No lights in slide

[Vagabond]

Hello, I’ll take this opportunity to introduce myself and ask a question at the same time. My wife and I just purchased our first camper, a new-to-us 2013 Wildwood 30kqbss. Since getting it home and really crawling all over it, we are discovering a few things that need attention.
First of all, I can’t get either light fixture in the slide to come on. There is one above the couch and one above the dinette. Both have switches on the fixture itself but they have no affect.
So, far I have changed all bulbs, removed and visually inspected all fuses, and tried the main switch by the entry door in all configurations. Still nothing. I’m afraid that a wire supplying power to these two lights has been compromised somewhere along the line.
Any tips, advice, idea’s would be greatly appreciated!

[KyDan]

Welcome to FRF!!
Visually inspecting fuses is not always a good idea.
Some fuses blow in a big way and are obviously burned out.
Others can be bad and "look good".
A cheap volt meter is a good investment.
Volt meters also have ohms and usually some sort of continuity checker.
Touch the leads together and it will beep. Touch a good fuse on both ends
and it will beep. No beep- bad fuse.

Take a look under the slide. Most trailers have some sort of plastic flexible conduit under there with the slide light wires inside. It's possible it got damaged or pulled loose.

Good luck and good hunting for your issue!
Happy Trails too!!

[jeff64]

Got a multimeter VOM? You're gonna need one. Most of your wiring is under the slide. At that age, I'd start by renewing any ground connections to the chassis since this is all DC for the lights. Electricity 101.. . start at one end of a circuit or the other . Probe the fixture first. Run a remote ground wire connected to a good ground that way you'll know if it's an issue with the ground side or hot + side. If no + then work from the battery side
or get lucky seeing the problem


Sent from my SM-G781V using Forest River Forums mobile app

[Vagabond]

Thanks! I’ll be crawling under the slide later today to see if I can find any obvious damage.

[Aussieguy]

buy a good multi meter and watch a bunch of youtube videos on how to find faults with it

well worth the effort ....


in the mean time while you are learning ...



get a bulb that you KNOW works from another light fixture put it into the slide



my slide's light fixture, has a separate switch from all the other lights...

must be turned on manually as needed..... find switch for that light.

[Vagabond]

Originally Posted by jeff64

Got a multimeter VOM? You're gonna need one. Most of your wiring is under the slide. At that age, I'd start by renewing any ground connections to the chassis since this is all DC for the lights. Electricity 101.. . start at one end of a circuit or the other . Probe the fixture first. Run a remote ground wire connected to a good ground that way you'll know if it's an issue with the ground side or hot + side. If no + then work from the battery side
or get lucky seeing the problem


Sent from my SM-G781V using Forest River Forums mobile app

I do have a couple multi meters and I do have some experience with automotive wiring. Keeping my fingers crossed that I can locate some obvious damage from underneath, but if not I’ll be tracing wires as best as I can.
The fact that neither light is working in the slide makes me lean towards a broken/disconnected wire somewhere in the line. Been raining here for 2 days now so crawling around on the ground is going to be awesome!

[Vagabond]

my slide's light fixture, has a separate switch from all the other lights...

must be turned on manually as needed..... find switch for that light.[/QUOTE]

I thought this might be the case too, but I have searched every inch for another switch that would control the slide lights but don’t see one. The main light switch (just to the left of the entry door, above kitchen counter) only seems to operate a single overhead light. That seems odd to me. I wonder if that switch is supposed to operate the slide lights also, but I’ve tried turning on/off switch on the fixture while the main switch is on with no results.

[glen1971]

I'd run a temporary piece of wire from the negative on your battery to the slide area. Then use it connected to the black lead on your meter to verify voltage at the light. If you have 12 volts with the switches on, it is a ground issue.
If you have no volts, then it is the power side of it. That could be a bad fuse, switch or wire.

[Vagabond]

Originally Posted by glen1971

I'd run a temporary piece of wire from the negative on your battery to the slide area. Then use it connected to the black lead on your meter to verify voltage at the light. If you have 12 volts with the switches on, it is a ground issue.
If you have no volts, then it is the power side of it. That could be a bad fuse, switch or wire.

There is no battery currently hooked up yet. Have to buy one. Running on 15 amp shore power. Does that make a difference? All the other lights work fine.

[Vagabond]

Ok, so I crawled around under the trailer and found two disconnected ground wires. One was a wire that was grounding the slide frame to the trailer frame. Thought that was gonna cure the light problem-no dice. Still no lights. I found were the wires come down through the floor of the trailer and go to the corner of the slide so I probed them with my test light connected to a good ground and it was showing no juice whatsoever.
So, the power is not even getting to the slide. I tested the fixtures by connecting a motorcycle battery with alligator clips and the light comes on.
I’m starting to think that the problem is inside of the wall or ceiling.

[bikendan]

Originally Posted by Vagabond

There is no battery currently hooked up yet.

Just in case you did, towing the trailer without a battery installed, is against the law. You have to have the battery to power the breakaway switch if the trailer detaches from the tow vehicle.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Forest River Forums mobile app

[5picker]

Originally Posted by Vagabond

Ok, so I crawled around under the trailer and found two disconnected ground wires. One was a wire that was grounding the slide frame to the trailer frame. Thought that was gonna cure the light problem-no dice. Still no lights. I found were the wires come down through the floor of the trailer and go to the corner of the slide so I probed them with my test light connected to a good ground and it was showing no juice whatsoever.
So, the power is not even getting to the slide. I tested the fixtures by connecting a motorcycle battery with alligator clips and the light comes on.
I’m starting to think that the problem is inside of the wall or ceiling.

If you have a meter, use it to check for voltage rather than your test light. Reason being, many R/V manufacturers use BLACK wires as 12v feeds (along with a myriad of other color combinations) so mistakenly probing an incorrect wire with a test light may tell you nothing.

Same for checking fuses, as has already been mentioned. No need to "look at" or needlessly replace parts when a meter will tell you all you need to know in a few minutes.

[glen1971]

Originally Posted by Vagabond

There is no battery currently hooked up yet. Have to buy one. Running on 15 amp shore power. Does that make a difference? All the other lights work fine.

Then just take the wire I mentioned and connect it to the negative of your convertor.

[Vagabond]

Originally Posted by glen1971

Then just take the wire I mentioned and connect it to the negative of your convertor.

So just connect a wire straight from negative post on converter to negative wire on light fixture? Sounds doable.
There are only two wires under the slide that come down out of the floor and run the the outermost wall of the slide where they go up into the floor of the slide. A white and white with blue tracer. There is no power in either wire where they come down out of the floor. The wires coming into the light fixtures in the slide are white and white with red tracer. So somewhere there is a junction or splice in the wall. I’m going to pick up a cable tracer from harbor freight tomorrow after work. Maybe it will tell me where the break is.
https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html

[glen1971]

Originally Posted by Vagabond

So just connect a wire straight from negative post on converter to negative wire on light fixture? Sounds doable.
There are only two wires under the slide that come down out of the floor and run the the outermost wall of the slide where they go up into the floor of the slide. A white and white with blue tracer. There is no power in either wire where they come down out of the floor. The wires coming into the light fixtures in the slide are white and white with red tracer. So somewhere there is a junction or splice in the wall. I’m going to pick up a cable tracer from harbor freight tomorrow after work. Maybe it will tell me where the break is.
https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html

Not quite. My post about the temporary wire from the negative on the convertor is to go to the black wire on your meter. That way you know you have a decent path to ground for measuring voltages.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Vagabond

So just connect a wire straight from negative post on converter to negative wire on light fixture? Sounds doable.
There are only two wires under the slide that come down out of the floor and run the the outermost wall of the slide where they go up into the floor of the slide. A white and white with blue tracer. There is no power in either wire where they come down out of the floor. The wires coming into the light fixtures in the slide are white and white with red tracer. So somewhere there is a junction or splice in the wall. I’m going to pick up a cable tracer from harbor freight tomorrow after work. Maybe it will tell me where the break is.
https://www.harborfreight.com/cable-tracker-94181.html

Generally in RVs, white is ground, any other color including black or white-with-tracer is positive. The reason for this selection was to keep it similar to the 120 Vac wiring where white is the neutral return and any other color was the switched source.

[caper]

I found the wires were disconnected inside the wire loom at the edge of the slide out. Used better connectors then the company used no problem since.

[Vagabond]

Originally Posted by caper

I found the wires were disconnected inside the wire loom at the edge of the slide out. Used better connectors then the company used no problem since.

Can you elaborate on where exactly the connection was located? I didn’t see any connections on mine between where the wires come down out of the floor and where they go up into the slide.

[caper]

The connection was in a plastic wire cover. Your might be different. Mine was right at the corner of the slide where the wires entered the slide. Because they were buried in the plastic wire protector is was hard to find.