Gertie problems and solutions part 2: main breaker trips

September 16, 2005, 10:38:48 pm

Earlier this summer, I was having occasional unexplained breaker trips: the main shore- power breaker under the stove in this 1985 LD would pop open for no obvious reason, sometimes in the middle of the night when there was virtually no power drain. I chalked it up to surges or flaky power of some kind in the 110-year-old house I was connected to at the time.
But a few days ago the problem returned with a vengeance: every time I plugged in, my main breaker tripped about twenty seconds later. This happened two nights in a row at two different campgrounds--and both times, everything checked out at the pedestal: good wiring, good voltage. It was clearly a Gertie problem.
I checked the power plug--a new one I'd put on just a few months ago--but it was fine. I wasn't sure just where to begin looking for an internal short or near-short in Gertie's AC wiring. But after some correspondence with Gertie's former owners, I decided that maybe the breaker itself was bad. So after I'd been on the road for about an hour this morning, I asked Mabel (my StreetPilot 2610 GPS) to find me a Home Depot. Fortuitously, there was one just off the interstate only six miles ahead. I stopped there and dismantled the old circuit breaker box.
The dual breakers were weird and complicated, with a total of six (!) wired connections on screw terminals on the backs--not like any home circuit breaker I'd ever seen. What's more, it had an extra printed circuit board attached to it with some integrated circiuts, transistors and other parts on it. I'd NEVER heard of anything like that attached to a circuit breaker, and that really worried me.
After I looked over the store's stock of circuit breakers, it was obvious that they had nothing remotely like the ones in Gertie. So I decided to replace the whole kit 'n' caboodle--breakers, PC board, aluminum housing and all. I bought a small Square D breaker box, a couple of 15A type "QO" (whatever that means) breakers and the necessary accessories, and went back out to Gertie and wired it all in, triple-checking each connection.
I couldn't test it until tonight, though, so I was very nervous all afternoon about what that mystery PC board had been there for. What if it had to do with my transfer switch? I couldn't see how it could, but what if...? I could blow my ($2,000) inverter when I switched over! So I proceeded very carefully step by step, monitoring current draw out at the power pedestal each step of the way, ready to kill the power if anything went out of bounds. But nothing terrible happened, and everything seems to be working fine. Whew! :-)
This is a huge relief, because I'd be pretty crippled if I could never run the air conditioner in summer or use an electric heater in winter! So I'm very glad to have fixed the problem fairly easily (took about two hours) and inexpensively (about $30). Before this, I didn't even know that circuit breakers could go bad! (Actually, it may well have been the mystery PC board that went bad.)

Andy Baird

Sedalia, Missourah

Re: Gertie problems: main breaker followup

Reply #1 – September 16, 2005, 10:56:07 pm

Yahoo Message Number: 58040

Gertie's former owner has remembered what the mystery PC board was: "It is a low-voltage cut off dealie to trip the breaker, purchased at an Escapade." The only identifying text on the circuit board is "SHOREPOWER."
The more I think about it, the more I suspect that this board, and not the circuit breakers, was the culprit. It's much more likely that delicate low-voltage components like ICs and signal transistors would fail due to surges or spikes, than that a sturdy electromechanical breaker would fail. And in any case, the voltage at both campgrounds where I experienced the breaker tripping was well above 120V.
In any case, the problem appears to be cured...and I feel better knowing the Gertie now has a breaker box with standard household breakers, not some oddball parts that can't easily be replaced.

Andy Baird

Re: [Life With A Lazy Daze RV] Gertie problems and solutions part 2

Reply #2 – September 17, 2005, 12:06:46 am

Yahoo Message Number: 58042

On Sat, 2005-09-17 at 02:38 +0000, Andy Baird wrote:

Quote

I bought a small Square D breaker box, a couple of 15A type "QO" (whatever that means) breakers and the necessary accessories, and went back out to Gertie and wired it all in, triple-checking each connection.

Just so you know, "QO" seems to have replaced the Square D trademark "Qwik-Open®" which in plain English mean "quick open". That, of course, means that a circuit is turned off quickly.
I would go along with your suspicion about the "low voltage" circuit board.

Alex '05 MB home in Charlotte, NC

Gertie Problem

Reply #3 – September 17, 2005, 11:22:27 am

Yahoo Message Number: 58070

Andy,
I had the same problem/symptoms with my SOB particularly when the fuel tank got below half full. Turned out to be debris clogging the sock on the fuel pickup in the gas tank.
John '04 23.5FL

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