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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / RVs / June 2006Jayco Pop-up Power problem
We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 circuit breakers and several auto type fuses. None of the breakers are tripped (tried resetting them) but this did not help. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. "jerryn3" <jnietupski@gmail.com> wrote in message > We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what > coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 > circuit breakers and several auto type fuses. None of the breakers are > tripped (tried resetting them) but this did not help. Any advice would > be greatly appreciated. We need more information, What was lost? Was there still AC power at an outlet (plug in a known working house lamp at the outlet). This is unlikely, as there is essentially nothing between the AC power cord going into the camper and the circuit breakers. You likely lost DC power from the 'electrical box' - which is called a converter - and your lights in the camper went out. Most small campers have a cheaply made converter, which can fail for a number of reasons, mostly because it is cheaply made! Look at it for us and tell us what make and model it is, and we can give more advice about what to try next. Some of the newer cheap converters actually have a small fuse just inside the cover that you can try and replace (no, not the auto-type fuses, but a cylindrical glass one with metal on each end). > "jerryn3" <jnietupski@gmail.com> wrote in message > > We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > that you can try and replace (no, not the auto-type fuses, but a cylindrical > glass one with metal on each end). I lost all power. I was able to plug a radio into the box the camper was in and it worked. We lost power in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping. You are probably right, a fuse or the converter. Are they expensive? Thank you very much for the reply! "jerryn3" wrote > > I lost all power. I was able to plug a radio into the box the camper > was in and it worked. We lost power in the middle of the night while > everyone was sleeping. You are probably right, a fuse or the converter. > Are they expensive? Thank you very much for the reply! SOME converters have a fuse accessible right from the front panel, and you can simply take it out. Often, you can see if it is OK just by looking at it. If it is not OK, or you are not sure, take it to Radio Shack and get an (actually two) identical fuse, then try a new one in the converter. SOME converters have the fuse inside the unit on the circuit board. These are hard to get at unless you have some experience with wiring, as you generally have to take all the wires off of the back of the converter, take the unit out of where it is mounted, disassemble the converter, and find the fuse!! When my cheapo Centurion died, I had to do this, but replacing the fuse didn't fix things, and I had to replace the converter. It does not sound as if you have a lot of experience with electrical 'stuff'. Therefore, if replacing the accessible fuse doesn't fix things, I would recommend that you take the pop-up to your local dealer and have them see what is wrong. IF it needs a new converter, I would recommend that you upgrade to one of the better converters available, since many small pop-ups have a cheaply built converter. The cheap converters retail for about $100 (although are available new on e-bay for perhaps $30!!). The better converters, which are in a few pop-ups and most larger units, such as travel trailers, start at about $200. However, the are much better built, last longer, have excellent battery recharging circuitry, etc. Your pop-up dealer should know about these, since they are in the larger (TT...) units they also sell and service. Cheap converters are sold under the names: WFCO, Centurion, American, and Elixir ( I think these are all the same company's products). Good converters are made by Parallax Power Magnatek, Progressive Dynamics, and probably some others. HTH > We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what > coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 > circuit breakers and several auto type fuses. None of the breakers are > tripped (tried resetting them) but this did not help. Any advice would > be greatly appreciated. Did the power go as soon as you plugged in, or after a while? Not that it necessarily has anything to do with your problem, but was at the dealership the other day, and in the stall next to where they had mine, there was a TT being worked on. They had plugged into shore power at a campground, but someone had diddled with the wiring in the box, and had turned the 110 outlet into 220. They said that overall he was lucky, biggest damage was a fried converter/charger. There were a few other circuits that got fried as well, and his battery was damaged. At least, this is what the serviceman told me.  SignatureKarl & Angela `02 Durango `05 Fleetwood Allegiance > We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what > coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 > circuit breakers and several auto type fuses. None of the breakers are > tripped (tried resetting them) but this did not help. Any advice would > be greatly appreciated. Same thing happened to my wife and I just last week. Lost all power, circuit breakers and fuses are good. Trouble turned out to be a tripped gfi outlet. The outlet is close to the breaker box, colored black and was difficult to see. I didn't even notice the center GFI button prior to this. In their wisdom, the camper manufacturer tied all the outlet boxs in the camper to be chained from the GFI outlet. I removed the defective GFI outlet, put in a standard 20 amp outlet (white), changed to a white cover plate, and decided I would rely on the breaker box and fuses for overload protection. Cost, less than seven dollars at Lowes. >> We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what >> coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > the breaker box and fuses for overload protection. Cost, less than > seven dollars at Lowes. Is your converter fed through that GFI? I am trying to figure out how a GFI tripping would knock out the 12 volts from the converter. >>We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what >>coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > the breaker box and fuses for overload protection. Cost, less than > seven dollars at Lowes. That GFI outlet serves a very usefull purpose. If the other outlets were ran through it they were all protected from ground faults which are required when wet areas are nearby. You probably need to get another to protect you when using the outside outlets or if you guys come in wet. We had this same problem, but as was mentioned we could get the radio and a fan to work. It was only DC power for us, so we are replacing the converter. We were given an estimate of 250$ including labor, I believe. We are picking it up today. Interestingly, our converter would come back on after 15-20 minutes of "cooling down." > We lost all of our power on the last outing and can not figure out what > coule be wrong. The electrical box where the power comes in has 2 > circuit breakers and several auto type fuses. None of the breakers are > tripped (tried resetting them) but this did not help. Any advice would > be greatly appreciated. > We had this same problem, but as was mentioned we could get the radio > and a fan to work. It was only DC power for us, so we are replacing > the converter. We were given an estimate of 250$ including labor, I > believe. We are picking it up today. Interestingly, our converter > would come back on after 15-20 minutes of "cooling down." I would then say your converter was "working". Just a thermal overload that caused it to drop out.
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