Anyone work in the Camper business?

[Digital Oxygen]

I think I fired something on my nash, but I don't know what.

Here's what happened. I plugged the power cord into 220 BY ACCIDENT, I heard a loud buzz, then I unplugged it. This lasted no more than 1 second. (I have lightning quick reflexes, but that's another story). I jus't don't seem to be able to read labels. :/ Everything seemed to work just fine after the incident. The camper sat with everything off for about a week after the incident.

Yesterday, I backed up under the camper, and proceeded to lower the landing gear. Low and behold, the landing gear (electric) would not budge. Tested the batteries, and they were stone dead. My jumpers did not reach all the way to the batteries, so I ended up jerry rigging a power cord, to the jumpers which were hooked up to my truck's batteries. I cut the two wires going into the landing gear motor, and I was able to raise the legs and get things going.

I am taking the batteries to interstate to have them checked and charged if good. In case they are good, and I didn't fry them with that 220, what else could be wrong? I suspected the ac/dc converter/charger, but i didn't get a chance to pull it and test it at home.

I'll have to put a meter on the battery terminals and see if I've got a short to ground somewhere.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks a bunch.

 

[Tail_Gunner]

I'd suspect that you killed your batteries and your power convertor. How are the other electrical appliances? Air Conditioning, refridgerator, water heater A.C. function, television, microwave, etc?

There are usually some polarity protection fuses on the power convertor itself. If you got lucky, you just fried those and saved your power convertor. If not, you're in the market for a new convertor.

There are several other fuses in the 12 volt electrical system, including your landing gear system, slideouts, AM/FM stereo, TV antenna booster, LP gas detector, monitor panel, interior/exterior lighting etc. Check all the 12 volt fuses. There is also the possibility you fried the 12volt control circuitry of your refridgerator.

You have a lot of things to check out, but the first two are the batteries and power convertor. Until you know that they are good, it's impossible to find out how many other things got fried.

 

[Digital Oxygen]

I have the batteries at the local battery shop. The old man there will charge and test them. Will know status in a few days when I get back home.

Everything else seemed to work fine. The fridge was running on AC (once I got the right voltage), Entertainment center was fine, even the heater/ac's worked fine last week.

I checked all the fuses in the fuse panel. None of them seem blown. In retrospect, I remember the motor moving about 1/4 of the turn very weakly when I went to raise the legs. So I think I gave you guys the wrong idea when I said it was "Dead" it did move a tiny bit.

I'm with you Gunner, start with the batteries, and work backwards from there. I was looking for suggestions (thank you) of what else I need/should check in the meantime.

 

[Tail_Gunner]

I'm rather surprised about the fridge working. How old is your camper? The way I see it, one of three things is happening:
1) Your camper/ fridge is fairly old.
2) Your fridge is really small (i.e. pop-up/truck camper sized)
3) Your power convertor is OK.

Any new refer's we sell (Dometic or Norcold) that are larger than what would go into a pop-up (2-door w/ separate fridge & freezer) have temp control circuitry that run off of 12v DC. The fridge's "fuel" is either AC electricity or LP gas. If you have a two door unit (with separate refer/freezer) and it is less than 20 or so years old and don't have 12v DC, it ain't gonna run (Warm beer & sour milk).

You can get 12v DC one of two ways, either from your batteries or from your power convertor. If you've removed the batteries, you must be getting power from the convertor. Do the interior lights work with the camper plugged into 110v AC with the batteries removed? Most of the interior RV lights around are 12 volt. If they are working, something has to be providing them "juice".

In retrospect, I remember the motor moving about 1/4 of the turn very weakly when I went to raise the legs. So I think I gave you guys the wrong idea when I said it was "Dead" it did move a tiny bit.

Was your AC cord plugged in when you tried to raise your landing gear? Or were you running the landing gear strictly off of battery. It is possible that the burst of 220v AC harmed the batteries and not much else.

Normally batteries are hooked to the frame where there is zero voltage (i.e. ground) The 110 AC neutral and ground lines are also connected to the ground/frame. If you hooked up to 220v AC you applied one phase of the 220 (110v) to the ground/frame/negative side of batteries.

I would also recommend using an 110v AC outlet tester like the style with the amber neon lights to check all your outlets for open ground or common.

 

[Digital Oxygen]

Gunner,

The fridge is a Norcold, IIRC. It's a Fridge and separate Freezer. The camper is a 94 Nash. The fridge ran just fine for the 4 days I was using the camper, with an AC cord hooked up after the 220 incident. The heater ran fine as well, and I had 3 exterior 12V lights on. One under the neck, one on the port side, and one on the starboard side, the "porch" light. Though, I'm not sure if that's a 12V or 120.

The cord was NOT plugged in, I was trying to run the gear off the batteries.

I will check the outlets for open ground or common as well. Didn't think of that one. Thanks for the suggestion.

Edit: Oh yeah, the refridgerator was set to OFF when I left, as was the heater and all lights.