12 volt light switch tripped rear ac 120 v breaker

[SydiaJohn]

I am in Phoenix for the summer and obviously pushing the electrical side of the coach. 2004 holiday rambler vacationer with 2 ac units. I have spent 3 summers here so I am not a rookie at rving in hot weather.

I turned on the rear bedroom lights tonight and the rear ac 20 amp breaker tripped. Reset and is ok now, but always trying to stay ahead of issues. The lights are 12 volt, converted to M4 LED tube lights from fluorescent.

I am a full time rver. I have had a a large variety of electrical problems this summer that required a lot of repair.

6 weeks ago I lost Line 1 leg on my ECS at the power pedestal and it burned the corresponding leg on the shore power cord. The ECS indicated the pedestal was ok. I replaced the cord cap and ECS. Line 1 stopped working a few days later and the pedestal turned out to be loose at the leg 1 breaker. Fixed problem for a day, then lost leg 1 in the coach permanently. I found a very bad transfer switch with burned wires and transfer switch contacter. Replaced the transfer switch. During all of this, the house batteries were found to be bad……being plugged into shore power for extended periods indicated 13.4 volts when plugged in, but when i replaced the transfer switch, the batteries were not even at 12 volts. Replaced the house batteries. I did add a battery capacity meter with a shunt to avoid this situation in the future plus i added a charge wizard to my converter.

For reference, last summer-replaced the power converter.

I am thinking the 20 amp breaker might be weak so am going to to replace in AM. I do get some light flicker at times.

Not sure why 12 volt affected the breaker, but with the converter on the 120 V system, maybe related.

Any thoughts of wisdom out there?

[YC1]

Where is your AC breaker panel located? Is it inside a closet for example?

Ours is and to add misery to the equation the water heater is below the breaker panel and not insulated except for a thin piece of door skin material.

The heat build up in the panel is/was amazing and my EMS board physically burned up a few years ago.

When making some modifications to the water heater home insulation was ripped from the paper backing and fills the area around the water heater. The heat transfer is all but gone now.

I did make a tiny other modification for air flow but that alone was enough to keep the panel running cool.

In extreme conditions with the sun beating down on the bedroom area I will leave the closet door open to allow the cool AC air to hit the face of the panel.

Glad you replaced the transfer panel. They work hard and are too often overlooked.

[vito.a]

Some of the A/C load sharing relays run on 12V.