Electrical Breaker Problems

[Debbie Ray]

I'm not much of an electrician so I'm hoping someone can help me figure this little out.

I've had a 1996 Scamp 16' for about four years and have never had any issues with the electrical system. This summer I've had trouble with one of the breakers flipping off when I've had the fridge plugged in. I had installed an additional outlet this spring so I figured I must have screwed that up somehow.
While at an rv park one weekend I used my little three light tester to check each outlet to see if I had some type of grounding issue. Every outlet tested fine except for the one next to the fridge. That outlet showed no lights, "open hot". I figured a connection on that outlet had shaken loose during one of my outings.
Today I had time to check the outlet out and all the connections are solid. I decided to plug the trailer in to re-test the other outlets to try and figure this out. Every time I plugged the trailer in the GFCI in my garage tripped.
No I'm really confused about how to proceed in tracking this down. Any thoughts?

[Joe MacDonald]

if your breaker was tripped and not reset, that would give you the open hot.
plugs are pretty easy, whit wire on the silver screw, black on the brass one, ground on the green, check at the circut feeding it make sure that it is solidly connected there, and being not familiar with your trailer, do you have only one breaker, or was this a branch breaker?
if you have multiple breakers in your trailer, turn them all off, then plug in, then turn on one at a time until gfci in garage trips. Alternatively it could be a defective gfci at the garage

Joe

[Darwin Maring]

The GFI is tripping because you have a short somewhere.
Disconnect what you installed (Each end of the wire) and check it again.

[Debbie Ray]

Ok so I finally had time to follow your suggestions and narrow my electrical problem down.
As suggested I turn off all the breakers in the trailer and then plugged into my garage GFCI outlet. No tripping. I turned each breaker on one at a time in the trailer, still no tripping of a breaker or the GFCI. Then I turned the refrigerator on and the GFCI in the garage tripped. I ran this same sequence with the fridge unplugged and all the electric lights worked and the outlets tested ok with my tester.
So from my online research it appears that I may have a short in the electric heating element of the refrigerator. Does this sound like a reasonable assumption? If so is replacing this part a DIY item or should I bite the bullet and have the RV shop do the work?
Debbie

[Michael Pupeza]

Debbie:
The AC and DC heater elements are usually located in tubes welded to the sides of the chimney tube of the propane burner heater. They look like long upside down J 's with the wires coming out the J to the circuit board, under a plastic cover. If you remove the plastic cover and find the two wires, you can usually just pull out the two wires as they are on push-on terminals. Then you can see if that is really the GFI tripping short. If the element is the problem, then it is a job of replacing the element. Looking on eBay for RV Fridge elements, you can see what they look like. Now the problem! The chimney is wrapped with fiberglass insulation, then wrapped with a metal sleeve. The sleeve is one piece but split and hooked with tabs, in my case, at three places. IF, you have the room, and are very flexible, you MIGHT be able to get in there and open the sleeve, open the fiberglass matt and be able to slide the element UP and out, and then replace it! It WILL be hard to get started to remove, twisting required due to rust. IF the fridge is small and easily removed into the Scamp, then that's the way to do it. Of course that means disconnecting the propane connection.
SO, the answer to your question, can it be done? YES, but it ain't easy, and due to the labor involved would be pricey for an RV shop to do.
I replaced the whole cooling unit in my 2 door Dometic RM2607 following several YouTube videos, which would be a good reference for you to check if you want to get that intimate with your fridge. Check out YouTube by searching for Dometic cooling units, or Norcold if that's your fridge and see what and how the rear of the fridges are assembled.
Good luck and report what you find and do.
Mike

[Darwin Maring]

You said: Every outlet tested fine except for the one next to the fridge. That outlet showed no lights, "open hot".

Did you disconnect the wires on this outlet and test the fridge again?

[Ken C]

Warning about the ten dollar outlet tester

Reverse Polarity Bootleg Ground Testing - YouTube

http://www.rvdoctor.com/2001/07/frie...gary-mike.html