Need Help to Troubleshoot & Repair Electrical Issue

[foakes]

View attachment 42340Hi Everyone —

Getting our 2002 Six-Pac T100S camper ready for camping.

It mounts on our 2002 Toyota Tacoma 4X4, 3.4 V6, Manual Transmission truck.

Got everything working — except an issue just came up with the electrical when plugged into shore power.
The GFCI outlet to the right of the sink tripped — and would not reset.

Bought a new GFCI with an indicator light — it also will not reset — red indicator light is present.

Circuit breakers are tested and good.

All fuses in the Newmark 30 Amp converter are good.

Battery is at 12.9 Volts.

The lights and hood fan work on the drivers side.

The refrigerator, furnace, will not work on the passenger side.

The water pump works.

When the converter is momentarily powered — it makes a “clunk” sound — but doesn’t seem to do anything else.

I am suspecting the converter since all plugs and wires seem to have continuity according to a volt tester set on Ohms.

How do I go further to verify it is the converter — or something else?

Everything was working fine until yesterday.

Appreciate in advance any help.

Plus, if it is the converter — do I replace with the same Newmark 30 AMP — or do I go to something else?

All the Best,

Fred

 

[foakes]

No replies, but thanks anyway —

Removed the GFCI at the beginning of the A/C circuit that powered (5) outlets on the load side.

The 20 year old Newmark 30A converter is also powered by this circuit.

Replaced it with a 20A outlet — with no GFCI.

Ordered today a Boondocker 45A converter/charger, 4 phase from BestConverters.com, in Alabama.

The owner, Randy, was very helpful on the phone this morning.

Could have gotten by without a new converter — but I think the newer ones are much better — plus it should be a lot better on our battery since it is not just charging all of the time at full load.

Everything is working well now — on both shore power and the Honda 2200i generator — and I will report back after installing the new converter and trying it out on a couple of trips.

Best Always,

Fred

 

[Vic Harder]

No replies, but thanks anyway —

Removed the GFCI at the beginning of the A/C circuit that powered (5) outlets on the load side.

The 20 year old Newmark 30A converter is also powered by this circuit.

Replaced it with a 20A outlet — with no GFCI.

Ordered today a Boondocker 45A converter/charger, 4 phase from BestConverters.com, in Alabama.

The owner, Randy, was very helpful on the phone this morning.

Could have gotten by without a new converter — but I think the newer ones are much better — plus it should be a lot better on our battery since it is not just charging all of the time at full load.

Everything is working well now — on both shore power and the Honda 2200i generator — and I will report back after installing the new converter and trying it out on a couple of trips.

Best Always,

Fred

Fred, so what do you think the problem was?

 

[foakes]

Fred, so what do you think the problem was?

Hi Vic —

The only thing I could figure out (with Randy’s help at BestConverter) — was that the old converter (20 year old single stage 30 amp Newmark in my Six-Pac camper) was slightly erratic enough to cause the GFCI at the beginning of a 5 receptacle A/C circuit to trip as soon as the converter was plugged in.

Randy, the owner of BestConverters — said that he was surprised I did not have any issues before this — since GFCI’s and converters do not play well together.

Actually, we may have had issues and not known it — since the majority of our camper trips are boondocking in more remote areas without shore power.

Regardless, it works well without the GFCI — and we are not going to use or drop a hair dryer into the sink.

Looking forward to installing the new 45 amp Boondocker converter that is a 4-stage unit that should help the battery life considerably.

While I don’t advocate this for everyone — Randy did say that he would never have a GFCI in any of his RV’s or rigs.

It just takes a slight variation in milliamperes to trip the GFCI.

Just to make sure — that the converter was the last possibility — I disassembled all (5) receptacles, checked voltages, grounds, continuity, looked for anything amiss, etc..

Plus, verified that all was well with my source power in the shop, tried different extension cords, adapters, etc.

One of the the final clues to the puzzle was when I connected an A/C adapter to the shop source without a ground pin. It all worked and did not trip the GFCI. But as soon as I plugged in the converter, the GFCI tripped.

The great thing about this issue — I have now learned where everything is, how it interacts with A/C, converter, and DC — and verified that there are no loose ends in any of the systems.

We keep our Six-Pac camper on the Tacoma 4X4 until fire season is over sometime about the middle to the end of October — for 2 day trips where we could get home quickly in case of an evacuation like we had during the Creek Fire for 19 days in 2020.

We use our Funfinder 189FBS trailer for November through May for longer trips.

Best of both worlds — Cozy Cabin & Cozy Castle.

Best, Fred