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New 372lok - major electrical issues
Purchased our new camper in Ohio at Holman Motors on June 9 and took it on a 10 day vacation to the coast of Alabama. We had no issues at all. Came home late, late on June 21 and parked the big thing at one of our friends car lots. Went the next day to unload and get the stuff out of the residential fridge. We were really surprised that less than 12 hours later, the battery was already dead. Figured we needed another one to let them run parallel, but we weren't going to use it in July since the DDs had summer camps, band camps, robotics camp, etc. Went to hook it up Aug 1 to come to our August hosting gig at a local state park, about 30 miles from home and we could not get the battery to charge or anything. DH went and purchased a new battery to get the slides in, etc. We drove to the state park, got it parked, put the slides and awning out, unhooked and couldn't get the air conditioners to cut on. HMMMM, that's weird. Didn't have an electrical meter with us, but borrowed one from the maintenance people at the park. Really strange - power was fine at the post. Called a local electrician to come and take a look at it. As soon as he put a meter on the power supply, he said we had an open neutral somewhere! We had 156 volts coming into the breaker box on the lower half and only 25-28 volts on the top half. No wonder things weren't running appropriately. Got the residential fridge plugged up on an extension cord running outside. We were so afraid it was going to burn it up.
Can't be, this is a brand new camper and we had no problem with it in June.
He started at the post and checked the supply, then moved on to the power cord, then he got to the main electrical hookup on the camper. BINGO! Open neutral on the main power supply to the camper. He said that the neutral had been twisted around the screw, but never tightened. Apparently, the factory had never tightened up the wire and while it was bouncing around behind the truck, it had come loose.
The air conditioner did come on and work for a few minutes, but then would kick back off. Never did produce any cool air. Lights worked that night, now they won't come back on. The ceiling fan will not work, microwave will not turn on, sound bar won't work, 2nd battery is DEAD,
The 50 amp is now back on, but things still will not work, but the breakers in the electrical box are showing the correct amount of amperage.
I called Holman Motors, where we purchased and they say that we can bring it to them and they will find the problem and fix it. Yeah, that's great, but we are here for the next 3 weeks without any power! No big deal, but we sure would like to have hot water, lights, etc. The really strange thing about the whole deal is that we do have power to the electric outlets on the inside, except for the GFCI outlets.
How do we get the electric awning in without power? Are we going to have to go purchase a 3rd battery and ZAP it dead?
I've called Forest River, Sandpiper division, but of course, I've gotten no response from them, had to leave messages (yes, more than one).
Any ideas? Anybody had this problem before? Suggestions? DH and I are out of ideas.
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