Having electrical problems

[gbpack]

Hi everyone. Need some quick help. We are in the middle of a long trip out west and our camper is temporarily in storage (in California) while we flew home to Ohio for a week to say hi to family and take care of the mail and get our tax info to our accountant. Anyways, the camper storage people called yesterday afternoon and said that there were 2 clicking sounds that they could hear coming from our camper. One clicking sound coming from back by the refrigerator and the other one from th other side of the camper. The camper is plugged into shore power in order to keep our fridge and freezer running (which are full of food). I figured that the clicking from the fridge was the fridge trying to light on propane but that shouldn't be happening because it's plugged into shore power and the shore power has been been verifed as still working.  All I can figure is that there might have been some sort of temporary interruption in shore power which caused the fridge to try and light on propane, but it couldn't do that because I had turned the propane tanks off while it is in storage (since it's running on shore power). So the fridge was just continually clicking as it was trying to light and even though the shore power was back on, the fridge was still clicking and trying to light on propane. And all this time the converter/inverter is clicking loudly as welll. So I had them turn the propane tank on and then the fridge lit (and finally stopped clicking) and then it automatically switched back to 110-volt shore power. So the fridge is working now but they haven't been able to figure out the loud clicking noise coming from the converter/inverter. However, they discovered that if they plug something into the outside outlet on the exterior of the camper (like a lamp), then the loud clicking noise on that side of the camper stops. So right now the fridge is working again and the converter/inverter isn't clicking anymore since they have something plugged into the outside outlet. But if they unplug the lamp from the outside outlet, then the converter/inverter starts clicking again. Or maybe it has something to do with the Progressive surge protector system that we had installed? Maybe that's what's clicking, maybe that's cycling on and off (it makes a clicking sound when we plug into shore power and then when it's disconnected from shore power. It's very hard to try and figure this out over the phone from afar. We will be flying back out to CA on Saturday to resume our trip so I won't be able to actually look at it until then. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be happening or thought on how to approach this? Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[pjcd]

Electrical issues, IMO, are the hardest to track down. That being said, I've never had an issue like that. Could it have anything to do with the control panel on the fridge?

[charliem]

Beats the he** out of me, but here's a guess. The converter should not make any clicking noise but the surge protector can. It has a contactor that clacks when it connects the power to the trailer. It could be that something related to the storage facility power source trips the surge protector protective circuitry. Maybe a faulty ground, over or under voltage, bad connection, or something else. I cannot explain the effect of the external lamp but science is mysterious. BTW, I would always leave the propane on in case of power failure at the storage facility. You don't want the ice cream to melt  .

[DavidM]

Well, I think you have the right answer to the refrigerator problem. Something, maybe related to the surge protection problem, took the power off line temporarily and it tried lighting the burner but with the propane off that failed. Unfortunately apparently the logic of the refrigerator controller doesn't let it go back to power when power returns, so it keeps trying to light. The solution as Charlie notes is to always leave propane on as a back up.

The surge protector clicking and going away when something is plugged in is  puzzling and I don't have an answer. I recall that Charlie (or was it Tinkeringtechie) and I had a friendly argument about the value of surge protectors during the old days of the LL forum. My feelings haven't changed ;-).

David

[tinkeringtechie]

Here's my guess (and it really is just a guess): The shore power voltage is on the high side right around where the surge protector cuts out. The surge protector is disconnecting to prevent damage and reconnecting whenever it drops below the threshold. Plugging in the outside lamp lowers the voltage (not much, but enough to bring it below the threshold).

[gbpack]

Thanks guys. I think you're right. The more that I think about it, the more I think it's the surge protector system. There must be a problem with the shore power that's causing the system to shut down, and then it tries to start up again but then it just shuts down again....... same cycle over and over and over again. I just talked with the camper storage people and they said that everything is still good right now and that as long as they have that light plugged in on the outside receptacle, everything is fine. I told her that if it starts clicking again to just pull the shore power (disconnect the camper from shore power) and the fridge will just switch over to propane now that the propane tanks are turned on). It must be a problem with the shore power. We'll be back out there on Saturday to take a look ourselves. Hopefully that's all it is. I'll let you know. Thanks guys!!

[charliem]

Here's my guess (and it really is just a guess): The shore power voltage is on the high side right around where the surge protector cuts out. The surge protector is disconnecting to prevent damage and reconnecting whenever it drops below the threshold. Plugging in the outside lamp lowers the voltage (not much, but enough to bring it below the threshold).

I had the same thought but that would put the shore power at 130+ volts. Kind of spicy but not unheard of. Normally it trips with low voltage. Still worth the cost when it saves the A/C compressor.

[Merlin]

I think the 2 problems are related and I agree the underlying issue is faulty shore power. Something is causing that surge protector relay to click and at one point it shut down long enough to turn off the fridge. TT's guess about overvoltage may be right and I'd sure like to see the PI's monitor with the voltage readout before the shore power is disconnected. I really like the features of the one we have installed and it's protected our camper from extremely low line voltage twice. It's so much more than a surge protector and is a valuable safety device given the vagarities of campsite power.

I'll be eagerly awaiting your report on what's going on!

http://www.progressiveindustries.net/copy-of-ems-ptx-technical-data-2

[gbpack]

Merlin - I agree that the Progressive Industries power protection system is more than a surge protector. It really does a nice job of protecting the electrical system of our our trailer. And I will take a look at the monitor panel of the system as soon we get there tomorrow (before we disconnect the power). Will let you know what it says and hopefully what we found the problem to be!
Thanks!

[gbpack]

So we got back to our trailer in the storage lot today and everything was fine with the electrical system. The fridge/freezer was running fine on 110 volts (everything cold or frozen) and the Progessive Industries power protection system was not clicking (not cycling on and off). The readouts on the PI monitoring panel were 123 volts (a little high), 1 amp from the fridge and the 12-volt detectors (CO and propane), and 60hz. Also, there WAS an error code flashing that I believe is the one relating to an ungrounded outlet. So once I saw that, I knew that all of the problems were caused by a problem with the shore power (which seems to have improved). To get rid of the flashing error code on the display, I disconnected the shore power for one minute and then reconnected it. Then just to be safe, I left the work lamp plugged in (and turned on) on the outside of the camper, which is what they had to do earlier in order to get the PI system to stop cycling on and off (that probably took down the voltage enough to be within an acceptable range, as was suspected by you guys). Everything seems to be fine now and I learned an important lesson to NOT turn off the propane or the house batteries when we have food in the fridge/freezer (running on shore power) when we aren't going to be around for awhile! That way, the fridge will be able to switch over to propane automatically if there is an interruption in the shore power. Thanks for all of your help and suggestions! Hopefully we won't have any other problems with the electrical system while on this trip!
Gregg

[Merlin]

Great! Just a quick check on food safety......is there any chance the fridge was off long enough to warm up the food, even though it was cold when you arrived?

[gbpack]

Thanks for asking Merlin, because we were all over that (my wife is a dietician!). You are entirely correct that everything could have thawed and then re-frozen after they got the fridge working again, especially since we had it in storage for over a week and we were not around to know how long the fridge/freezer was out. So, thankfully, we had some ice cubes in a sandwich bag (in the freezer) that we looked at as soon as we opened the door. If the fridge/freezer would have been down long enough and gotten warm enough to thaw and destroy all of the food, then the ice cubes would have melted in the bag and then would have re-frozen into just one big chunk of ice. However, we were happy to find our baggie of ice cubes were still in the same cube form as they were originally! Therefore, the power must not have been down very long. So it's a good precautionary measure to always have a baggie with some ice cubes in the freezer at all times in order to be able to tell whether your freezer has ever warmed up to the point of having to throw your food out. If the ice cubes are still good, then you're good!!