troubleshooting no power to receptacle

[gemini5362]

I have seen a lot of posts about power to receptacles so I am going to post a quick synopsis of my problem this week.

Started out we came home from dinner and no power to tv. Pulled out my electrical wiring diagram ( If you can get one for your coach I would highly recommend them) and traced power to the tv receptacle back to the GFI at the bedroom lavatory receptacle. Reset that receptacle and had power back. Next day while traveling stopped to get soda and found no power to refrigerator ( AC only unit) checked electrical diagrams again. 95 per cent of the receptacles in my coach are powered by the one GFI receptacle in the bedroom. Power to that receptacle is provided directly off of one of the breakers on my inverter. Strangely enough the other inverter breaker only powers the receptacle for the microwave. Checked the microwave and it had power to it so the inverter was on and working. Turned off both breakers at inverter. Very carefully pulled out the GFI breaker in the bedroom from the wall. Turned on both breakers at inverter and checked for AC at the GFI receptacle. It had no power to it. The wiring for it comes directly from the breaker on the inverter. Turned off power to the entire coach and then pulled the cover off of the inverter where the connections are made going out to the coach. No loose wires. Put everything back together called my rv dealer and said I will bring it in tomorrow to have them order a new inverter under the warranty. I wanted to post this to give what I considered a logical way to troubleshoot loss of power to receptacles. I want to ad to be very carful with what you are doing. Ac power can kill pretty quickly. Do not trust labels when it comes to turning off power. My breaker box has a breaker labeled inverter I turned it off and the inverter continued to supply power to my microwave. Keep in mind that is what an inverter does if you have it on and you turn off the breaker to it then it just continues to make 115 vac very happily off of the batteries. I turned off the coach batteries while I was taking things apart to keep that from happening. I have a freedom 458 2500 I believe I am going to pay the difference and upgrade to a xantrex 3000 sw when i get my new inverter.

[dons2346]

I would take a look at a Magnum Energy inverter. I just installed a 3000 watt along with the battery monitor, controller, and auto gen start, it is cool beans. Best price anywhere is from Boat Supplies, Marine Electronics & Sailing Gear | iMarine USA

[Pa Uon]

I have a similar problem with our outlets (07 Phaeton). I am seeking information on the Tiffin Forum (see active post "Electrical Question"). The difference is my inverter is off when I connect to shore power. When I tried to trouble shoot by turning the inverter on, nothing happens. Only thing that works is turning main power off then on at park pedestal. I went into a lot more detail on the post in Tiffin.

[Pa Uon]

Gemini-I hope this solves the problem you detailed to me.

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by Pa Uon

I have a similar problem with our outlets (07 Phaeton). I am seeking information on the Tiffin Forum (see active post "Electrical Question"). The difference is my inverter is off when I connect to shore power. When I tried to trouble shoot by turning the inverter on, nothing happens. Only thing that works is turning main power off then on at park pedestal. I went into a lot more detail on the post in Tiffin.

I saw the post you put on the tiffin forum. I think you have some good advice on what to check. I am curious to see what the problem is.

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by dons2346

I would take a look at a Magnum Energy inverter. I just installed a 3000 watt along with the battery monitor, controller, and auto gen start, it is cool beans. Best price anywhere is from Boat Supplies, Marine Electronics & Sailing Gear | iMarine USA

Thank you. I looked at those. I really like the new xantrex 3000 sine wave inverter. Full sine wave output. plus one of the features I really like is the low battery cut off. No more running batteries down until they are totally dead. The only problem I have to look into is the original xantrex 458 has a 4 wire conductor between the inverter which is in a compartment at the back of the bus and the remote control panel by the driver. The new unit uses a 6 wire Ethernet cable. I really hate to run new wires the entire length of the bus and pulling them up into the cabinets can be a fun adventure as I found out adding hdmi cables from one cabinet to the tv. I called xantrex but the person I talked to could not answer my questions. I might try and call someone else. If they are using an Ethernet connection to talk between the units I can probably get by with the old cable. Ethernet only uses 4 of the 8 wires. I am going to see if I can get a wiring diagram of that connection.

[dons2346]

Originally Posted by gemini5362

Thank you. I looked at those. I really like the new xantrex 3000 sine wave inverter. Full sine wave output. plus one of the features I really like is the low battery cut off. No more running batteries down until they are totally dead. The only problem I have to look into is the original xantrex 458 has a 4 wire conductor between the inverter which is in a compartment at the back of the bus and the remote control panel by the driver. The new unit uses a 6 wire Ethernet cable. I really hate to run new wires the entire length of the bus and pulling them up into the cabinets can be a fun adventure as I found out adding hdmi cables from one cabinet to the tv. I called xantrex but the person I talked to could not answer my questions. I might try and call someone else. If they are using an Ethernet connection to talk between the units I can probably get by with the old cable. Ethernet only uses 4 of the 8 wires. I am going to see if I can get a wiring diagram of that connection.

The ME addresses all of your concerns. Pure sine wave, 4 wire control cable, low battery cutoff plus more.

[Ray,IN]

I think I misunderstand what you said. I concluded you were on shore power, AND running the inverter. That sounds like a problem itself.

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

I think I misunderstand what you said. I concluded you were on shore power, AND running the inverter. That sounds like a problem itself.

I have a pass through inverter. Shore power passes through it when you have shore power available. When no shore power available and the inverter is on then you provide power to the same outlets from the inverter circuitry. I did not have any power to those outlets from either mode.

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by dons2346

The ME addresses all of your concerns. Pure sine wave, 4 wire control cable, low battery cutoff plus more.

Thank you for your advice. I looked into the ME and I believe it is a good unit and addresses my concerns. I decided to go with the xantrex for a couple of reasons and they both involve money. The xantrex seems to have the same capabilities as the ME it is however 400.00 cheaper. This is a warranty repair. I believe there will be less resistance to me upgrading to a more expensive product from the company than there would be for me to move to another product. That might not be a legitimate concern but it is one of the things I am thinking about. The 4 wire controller issue hopefully will be one of those things that just new connectors fix. I have a friend that is as good as anyone I have ever met at running cables in cars motor homes etc. We used to work together before I retired and now any project that we can spend time on working together we have a good time doing it. He has already said he would bail me out on running the cat 5 if I have to do it. For all the above reasons I am going to go with the xantrex but I do appreciate your advice and it was a very serious consideration for me which way to go.

[wa8yxm]

Well, since you are taking it to the dealer.. Let us know..

Normally I would do the questions bit and try to track it down.. but odds are somewhere there is a junction box between the inverter and the GFCI, also.. You checked for power at the GFCI, did you check the INVERTER end of that same wire...

In my motor home I have one circuit that is wired as follows. I will include ALL junctions It is a 12 volt circuit and I am using it now (powers several radios, and my Engel freezer)

Battry-fuse holder with fuse-10ga wire-Power distribution panel-Wires to loads.

The problem.. NO power at the panel under load.. If I pulled all loads 12 volt, but put a load on no power.. ALso a test lamp showed no light (It is, after all, a load)

Checked the fuse.. Good, in fact both sides showed power

Connection between fuse and wire, also good.

So what was the problem? Remember this is a single run of wire, no junctions of any kind?

Yup, wire was bad.. Found the bad spot. Excised, soldered and sealed, and its working now.

Next time it happened it was the junction between the fuse holder's lead and the wire Same solution.

[gemini5362]

Originally Posted by wa8yxm

Well, since you are taking it to the dealer.. Let us know..

Normally I would do the questions bit and try to track it down.. but odds are somewhere there is a junction box between the inverter and the GFCI, also.. You checked for power at the GFCI, did you check the INVERTER end of that same wire...

In my motor home I have one circuit that is wired as follows. I will include ALL junctions It is a 12 volt circuit and I am using it now (powers several radios, and my Engel freezer)

Battry-fuse holder with fuse-10ga wire-Power distribution panel-Wires to loads.

The problem.. NO power at the panel under load.. If I pulled all loads 12 volt, but put a load on no power.. ALso a test lamp showed no light (It is, after all, a load)

Checked the fuse.. Good, in fact both sides showed power

Connection between fuse and wire, also good.

So what was the problem? Remember this is a single run of wire, no junctions of any kind?

Yup, wire was bad.. Found the bad spot. Excised, soldered and sealed, and its working now.

Next time it happened it was the junction between the fuse holder's lead and the wire Same solution.

You were actually pretty close to what the problem was. I had spoken to the dealer this morning and they told me that the inverter checked out ok. I called tiffin service and they told me that my inverter has two 115 volt power leads coming in and two out. ( Xantrex 2500 watt models) When they told me that I called the dealer and recommended they check the transfer switch. The dealer called back this afternoon and said they found a broken wire between a receptacle that had been installed for the chassis battery trickle charger and the inverter. So the problem is actually was a broken wire. Since my intent was to make this a learning post I will detail some of my indications and where I went astray. First of all I quit checking too soon. I believe my wiring diagram only shows one input leg to the inverter. ( I will check this tomorrow when I get my coach back with the books in it) The diagram does show 2 115 volt outputs. The diagram shows one inverter output goes to the microwave receptacle and the other one goes to everything else. I checked the microwave and it was working. So I knew I had power to the inverter. I checked the other leg on the wiring diagram and it showed power went from the second inverter output to the GFI receptacle. Wa8xym is totally correct there is often junction boxes or even ordinary broken wires that will cause this kind of problem. I usually suspect a device with active components first because the 115 volt lines are solid 14 gauge copper wires and they are pretty rugged. I did not know there was two inputs to the inverter so I assumed that the inverter was working because it had an output coming from it. Basically in pass through mode you have two inputs one from each 50 amp leg of input power and two outputs. Normally I would have opened up the inverter and checked the power from each of the outputs before thinking the inverter was bad. In this case I have a very expensive extended warranty that I bought which says for 50.00 they will fix anything that is broken. I was troubleshooting on the road on my way home from a trip so I just dropped the coach off at my nearest dealer and went home in the toad. I hope this gives someone else some knowledge in a logical way to troubleshoot. The input from other posters to this thread was very good and good advice to consider. It shows how easy it is to be wrong sometimes when you think you know where the problem is. If you are paying for the repairs out of your own pocket then make sure to check each individual input and output from the inverter before investing in a new one. If there was not a warranty involved another 30 minutes of troubleshooting would have found and fixed the problem.

[wa8yxm]

Hey, broken wires happen.. In my case broken was not the proper word by the way but .. Well, solution was the same.

Glad you got it fixed.... Glad I got mine fixed too.

Broken wires are the pits because often you can only see a small portion of the wire's length, then it dissassapers into a wall, floor, ceiling, loom or conduit. In my case the problem was in a visible part of the wire and was obvious.

In the past I had a broken wire somewhere in a loom.. thankfuly, it was still in the warranty period. Thus I did not have to fix that one .

(RV is 2005, Pulled off the lot on Jan-2 2006 about 3am,, Found no tail lights on towed.. Grabed tester, (it is an "inline" type) and inserted it in the line to the towed... No tail light LED either.... Looked at the diagram for my US-Gear brake system.. AH, a tie-line between motor home battery and towed battery.. Turned on parking lights on towed and drove 2,000 miles.. Got it fixed in Las Vegas.)