RV Power Converter Troubleshooting
Dave SolbergDescription
Cruising the open road in your rig can give you a sense of freedom, but when your necessary appliances stop working, that freedom can be tainted by the hassle of fixing them. Finding out why your refrigerator won’t stay cold or your microwave won’t heat is crucial for having a happy trip.
When your RV appliances aren’t working, it’s not always right to assume the appliance itself is broken. Many times it’s the power system that’s broken down somewhere between the source and the appliance. Using common sense RV troubleshooting methods can narrow down the possibilities, helping you to figure out exactly what kind of repairs you need.
RV distribution center troubleshooting can show whether the electrical problem is in the wiring, the outlet, or the circuit breakers, which service the electrical system that feeds into your appliance. The problem could even be at the source in the campground or storage facility. Doing the diagnosing and repair on your own can eliminate expensive repair visits, ferreting out small problems you can fix yourself.
How to Diagnose the Issue
In this video, RV maintenance and repair expert Dave Solberg walks you through the process of RV distribution center troubleshooting. You’ll learn simple methods for checking circuit breakers inside and out by using non-contact voltage testers. Specialized testers are important in checking circuits, and Dave shows you how to safely ground these testers to avoid sparking and shocks.
This video shows commonsense tips for tracking down electrical problems, including checking GFCI outlets that might trip in one room and affect the appliances they’re ganged with in another. Tracking down the power through the RV will tell you exactly where the problem resides, which may save you hundreds of dollars in bills from needless repair visits.
Starting at the Center
First things first, when you notice that an appliance or multiple appliances aren’t working, you should check that power is indeed reaching the distribution center. Use a non-contact voltage tester to ensure 110 volts are coursing in the circuit breakers by removing the panel and clamping onto a ground surface.
If all is good in the center, you should go to the appliance(s) giving you trouble. In Dave’s case, he has removed the refrigerator from its cavity to check for power at connection points and in the wiring. If power is flowing, the issue could be in the appliance itself. You can verify this by checking the status of other 110v outlets.
Next, Dave inspects power in the microwave. He says that most outlets located near water sources are ganged to a ground fault circuit interrupter. Should this be the case for your appliance, he recommends testing whether other circuits are connected. In the bedroom or bathroom, for example. On this example RV, there’s a GFCI circuit located in the bathroom. He ensures that it isn’t working before tripping it. And lo and behold, the kitchen outlet that feeds the microwave isn’t working either! So we know that these outlets are ganged, and we might have found our problem.
Next Steps
Once you’ve gone through the process of RV power converter troubleshooting and know where the issue lies in your RV’s power problem, you can begin to address it. We have a full library of videos that can help you repair and maintain your RV electrical systems, including a distribution center overview that gives you a quick rundown of the center. With Dave’s help, you’ll discover the right solution and be back up and running in no time flat!
To diagnose a 110 volt or electrical problem in an RV the first thing we wanna do is start at the campground source. We wanna make sure that we have power coming from the campground or the plugin in our storage facility, whatever. I can use this non-contact voltage tester just gonna go right up against it and let me know that I have power coming into my distribution center. So that's my first step is I make sure it comes into here. The next thing I wanna do is, and open this up and this happens to be the older Magna Tech style where I've got circuit breakers on one side and 12 volt fuses on the others. So each one of my interior appliances, that's going to be on 110 is gonna be in here. So I'm gonna have all my outlets. Let's say if I have one of the outlets out, we see there we can click that off. So the first thing I'm gonna do is come in here and check to make sure that, that comes on and stays on. If I've got these all feel nice and crisp like I can do a couple of different tests here. Just take this panel off. Right off to the side. Okay, so here we've got, I'm just gonna get down here a little bit lower and I'm just gonna take a simple little tester. And all I wanna do is make sure that I got power coming in. So, I clamp onto the ground, which all this metal around here is gonna be ground. And I go in, and I see I've got my light comes on. So I know that one's good, that one's good, et cetera. Now, if I I'm testing a circuit somewhere and I wanna make sure that I know which side of the parts is ground, I'm gonna actually ground it to myself and I'm gonna go in here and hit and you'll see a very light, light come up. And that's telling me that, whatever I just touched there that is actually the hot side of that. So now if I know that I got, I got a good circuit breaker, I'm gonna shut this off here. The next thing I wanna do is go to the actual appliance that's not working and we've got a refrigerator cavity out here, the refrigerator out of the cavity. And let's say if I didn't have power into my refrigerator it'd be really easy to go to the backside of the vent outside and simply just go right into here. We see here we've got the, the actual wire. So we know that it's actually probably something in the refrigerator if that's not working. So, same thing with the microwave we verify that we've got power down to the bottom. It's real easy to come up into here and every microwave in here is gonna be, pretty much a residential style even though they're vented in the front like this. But it'll have a plugin. And I can tell I have power to that plugin so it's, if it's not working. it's gonna be my microwave. Now to back up just a little bit further, one of the things I didn't say, if I do have a problem with one component say the microwave or the refrigerator, I do wanna verify that other 110 volt systems are working so I would wanna check, either an outlet in here. And one of the things with the outlets when you're checking these systems, is a lot of these outlets are, anything that's near water will be actually ganged to a ground fault circuit interrupter. If that's tripped in the bedroom, then this unit right here which is working, lemme go back in the back and I'm gonna pop that circuit and we'll see if that's connected to it. So we just tripped the GFCI breaker in the bathroom and I checked that outlet so I know it's, it's not working it's, it's tripped. And I come out here and sure enough, this one isn't working either. So, working with 110 diagnostics you wanna make sure you've got power coming to the distribution center from the campground source. You wanna make sure that your breakers are working properly. We showed how to do that and then go to each individual appliance and keep in mind if the outlets don't work could be that it's hooked to the GFCI and it's just tripped.
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