50amp Breaker Randomly Tripping

[ericandalice]

I've recently had my 50 amp breaker in the RV trip 3 times. Twice yesterday and once about a month ago. My concern is that it might happen while I am away from my RV, cutting out the air conditioning which my dog depends on when I leave him alone. Below are a few facts that may or may not be relevant to this issue. I would appreciate any opinions.

• All times I am at a 50amp site and not using nearly that much power (maybe 20-30amp on line one and 10-20amp on line two when both air conditioners are on). I have a EMS to protect the RV before the power even gets to the breaker. That is not tripping. The breaker at the park in the petal stool is not tripping. This leads me to believe it is not tripping due to excessive power use but because that breaker switch might be bad.
• It has always happened in the heat of the day when the main air conditioning has been running almost constantly. When it trips the breaker is physically warm. Feeling it this morning after I got up (which involved some air conditioning over the night but not constant) it was cold. It could be getting warm simply because of constant use during the day and that may be normal. Or perhaps is it building up excessive heat because of some problem.
• It happened twice yesterday but that could be simply because it built up excessive heat, then I reset it without really solving the root problem. So it tripped again a few hours later.
• I have had some volt problems at the park I am at. Numerous times my EMS has reset the power due to low voltage. It has been hot days in South Carolina with lots of folks at the RV park (more than they normally have) so I think they are just having problems providing enough volts. When the breaker tripped a month ago I was at a different park. I am unsure if the voltage ran low there or not as I wasn't paying attention. But it obviously didn't run low enough to trip the EMS.
• I have visually inspected the wires going into the 50amp switch to ensure they are not loose causing excessive heat buildup.
• This rig is around 2 years old and I have never had this problem before.

Should I just replace the 50amp switch just in case it has gone bad, or do you think it is something else? Or is it possible that this is normal behavior with the air conditioning running most of the day due to hot days and I should just avoid camping in the south in the summer.

 

[danemayer]

Hi ericandalice,

Since you've already checked for loose wires on the back of the breaker, and I assume you would have noticed signs of heat damage, the next thing I'd suggest is to check for leaking voltage which might indicate a problem with the neutral wiring.

Check several outlets in different areas: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, microwave. Use a voltmeter to measure voltage between 1) hot and neutral, 2) hot and ground, 3) neutral and ground. The results should be very close to the same on all outlets. Hot-neutral should read between 110 and 120 V. Hot - ground should read the same. Neutral - Ground should read 0 V.

If you see something like 115 V on hot-neutral, but 120 V on hot - ground, and 5V on neutral - ground, you may have a problem with your neutral wiring, that could be responsible for increasing the amperage pulled through the breaker, tripping it.

 

[wdk450]

If you want to eliminate the most probable cause of your random breaker trips after your investigations, change out the breaker. Especially if you can feel it getting warm/hot.

 

[ericandalice]

It's definitely warm/hot. Suggestions for replacing? -Alice


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[ericandalice]

I don't see that Eric mentioned the tuna fish smell that occurred near the times when the breaker tripped. Not sure if it's related or not but both times the breaker tripped we started smelling tuna fish in the rig which is odd since we don't eat that. It kind of reminded me of an electrical smell, not plasticy though... -Alice


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[recumbent615]

Replace the 50Amp main Breaker. Go to Home Depot and pick up a new one. I'd power the Rig Down and pop the breaker and get the model and MFG off of the one installed. so you can get the right one from HD so it will fit the space and the power distribution of the box. ( there are different breaker formats and I do not recall of hand what Heartland uses )

 

[jnbhobe]

Like Dan says I would start looking for a loose neutral or ground wire.

 

[Jim.Allison]

Ozone, produces a distinctive pungent odor. Ozone is created during an electrical arc. You must have a good sniffer or your breaker is very bad to create such an arc.

I don't see that Eric mentioned the tuna fish smell that occurred near the times when the breaker tripped. Not sure if it's related or not but both times the breaker tripped we started smelling tuna fish in the rig which is odd since we don't eat that. It kind of reminded me of an electrical smell, not plasticy though... -Alice


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[TedS]

Swap breakers for a temporary test/trial. If the tripping breaker still trips, replace it. If the 'good' breaker trips, there may be a circuit problem with that leg.

 

[Garypowell]

I am a little rusty on my electrical theory but you mentioned low voltage happening at the park....and no one has commented on that. Low voltage will cause higher than normal amperage draw. Your A/C wants/needs a certain amount of power and if if one component of it (voltage) is lower than it should be then another part of it (current flow) will increase to make up the difference.

this is why they put the low voltage cut out on the EMS in the first place.....you can burn up A/C's and other electrical loads with low voltage.

This can still point to the breaker in your rig if it is "weak". I have seen breakers get "old" and trip more easily than they used to....so getting a new breaker is not a bad idea but the whole problem might have been started by the low voltage and therefore could come back.

 

[ericandalice]

So you still think replace the breaker? We are planning another trip next month and we think that park will have more reliable electric. This park has always done us good but we've never been here during the summer with them at full capacity. The low voltage is definitely an issue. Trips several times a day.

Does anyone have any idea how line 1 and line 2 are laid out? Our smaller AC and water heater are definitely on line 2 but it seems as if the outlets in the bedroom are on line one. -Alice


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[jnbhobe]

It's best to open the breaker box and check what is hooked to each side of the box. Then you could adjust the position of your load. You mention that one AC and the HWH are on the same line, have you tried to run the HWH on propane to see if that helps.

 

[TedS]

Turn stuff off and look at you EMS to see which line, L1 or L2, changes amperage. Plug stuff in and look at your EMS to see which line changes amperage.

 

[Jim.Allison]

View attachment PD55Documentation_2013.pdf Number 00 (PD5500) is the most common for a 50 amp rig. The first two stab positions are for your 2 50 amp breakers, every alternating stab position is assigned to the first breaker and likewise for the second breaker. Here is a colored illustration of how your breakers are assigned. Hope this helps.

 

[Garypowell]

I mapped the electrical using my EMS. Just by watching the loads as I turned things off and on. You can also do it by tripping breakers which I have done too. Usually the labels in the breaker box list the major stuff but not individual plugs.

 

[wdk450]

So you still think replace the breaker? We are planning another trip next month and we think that park will have more reliable electric. This park has always done us good but we've never been here during the summer with them at full capacity. The low voltage is definitely an issue. Trips several times a day.

Does anyone have any idea how line 1 and line 2 are laid out? Our smaller AC and water heater are definitely on line 2 but it seems as if the outlets in the bedroom are on line one. -Alice


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Don't you want to eliminate the possibility of having circuit breaker problems on your planned next trip? It seems to me that you have pretty well isolated the problem to the circuit breaker/switch. Go to You Tube for advice in how to change these out. Just be sure to unplug from shore power BEFORE doing any electrical work.

 

[ericandalice]

That's what I meant. We'll get this "fixed" here and be able to test it there. We can't test anything at home and we leave to head home this Wed. So we'll have a better idea if we fixed everything at the next park.


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[ericandalice]

It's best to open the breaker box and check what is hooked to each side of the box. Then you could adjust the position of your load. You mention that one AC and the HWH are on the same line, have you tried to run the HWH on propane to see if that helps.

We did run it on propane. Evidently we had a nest of some sort in there, which we torched. That freaked me out a bit.

We turn the hot water heater off when we're not using it. When we are, we turn the AC off. But honestly, sometimes the only thing running on Line 2 is the AC and that trips the EMS.

We have the fridge on propane now as well. We have maybe a light, the two computers and the AC on line 1 and that has gotten below the 104 volts and tripped the EMS several times too.

It's kind of a game at this point. We leave the cabinet door on so we can watch the volts and amps and if we start getting too low we start turning things off or unplugging. I say it's a game to keep from losing my cool bc I'm paying for 50 Amps and I can't use more than 20. We don't leave the rig for very long anymore because we need to make sure our pets don't melt. -Alice


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[danemayer]

Have you taken any voltage readings at the outlets?

Do you have a transfer switch (gen prep)? Where is the EMS located?

 

[TravelTiger]

Gee, that sounds like a bad deal with the park. Can you complain and get them to knock some off the charges? We complained when the low voltage was happening to us at a park last year. Turns out, when the Park contacted the electric delivery company, they knew of the issue and were working to replace a transformer down the road. Once that was complete, no issues. The park was gracious and offered us a free night's stay for letting them know.

On the flip side, we've been at a park for over a month, with temps 95 to 100 during the day, and running two ACs, plus running on electric for water heater and fridge, no problems with voltage, so far. (We do turn off an AC to run the microwave.)