Shore Power Failure for 2017 Navion 24v RV

[Tim2319]

Hello,

I own a 2017 Navion 24v RV. Recently friends were staying in the camper in my yard so I had the heat on to keep them warm. I was using the electric heater as the camper was plugged into my house. I had to reset the breaker I was using a few times. One morning there was no power to the camper, none of the outlets work and the house batteries are not charging. I checked all the fuses and breakers but have not found anything. Recently my surge protector broke so I wasn't using one. I am guessing this is what happened but my question is how to fix this. Does anyone know if there could be another fuse component blown somewhere. I am trying to avoid having to bring it in to the dealer. I have been checking the forums and trying to find any useful information but haven't seen much.

Thanks,
Tim

[Morich]

I'm dying trying to get anything done on the computer tonight. The lods of the internet are messing with things yet again!

Some short quick ideas as I can't get to the drawings and do a real search ?

What breaker trips may be part of the clues we need but the general path and things to check may get you there for now.
If the house breaker is tripping, is it a 30 amp or using adapter to use a 15-20 circuit from the house? An electric heater will often run 1500 watt and that works out to be near 12 amp, meaning that most any other small loads on that circuit might overload and trip a 15 amp.
Then to make that messy, if it is an outside outlet, it may be on a GFCI circuit and may not even be at that outlet but somewhere else in the house?/Just something to think over if that is the case.

What would be prefered is a meter to test along the path to see where the voltage gets lost. Anything on hand, meter, test lamp or some tools that uses 110 AC that could be safely connected along the path?

Is there 110AC at the outlet? Does it get across any adapter used?

Another way to get some clues is to start the RV engine and then start the generator. Starting the engine first gets the best chance of the generator starting okay!

Does plugging into the generator make things in the RV work?
Remember tomove the plug to the generator outlet from the house circuit!

You have a farily easy 110 AC group on your RV, so this is a link to the drawings and we can point to some things to look at:
https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File.../000154951.pdf

This is a snip but you may want to go to the drawing on page four for the big picture of all the parts!
Click this snip to get a better view but the general picture is that power comes in at the left, either from house or generator plug, to the load center. There should be a 30 amp main breaker ifrst, so trip it off and on to make sure it is not half way, then the microwave (do you have that option?) is handy to spot the lights on the front as a test. But sticking a meter on the outlets near the dinette should also show things working.

I see no other hidden "trick" things to hide from you !

Check and see if that gets you going or if we need to look further?

[Tim2319]

Thank you for your response Morich. I talked with a dealer and they said it is most likely the transfer switch is stuck half way and that when I bring it in a technician will have to manually turn it. They could not get the camper in for a month so if you or anyone would know where the transfer switch is so I can have a look at it myself that would be great. Also I did try all the breakers that you mentioned and none of them were tripped. I do have a multi meter. From what I can tell all the 12v systems work fine it just not receiving shore power.

[Morich]

I may be confused or missing something OR the dealer is shooting from the hip and not getting it right???

I do not see your RV as having a transfer switch but a simple plug to either plug the cord into the shore power or plug it into the output of the generator??

Does your Rv have one of these to move the cord to the generator output?

Maybe verify that the house circuit breaker to that outlet is not tripped or see if switching the cord to the generator gets it working. There are definitely a few other things which might be going on but that seems more likely ones to check>

But don't shy away from telling me if I'm totally on the wrong page!!

[Tim2319]

Yes you are correct there is only a plug that is why I was confused and asking where the transfer switch was because I didn’t see one. It has the manual switch you are describing where you plug it in to get power from the generator. I tried both of these methods where I had the plug from the generator and started it but still did not get power. I also made sure that when plugged into the house there was power coming from it. If you have any other ideas let me know. Thanks

[Morich]

Ok, did some more looking.

Next to the plug in the cord compartment, it shows the plug for the cord to go in and then next to it is another box shown. That box will have connections in it, connecting the power cord to the inside wiring.

So two things to check, one is to turn off and disconnect the cord plug so that there is no power there and look in that box for a connector that has fallen off or not tight. Just better to test with no power involved if newish at that game?
That is one point which would cut off power both from generator and shore power!

But there is also some chance that the breaker directly on the generator may have tripped. That would not explain why no power from the house but if you know you have power at the house outlet but none from the generator, there is often a breaker on the left lower corner of the generator.

If looking for that breaker, it may be semi-hidden but if you see it, it will look very much like other breasker handles. Mine is very near where the wiring comes into the genset but it is also hidden down in the "brush" type gizmo that keeps dust out, so felling around down in that corner may help--if needed.

There are a few other things like the cord may have broken down inside or pretty odd things like that but the wiring is pretty straight, once you get it in one end, it comes out the other at the load center 30 amp breaker and that breaker feeds all the other breakers there.

We can advise on more details if needed but I think you are real close to the problem.

[NeilV]

Originally Posted by Tim2319

Yes you are correct there is only a plug that is why I was confused and asking where the transfer switch was because I didn’t see one. It has the manual switch you are describing where you plug it in to get power from the generator. I tried both of these methods where I had the plug from the generator and started it but still did not get power. I also made sure that when plugged into the house there was power coming from it. If you have any other ideas let me know. Thanks

Be sure to check both ends of the shore power cord and that there is power coming out of the outlet in the power bay where you transfer the plug to manually switch from the generator to shore power.

If things have been overloaded multiple times there is always a chance that one of the molded plug ends on one of the cords has failed internally or that the main breaker has failed or perhaps had a loose line wire coming out of it arc and carbon up.

Basically follow the shore power testing each component from the power receptacle your plugging into from your home, to the shore power cord and then each component in the RV until you find the point of failure. Be sure to switch the breaker inside the RV fully off and back fully on a few times to better ensure it has actually reset and is not just giving you a false impression of having been reset.

[Morich]

This is one of thse cases where it is often pretty good NOT to have the atuomatic stuff!
You have what we might call a MANUAL transfer switch?
It's may not be as quick as the auto stuff but when we transfer it, we can be pretty sure it gets done!

So if you get nothing when plugged into either gen. or shore power, it really cuts the chase as we don't expect both to be bad. what is left is "possibly" one end or other of the cord, the connections in that box that I marked with the red X or maybe the main breaker at the load center but that box isa pretty good bet and easier to take the cover off and often just see a loose wire.

Big thing to remember is to unplug FIRST!

If you get into thinking you need to test the power cord, just set meter to read resistance/ohms and touch one of the plugprongsand find one wire in the box that reads low resistance. Each wire end should read good to the matching plug prong.

[bigb]

This is worth throwing out there as I have seen it multiple times over the years. Be absolutely sure you have properly reset the breakers. In this case it could be the main 30 amp in the RV. When a breaker trips, sometimes it moves to the middle and sometimes it doesn't move at all. It never moves to the "OFF" position and must be manually forced to "OFF" before it will reset. Some, especially the small half sized breakers, can take quite a bit of force to the "OFF" position before they will catch and allow themselves to be reset. You should feel a firm latching when switching on, if not you didn't force it "OFF" hard enough.
I am a retired electrician and I can't tell you how many times I have explained this over the phone and the customer assuring me that they did it properly only to drive out there and reset it in 2 seconds.

[Morich]

And it's always possible that something as simple as the wire coming into the back of the breaker has come loose, so it pays to be methodical and persistant!

[Geosman]

I traced my lost shore power to a bad connection and short in the plug on my 30 amp cord. It was not a molded factory plug but one that could be added to the cord as is typical for any long RV shore power cord. The wires inside these plugs get lots of exercise with all the twisting and coiling they get between genset coach plug and shore boxes.