2012 Cyclone 300C Electrical Mystery. (2me@least)

[Bigburd]

Setting the scene.

1. 2012 Heartland Cyclone 300C Toyhauler.
2. 50amp system through adaptor plugged into 30amp home service.
3. No tripped breakers in stick house or Toyhauler. All 12 volt fuses OK.
4. Power to full garage, fridge, microwave, vacuum 120 volt outlet in passthru, bedroom 120 volt outlets, bedroom air, 12volt lights.
5. No power to 120 volt outlet or seperate converter 120 volt outlet in passthru, 120 volt outlets on side of kitchen cabinet and under kitchen cabinet, bathroom GFI outlet or living room air.
6. Generator will not turn over, battery weak.
7. Seperate battery charger placed on Toyhauler battery for 60 minutes, fluid levels were a little low, now good.
8. Problems all go away.

I am throughly confused. Power at back and front of Toyhauler, none in middle. How could the 12 volt DC battery have an impact on my 120 volt AC system? What do I need to check / replace? New battery, converter, etc?

Leaving for Destin Friday, need help.

 

[danemayer]

Setting the scene.

1. 2012 Heartland Cyclone 300C Toyhauler.
2. 50amp system through adaptor plugged into 30amp home service.
3. No tripped breakers in stick house or Toyhauler. All 12 volt fuses OK.
4. Power to full garage, fridge, microwave, vacuum 120 volt outlet in passthru, bedroom 120 volt outlets, bedroom air, 12volt lights.
5. No power to 120 volt outlet or seperate converter 120 volt outlet in passthru, 120 volt outlets on side of kitchen cabinet and under kitchen cabinet, bathroom GFI outlet or living room air.
6. Generator will not turn over, battery weak.
7. Seperate battery charger placed on Toyhauler battery for 60 minutes, fluid levels were a little low, now good.
8. Problems all go away.

I am throughly confused. Power at back and front of Toyhauler, none in middle. How could the 12 volt DC battery have an impact on my 120 volt AC system? What do I need to check / replace? New battery, converter, etc?

Leaving for Destin Friday, need help.

Hi Bigburd,

You may have a problem with the 30 amp adapter. It should be supplying power to both legs of your 50 amp plug. If it's intermittent or your shore power connections were not locked, you could have a group of 110V devices not receiving power. One might be the Power Converter that converts 110V AC to 12V DC to charge the battery.

Recharging the battery wouldn't have fixed the problem, but it's possible that during your investigation, you may have tightened the shore power connections, and reseated the adapter, restoring power to all circuit breakers.

Another possibility is a partial failure at the transfer switch or between your shore power connector and transfer switch where L1 was getting power, but L2 was not. If you're going to investigate the transfer switch, be very careful. There's enough amperage going through it to injure or kill if you make a mistake.

 

[Bigburd]

Will replace the 30amp adaptor, had not thought about the transfer switch. Not having problems with the 12 volt Dc, lights, etc. The battery when low on charge cuts off some of my 120 volt AC systems, middle area of the camper. When the battery is charged everything works.

 

[danemayer]

Will replace the 30amp adaptor, had not thought about the transfer switch. Not having problems with the 12 volt Dc, lights, etc. The battery when low on charge cuts off some of my 120 volt AC systems, middle area of the camper. When the battery is charged everything works.

The furnace, air conditioning thermostat, water heater, and gas absorption refrigerator all have circuit boards that use 12V. If the power converter is not supplying power and the battery voltage is low, none of those will work reliably.

Battery condition shouldn't affect 110V outlets unless you have add-on electrical components like an inverter.

 

[Bigburd]

Bedroom air works great when low battery condition exists and hooked up to my 30amp home service. Livingroom air does not, thermostat has power, lights, display but will not turn on air. No add-on components that I know about. Bought this unit brandnew. This low Battery condition does affect the outlets stated above at the Thread Start.

This is why I am very confused.

Charge battery, everything works.

 

[dbbls59]

Make sure the power cord is connected to the trailer correctly. pushed in and twisted. This happen to me once, I did not have it twisted enough.

 

[porthole]

Your battery has nothing to do with the 110 AC side of the trailer.

As brought up above, check the 30 adapter first then the transfer switch.
The 30 amp adapter ties the 50 amp feeds together, giving you a total of 30 amps into your trailer
If the adapter is not made correctly, only once side of your trailers panel will have power, and subsequently, only some of your 110 circuits will work.

The transfer switch is fed by the shore power cord and the generator. The system is designed to automatically chose the generator if running or the shore power if the genny is off.

On more then one occasion here there have been issues with the transfer switch not working correctly.

Did you check to see if both 50 amp breakers are closed?
Only if you are comfortable with it - pull the cover off the breaker panel and check to make sure you have power to both sides of the panel.

With the generator running, does everything work correctly?


From your first post it sounds like either:
the GFI is tripped or bad (GFI's in these trailers cover way to many circuits)
The 30/50 adapter is wired incorrectly
the transfer switch has failed or has loose wires
the panel has has one of the two 50 amp breakers tripped (manually turn on and off to check)
loose wires at the panel

Make a list, 2 columns, what works, what doesn't
Look at your panel and compare your notes

Is it every other breaker that i snot working? That is most likely a panel feed problem.

 

[Bigburd]

But why would the battery charge affect the 120v system. Battery low / 120v off, battery charged / 120v on?

 

[danemayer]

But why would the battery charge affect the 120v system. Battery low / 120v off, battery charged / 120v on?

It may have been that in the course of investigating the problem, a poor/intermittent connection to shore power was unknowingly improved. And since the last thing you did was charge the battery, it seemed like that was the fix.

 

[branson4020]

Can you reproduce the problem by disconnecting the battery?

 

[Bigburd]

Just purchased and installed a new 50a to 30a adaptor. Heard a loud metallic sound when powered back up. Sounded like the Transfer switch. Time will tell if this was the problem.

Still does not answer why a low voltage battery would shut off 1/2 the 120v AC outlets and livingroom air.

 

[porthole]

The transfer switch has a pair of large solenoids inside the box. After a set time of shore power being hooked up, the switch will send power into the trailer, resulting in a loud clunk.

 

[TravelTiger]

I don't think that you could run two ACs on 30amp anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[porthole]

I use a 30 amp hookup in my driveway. As long as both don't start at the same time it works fine. I just shut the converter off.