Community Forums

birdhunter · 09-06-2021, 07:45 PM

I'm pretty good with electricity, but this has me a bit stumped. Suddenly, plugged into shore power I lost AC in the coach. Inverter cut in, Xantrex remote showed no incoming AC and everything not powered through the inverter was also dead.

However, my Magna's handy AC feeder panel showed normal AC voltage. I ran outside and my Progressive surge protector also showed normal AC voltage and no faults. After about 3 minutes, everything came back on. How is this possible? The only thing I can think of is a bad transfer switch that temporarily drops out? To complicate matters, for some weeks now, I've been experiencing the power dropping off a few times a day for a second or two. I had heard it's a problem with power company. Neighbors have been having that issue as well. Those earlier episodes were way too brief for me to look at the feeder panel or the Progressive. I had ascribed this problem to the power company, but now I'm not sure if I have a problem with the coach AC. Any ideas?

Smitty77 · 09-06-2021, 10:37 PM

Our 04 Allure had some 'weird' behaviors sporadically for about 3 months. Could never identify the problem. I was talking with a Newmar owner, who said he too had had inconsistent electrical surprises. He tracked his down some loose wire screws on the power lead coming from the shore power cord.

On I think either the Escapees, or the old Country Coach Yahoo group (Now Countrycoachforum.com), someone recommended a yearly loosening and retightening of all the main power electrical screws (Yep, not the right name. But the main bare copper feeds being secured to buss bar like connections.)

I found several that were very loose. And a few of the wires coating cases, showed signs of discoloration from overheating.

I loosened and tightened all of the buss bar screws/lugs I could find. And problem never came back. And yeah, I made it a yearly maintenance procedure too...

May have nothing to do with your problem - but, it was the first thing that came to mind...

Good luck,
Smitty

txcpl · 09-07-2021, 05:12 AM

Since your neighbors have also reported similar issues, the first thing to do is to contact the power company and make a complaint. There is a reason the lines are dropping power, and they need to fix it. Also have your neighbors call and make a complaint. Then if it continues, you will have to search it out at your rig.

Ljwt330 · 09-07-2021, 09:07 AM

The Progressive showed good power and it reads only incoming source. Your issue was downstream from the progressive. Depending on where your Progressive is wired in, check all connections from there to your main breakers, including the main breaker.

BrianGlenn · 09-07-2021, 12:29 PM

A number of EMS have a 2-3 minute delay after power surge/spike/drop. Specifically 2 minute 16 seconds for (what ever reason) to allow A/C units to equalize high/low sides before restarting. Possibly a short (millisecond) interruption of shore power and the delay built in to your progressive or Coach system.

I have a new Intellitec load shed circuit board that now has a 2-3 minute delay in addition to my factory Surge/EMS model 34560.

Brian

birdhunter · 09-07-2021, 10:36 PM

I checked all the connections in the box where the shore power comes in. I opened the transfer switch, checked all the connections and saw no evidence burned relays. CC set up this coach so the transfer switch is upstream of the Progressive EMS. Spoke with the power company. They are having problems with cows rubbing on power poles causing these very brief power losses, but they say if I saw voltage in here, it was something past their meter. Maybe as Brian said it was some type of built in delay triggered by these blips. I'll see if it happens again.

Ljwt330 · 09-08-2021, 09:27 AM

With your latest post, I would agree that it is a function of the Progressive connection delay.
I was at a site where the light on the pedestal, which came ON at dark/OFF at dawn, changed the frequency of the power at the outlet. Each time I lost AC for the duration of the reset. Drove me crazy until I put 2 and 2 together and figured it out. At least mine was a regular, predictable occurrence.

birdhunter · 09-08-2021, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ljwt330

With your latest post, I would agree that it is a function of the Progressive connection delay.
I was at a site where the light on the pedestal, which came ON at dark/OFF at dawn, changed the frequency of the power at the outlet. Each time I lost AC for the duration of the reset. Drove me crazy until I put 2 and 2 together and figured it out. At least mine was a regular, predictable occurrence.

Most of these very brief interruptions don't trip the Progressive delay. Maybe if they're brief enough they don't and this particular one was a second or two longer? This also makes some sense since my AC feeder panel is before anything including the Progressive. Power company hopes to have this resolved by next week so I'll see.

jwlce · 09-15-2021, 10:16 PM

Just an interesting but similar issue. I am loosing AC on one leg which is supplied though one of the two rs3000 inverters. Is seems the inverter decides/looses the AC pass through. The inverter shows no faults and is in a AC pass through mode. All other indications in the coach show power should be there but isn't. If I clear inverter faults through the total coach system, the AC returns but will fail again at odd intervals measured from hours to days. I have decided to replace both inverters in that they are 14 years of age. Things being what they are I am not expecting to see the model inverter I ordered for a bit. Any thoughts or comments welcome.

gnvrvin · 09-16-2021, 12:52 PM

We had an issue of power going off and back on seemed to happen more at night and this was at an RV park in Pendleton, OR

Checked the pedestal beaker. I barely touched it and it clicked off
Did a hard power off on the breaker and snapped it back on hard. Issue went away. But pretty sure that breaker was on its way out and trip springs were getting weak
Breakers are meant to be over correct safety devices and NEC strongly recommends not using them as switches but in RV parks they are switched on and off alot.

Figured I Toss that in there,
Greg

birdhunter · 09-16-2021, 11:03 PM

Just a little update: the blips are definitely a power company issue. It's affecting a whole area here and they still haven't gotten to the bottom of what's causing them after 2 weeks. We might get five or six a day. These definitely cause the Progressive to do its 15 second delay. Normal. However, the two incidents where there was a delay of slightly over 2 minutes, this is not normal since the jumper in the Progressive is in place. With the jumper out it does a 2 minute delay. There is nothing else in this coach that could cause a 2 minute delay, so I called Progressive and they've sent me a new circuit board. It just arrived and I have not had another two minute incident. My old Freedom 458 performs flawlessly during these short power blips, it's only those circuits not working off the inverter that I lose.