fuse panel

[Ed Harris]

I just went and studied the pictures a little longer and now I think I understand better what I am seeing.

The box in the bottem of the closet is directly above where the 120volt ac wiring comes into the trailer.
It goes to this box and then branches up to the two outlets in the side of the closet that we can see the rear of and then onto the outside light as we can also see the rear of that box.
My 1300 did not have these three boxes and they do look newer than the trailer to me.

The next thing is this....under the cover plate of the box in the closet bottem where the wire comes into the trailer there should be three wires.
-One feeds the trailer from the cable outside.
-another feeds the circuits we just spoke of and can see in the pictures
-the third(if it is like mine)goes under the step up for the bed/table and to the sink side of the trailer. On mine there is an outlet on the side of the sink facing the seating are(a strange location) and then it goes onto the fixture above the sink which I also had but forgot I had removed.

What I am getting at is that you should be able to see the 120volt ac at box in the bottem of the closet first.
If it is not there then I would suspect the cable that feeds the trailer has a problem,not hard to beleive for a 30+ year old cable living outside much of the time.
If there is voltage there then look to the connections to the wire that leave that box heading for the other two circuits. The newer one that is fully exposed inside the closet should be easy to trace as you see and touch it for its entire length.
The one that goes to the sink side may not be as simple but I don't really think you problems are there anyway.

My guess is that somewhere where the cable comnes into the trailer it is broken or the connections inside the box in the bottem of the closet are just bad and broken.

Be careful here too as these voltages can kill.

I hope this made some sense.
Please let me know if not.

Ed

[Brian B-P]

Thanks to Rick and Shannen for posting the photos - they were as interesting and informative as hoped. The outside lamp socket is particularly interesting, as it is clearly a normal 120VAC socket (although it would work for 12VDC if someone wanted to mis-apply it that way), and I have never seen a light fixture bigger than a 7-watt night light supported directly by the outlet like that.

To check AC wiring at the sockets (which in this case includes the outside light) I would prefer to use a cheap tester from any hardware store, for as little as $5. (In practice, I usually plug in my trouble light and see if it lights up...) They just plug in like a plug without any cord attached, and report if there is power, if the power is on the correct wire (not hot and neutral reversed), and if there is an obvious ground fault. Safe, easy, fast, and cheap - all good features.

Of course the tester won't do anything except confirm the lack of power until some sort of connection is made to a power source, but it should help with the rest of the checking. Only sticking voltmeter probes into places which are expected to have 12V would be preferable to probing everything this way.

[Benny K]

I`d concur with Ed on connections possibly in the junction box at entry to the trailer...I`d check the connections there first....possibly loose Marettes.....Benny

[Rick and Shannen]

We plugged power into the trill again and did some testing and what we found was that it is getting power but not the full 110v, only getting about 85v, which I'm told isn't enough to light a single light bulb. One of the prongs on the pigtail was loose, thinking ( hoping ) that may be the problem so that will be the first thing I will replace. Thanks for all the help so far, I'm sure I'll need more in the future!

[Rick and Shannen]

I am trying to beat Rick to the punch here but we have GREAT news...

WE HAVE 110 POWER...FINALLY!

Replacing the pigtail was key and now our cute little porch light works (as do the interior lights). Our next test will be to see how well the fridge works. We have our fingers crossed on that one.

Our first big purchase will be a fantastic fan and I think we will have that professionally installed (depending on the cost, of course).

We are almost all set for camping!