last (Loose screw check) even if everything is working.. it's a good idea to check those screws at least a few times epically if it's a new rig.

Just like I like people that write long drawn out responses to things they know nothing about. The OP did not say he went back and forth between shore and gen. I think he went from gen to shore and noticed a problem. So I checked if his coach is similar to mine, it is. Therefore I am reasonably sure that like mine some circuits go thru a popout breaker on inverter when on shore power, not the breaker panel like some people like you assume. Don't blame me blame Monaco.

Pogo · 07-14-2011, 02:10 PM

I do not have an inverter, only a converter. I am thinking that I need to open the automatic transfer switch box and look for something like burned wire, connections, contacts, etc. We have been on the move and now are at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Al.
I will let you know what I find.

bluepill · 07-14-2011, 02:27 PM

A couple of thoughts:

I assume you have a 50 amp service because you have 2 A/C units.

If all the loads that do not have power on shore input are on the same leg, trace the power from the shore plug through the transfer switch and to the main breaker for that leg.

Make sure to check both neutral and hot wiring.

Good luck.

Pogo · 07-15-2011, 03:59 PM

EVERYTHING works perfectly on shore power.
But, on generator, the microwave and the receptacles do not work. The 2 A/C units do work great on the generator, (one at a time, of course).

Gary RVRoamer · 07-15-2011, 07:48 PM

Quote:

The 2 A/C units do work great on the generator, (one at a time, of course).

Why do you say that? Is this a 30A rig rather than 50A? And even in that case I would expect the generator to run both a/c's simultaneously, since the generator is typically large enough and wired to provide a independent path to the second a/c. What year, make and model coach are we discussing, and is it 30A or 50A shore power? And what size generator (kilowatts)? Also, do you have a switch that enables power to go to either the second a/c or the microwave but not both at the same time? This was a fairly common design at one time.

Pogo · 07-16-2011, 06:39 AM

I have an '04 HR Neptune 36 PDQ. We like it a lot. It has a 5 KW generator and I remember reading several discussions here where folks were cautioned to not run both A/C's at once on their generators. So, I learn from what y'all say on here. On shore power we do run both at once.
But, the issue is that ONLY whe disconnected from shore power and on generator power, do I not have power to the microwave or wall outlets. All of the other items work fine.
When on shore power, everything works perfectly. I do not have an inverter, just a converter.
We are off again today in an hour to head up the road a couple hundred miles or so. I look forward to checking in again.

grumpy14 · 07-16-2011, 07:20 AM

Don,t know if this is right --find agi fuse in outlets it may be trip- i had similar problem --Agi fuse was triped now all outlets work

bluepill · 07-16-2011, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pogo

EVERYTHING works perfectly on shore power.
But, on generator, the microwave and the receptacles do not work. The 2 A/C units do work great on the generator, (one at a time, of course).

OK, Duh........................

I got confused with a problem on another post.

I don't know about your particular transfer switch, but the one on my 50 amp. system uses 2 relays - one for the hot and one for the neutral. Unless you have relays exclusively for the AC circuits, it doesn't nake sense to me why you would have the problem that you are having. Without seeing a complete wiring diagram, I can't figure why the AC lines are ok, but the outlets are not.

Pogo · 07-22-2011, 02:16 PM

Thanks to tips from you, I solved the problem.
One of the breakers on the generator was tripped. I must have had a load on the generator when either starting or stopping it. I will be more careful not to do that.