A little heads up

Pulltab

Well-known member
My wife noticed last night that one of the switches in the bedroom felt pretty warm to the touch. Now the lights had been on for a while but the switch is basically an extension of the wire. I pulled the switch plate off and one of the wires was not fully pushed on to the connector making a partial contact. At some point it had been hot enough to burn the yellow plastic sleeve on the connector and was quite HOT to touch. I pushed it all the way on and checked it a few minutes later with my infrared gun and the temp had come back down to aroung 86* as the other switchs were.

Just wanted to let everyone know it doesn't hurt to check the switches periodically to ensure they are not overheating. This is where the infrared gun comes in handy. :)
 

ChopperBill

Well-known member
I replaced the electric outlets in the service bays with regular screw type outlets and got rid of the push in the wire style. The RV ones are pretty low standard. I have the push in outlets in my stick house and one quit working. When I took it apart things were so burnt I don't know how it kept from catching fire. Got to replace the rest of them soon.
 

Pulltab

Well-known member
Ok, here is a more recent update. After having the switch heat up again I decided to check the amps running thru the switch. Here lies the problem, the light switch controls 3 fixtures with 2 bulbs each. That totals 11.7 amps and the switch is rated for 10 amps. So we just manually turned off one of the fixtures, could remove one of the bulbs and that would most likely bring it below 10 amps but 2 fixtures is plenty.
 

ChopperBill

Well-known member
PT, we being mostly boon dockers, I turned off two of the lights manually. Three lights across the ceiling was a little over kill.
 

Pulltab

Well-known member
Yeah Bill your right it is. Never really thought about having all three on but we will now. :)

We love boondocking also. Desert is the best but in leu of that we go to the local lake where they have no hookups. I like to exercise my batteries.
 
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