Electronics - Really, Really, Fingers Crossed, The Rest Of The Story

Headed back out to Pioneer Park today, hopefully to stay, until we fly home to Snohomish for Christmas.  The insurance inspector, the RV tech and electrician have all been out to look at what happened.  Kim has run all the test checks, and we are going to try it again.

Many thanks to Ken, Tom and Cathy for putting up with us for the last few weeks.  We will miss playing pinochele each night.  I do have dibbs on the 'good' chair when we come to visit next.

And now, here's the rest of the story, according to Kim:

The rest of the story....


Previously, we experienced an electrical problem that ruined our day as well as several pieces of electronic equipment; ie: LCD TV, DVD/Surround Sound System, UPS, Printer and most importantly the ac/dc converter. The converter keeps the 12 volt batteries charged which run most of our lights, the refer control panel and the furnace fan and it's been darn cold at night lately.

We thought we had found the problem in a shorted water heater element and as the water heater can also be run on propane we replaced the burner out ac/dc converter and thought we were set to go.

Not to be. The new UPS started beeping, just like the previous one did just before Armegedon struck, and the new ac/dc converter made a hissing noise and emitted a puff of smoke just before I could get to the main circuit breaker to cut the power.

I called the RV repair technician and told him what occurred and he returned the next day to look deeper into the problem. He finally located the problem as a loose neutral wire in the receptacle in the trailer where the power cord plugs in from the campgrounds power box.

Instead of causing an electrical surge and tripping the circuit breaker the electrical current found a different path back to the breaker panel and combined it's 120 volts ac with the 120 volts ac already there and became 240 volts ac which the electronics didn't like.

We have a new converter installed and I test ran everything yesterday for several hours, running all the heavy power users, electric space heater, toaster, electric tea kettle as well as all the normal things like lights, refer and furnace.

We will be moving back into the trailer today. We've been at the campground for just over two weeks now and only stayed in the trailer for 3 days. Its been fun staying at my brother's house but it will be nice to be back in our own 'home' again.