Power Cord Reel issue on 2014 Landmark Key Largo:

[jonell.dan]

We had no power in our 5th wheel last week and after a couple of days of numerous tests we found our problem. We had a loose wire under the metal panel on the inside of our power cord reel. The red wire had melted almost the entire way through. In fact when we removed the nut holding the wire to the stem the wire broke apart. Fortunately we didn’t have an electrical fire. See attached photos.




Our question: Has anyone ordered a package to replace just the electrical connectors on the power cord reel? The reel still works fine and it would be nice to not have to pay $500 for a new reel plus what looks like a very tedious uninstall and reinstall. We did read numerous posts on the Heartland Forum relating to power reel issues and didn’t see an answer to our question.


For those interested in the electrical tests that were performed before we discovered the melted wire, here is the list:

- There was no power in the rig, so we asked our neighbors if they had power, and they all did.
- We checked for any blown circuits and there was none.
- We then used a multimeter to test the power at our outdoor pedestal and both hot lines registered 120 volts.
- We checked the power in our circuit panel on our double 50 amp breaker and both hot lines registered zero.
- We then went to our in-line surge protector/transfer switch and the service light was not lit.
- We popped the cover on our protector box and found both hot wires had 120 volts going in, but neither line had power going out. We then pressed down on the magnetic switch from the shore power side and it did make a connection. Knowing this we removed the wires from the magnetic switch and bypassed the surge protector and connected the wires directly. (The service lightbulbs were broken and sitting on the bottom of the box.)
- We now had power registering 120 volts for both hot wires coming into our circuit breaker panel. Unfortunately when we started to turn on the individual breakers the 50 amp red hot wire had low voltage -under 100 volts. The black 50 amp hot wire registered a strong 120+ volts with all of the individual circuits on. We also tested all of the black wire circuits and all worked, so we now had full power to half of our rig.
- So now the question became, why do we have low voltage when we turn on individual breakers on the red wire side of the circuit panel? Is there a loose neutral wire somewhere? Did a mouse eat through one of our wires?
- We checked the connections on the GFCI outlet since it was on the red wire side of the panel and all connections were solid.
- We then switched the low voltage breakers on the red side of the panel to the black side and finally everything tested perfect. This was good news as we knew we didn’t blow an air conditioner, microwave, TV, hot water heater, converter, etc...
- So our final test was to run a 50 amp electric cord directly from the pedestal to the circuit panel and finally we had 100% power to everything in the rig.
- We now had the low voltage issue narrowed down to somewhere between our plug, our cord, the power cord reel, or the line from the reel to the surge protector box.
- After we took the metal plate off from the inside of the power cord reel we found the melted red wire and that brings us to our lone question above.

It seems like poor engineering to place potential loose connection fittings on the inside of a power reel that are hard to access. We are happy to finally figure out our power issue and we didn’t end up with an electrical fire!

 

[Fox]

While I am liquored up it appears to me as though you had a poor physical connection. If you have enough wire to clean it up and re-attached it then that's what I'd first attempt.

 

[jbeletti]

Sorry to hear this happened. Thanks for the detail on it as well as the pictures.

I have to agree with Fox on this - guessing a loose nut holding that terminal down. Poor connection caused super high current and caused the wire to overheat. Never seen this happen in this box before.

I suggest you contact Customer Service at SouthWire (727-812-0578) to find out if they will sell you this connection board.

 

[jonell.dan]

Thanks for the phone number, I will give them a call. Yes, the loose connection was the issue. The stem is corroded all the way through and it spins around, so it won’t hold a nut. Therefore, a new connection is needed. Hopefully I can just replace the small electric plate?

 

[sengli]

Wow, that looks like it could have been much worse.

 

[jonell.dan]

We finally got a hold of a technician at Southwire.com and we also removed the rivets from the electrical board. See photos.




He told us unfortunately they do not sell just the electric board, which would have certainly been the easiest and cheapest solution for us. He said to take the board into a motor shop and see if they could fabricate a new plate for us. So our electrical adventure continues....

 

[CDN]

Sad to say it the slip rings are in bad shape too. I am glad to see this picture to know how lit is put together.

 

[carl.swoyer]

We finally got a hold of a technician at Southwire.com and we also removed the rivets from the electrical board. See photos.

View attachment 62653View attachment 62649View attachment 62650 View attachment 62656


He told us unfortunately they do not sell just the electric board, which would have certainly been the easiest and cheapest solution for us. He said to take the board into a motor shop and see if they could fabricate a new plate for us. So our electrical adventure continues....

I took my hydraulic pump motor to a alternator shop. He put new brushes in with new posts, works great.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

 

[jb007]

Same thing happened to My power reel, 2015 Landmark Newport, after seeing how they work not going replace it, going with a RV plug. The black wire burned where the power cord terminates to the reel. left us with no power on a hot Texas night.
Everyone with one should have the wiring checked.

 

[Chainsaw]

Where do you find this panel? Under the reel or beside it? Do you remove the cover around the reel?

Touch wood, had the Landmark for 9 years and no problem, had the bighorn 1.5 years. Will take it apart to check.

 

[jb007]

Roll cord completely off, should be a panel with 8 screws, that is where the the cord terminates, the wire that goes to the breaker box terminates on the side. I had to take the back side panel off to get to it, it does have a cover on it. the cord side is what burnt on mine.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thank you, I will crawl under the coach in the morning to look at it and make sure I know how to get at it.

 

[jonell.dan]

Final update:
Rather than spend $500 plus dollars for a new reel we decided to make our own electric board. We were able to clean up the slip rings on the inside of the power reel and the three copper connection clips. We did have to replace the old copper screw and nut that broke off from the red wire connection clip when we removed the old plate. We used the two good copper screws for the red and black lines and the new screw for the neutral wire. To replace the board we ordered a two pack of Red Bakelite Phenolic Resin Flat Plate Sheet PCB 5 x 100 x 150mm from Amazon for $13.22.




Using the old board as a template we cut the new plate to size, drilled three holes for the black, red and white screw stems and drilled out the four holes for the rivets. We also replaced all four of the 6-gauge wire crimped connections including shrink wrap at the pig tailed end our 50 amp cord. We did this to keep all of our wires approximately the same length and to visually check the end of each wire for any other damage.



Our final step was to install a new in-line surge protector/transfer switch to replace the old one that blew out due to the faulty red wire connection.

We are now back to full power on all of our circuits and we have surge protection!!

 

[cookie]

Good job saving $$$.
Nice work.

Peace
Dave

 

[Gary521]

Final update:Rather than spend $500 plus dollars for a new reel we decided to make our own electric board. We were able to clean up the slip rings on the inside of the power reel and the three copper connection clips. We did have to replace the old copper screw and nut that broke off from the red wire connection clip when we removed the old plate. We used the two good copper screws for the red and black lines and the new screw for the neutral wire. To replace the board we ordered a two pack of Red Bakelite Phenolic Resin Flat Plate Sheet PCB 5 x 100 x 150mm from Amazon for $13.22. View attachment 62762 View attachment 62763 View attachment 62764Using the old board as a template we cut the new plate to size, drilled three holes for the black, red and white screw stems and drilled out the four holes for the rivets. We also replaced all four of the 6-gauge wire crimped connections including shrink wrap at the pig tailed end our 50 amp cord. We did this to keep all of our wires approximately the same length and to visually check the end of each wire for any other damage.View attachment 62766 View attachment 62767Our final step was to install a new in-line surge protector/transfer switch to replace the old one that blew out due to the faulty red wire connection.View attachment 62768 View attachment 62769We are now back to full power on all of our circuits and we have surge protection!!

Did you do all the work through this side access door or did you remove the reel from the trailer? How where you able to clean the slip rings that these connectors ride on if you did not remove the reel?

 

[jonell.dan]

All of the work was done through the access door. We rotated the reel around and continued to wipe the rings all the way around a rotation. We were not able to see the rings on the back side of the rotation, but we were able to reach around to the back side to clean them.

 

[jbeletti]

Really nice DIY work here. Thank you for sharing with the group.

 

[woodworm]

Did you do all the work through this side access door or did you remove the reel from the trailer? How where you able to clean the slip rings that these connectors ride on if you did not remove the reel?

Nice job! I have the same problem now. My contacts burned out and lost there spring tension. I have .125 thick phenolic for a plate but will upgrade the .020 thick contacts to .040. Threaded studs are 10-32 copper plated steel. Will upgrade to 1/4-20 studs. I think the parts will carry the load better with less heat generated. I'm retired from the aircraft industry and know a little about metal alloys. I'm trying to confirm with someone knowledgeable that I'm using phosphor 510 bronze spring hardened as the contact replacement material.

 

[wdk450]

On similar threads I have advocated for the use of Caig DeOxIt D-100 Contact Cleaner/Restorer on shorepower reel commutator (slip rings) contacts. I decided to check the Caig website (Caig.com) to see if they had another product more directly aimed at electrical commutators. First of all, I found a NEW Caig.com website with lots more info and testimonials. Next, within the website, I found Caig L260-DN Lithium Grease infused with DeOxIt D-100L Contact cleaner/restorer, which has a recommended use on electrical commutators. See: https://caig.com/deoxit-grease-series-with-shop .

While searching for this grease, I found a search result about how isopropyl alcohol is actually conductive, and the water carrier leads to contact corrosion. News to me, who has been using alcohol for years as an emergency contact cleaner when I don't have Caig products handy. Here is the item from Caig's website: https://caig.com/warning-alcohol-ethanol-are-conductive .

On edit: One final thought on the terminal connection screws on the commutator board found to be burnt up - maybe loose. These screws are made of a copper compound. Any chance that overtightening the nuts on the screws could cause them to stretch (like automotive head bolts normally do) and become loosened causing a loose connection and electrical current contact area heating/corrosion syndrome? Maybe my electrician pal in Oregon could better address this idea. Maybe the hardware (nuts/bolts) needs to be more robust (bigger diameter) to stay tight. Maybe the terminal panel base material needs to be thicker, or a different composition to better resist mechanical compression and heat deterioration.

 

[woodworm]

We had no power in our 5th wheel last week and after a couple of days of numerous tests we found our problem. We had a loose wire under the metal panel on the inside of our power cord reel. The red wire had melted almost the entire way through. In fact when we removed the nut holding the wire to the stem the wire broke apart. Fortunately we didn’t have an electrical fire. See attached photos.

View attachment 62561 View attachment 62562 View attachment 62563 View attachment 62564


Our question: Has anyone ordered a package to replace just the electrical connectors on the power cord reel? The reel still works fine and it would be nice to not have to pay $500 for a new reel plus what looks like a very tedious uninstall and reinstall. We did read numerous posts on the Heartland Forum relating to power reel issues and didn’t see an answer to our question.


For those interested in the electrical tests that were performed before we discovered the melted wire, here is the list:

- There was no power in the rig, so we asked our neighbors if they had power, and they all did.
- We checked for any blown circuits and there was none.
- We then used a multimeter to test the power at our outdoor pedestal and both hot lines registered 120 volts.
- We checked the power in our circuit panel on our double 50 amp breaker and both hot lines registered zero.
- We then went to our in-line surge protector/transfer switch and the service light was not lit.
- We popped the cover on our protector box and found both hot wires had 120 volts going in, but neither line had power going out. We then pressed down on the magnetic switch from the shore power side and it did make a connection. Knowing this we removed the wires from the magnetic switch and bypassed the surge protector and connected the wires directly. (The service lightbulbs were broken and sitting on the bottom of the box.)
- We now had power registering 120 volts for both hot wires coming into our circuit breaker panel. Unfortunately when we started to turn on the individual breakers the 50 amp red hot wire had low voltage -under 100 volts. The black 50 amp hot wire registered a strong 120+ volts with all of the individual circuits on. We also tested all of the black wire circuits and all worked, so we now had full power to half of our rig.
- So now the question became, why do we have low voltage when we turn on individual breakers on the red wire side of the circuit panel? Is there a loose neutral wire somewhere? Did a mouse eat through one of our wires?
- We checked the connections on the GFCI outlet since it was on the red wire side of the panel and all connections were solid.
- We then switched the low voltage breakers on the red side of the panel to the black side and finally everything tested perfect. This was good news as we knew we didn’t blow an air conditioner, microwave, TV, hot water heater, converter, etc...
- So our final test was to run a 50 amp electric cord directly from the pedestal to the circuit panel and finally we had 100% power to everything in the rig.
- We now had the low voltage issue narrowed down to somewhere between our plug, our cord, the power cord reel, or the line from the reel to the surge protector box.
- After we took the metal plate off from the inside of the power cord reel we found the melted red wire and that brings us to our lone question above.

It seems like poor engineering to place potential loose connection fittings on the inside of a power reel that are hard to access. We are happy to finally figure out our power issue and we didn’t end up with an electrical fire!

I have the same problem and posted with pictures with burnt connections.. Same answer from manufacturer.. In process of making new assembly using heavier contacts hand made. I'm using 510 phosphor bronze spring tempered, new copper plated steel studs, lock washer nuts and new phenolic plate. Original contacts were .020 thick 3/8" wide. New are .032 and 1/2" wide but ground down to 3/8" just at the tip contact area to fit in the commutator. More metal, contact area to carry the amps. Will update with pics. No one in town would touch this project. I trust my own handy work anyway. I'm retired from the aircraft industry. It's right or wrong belief! No maybe or gray areas. I bought a mini metal shear and break just to make these parts accurately. Double checked metallurgy properties on 510 phosphor bronze. Confident this is the way to go!