Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Here are a few suggestions.

First, the microwave oven doesn't use 12 VDC. And unless your 2002 midbath has had a newer air conditioner installed with an electronic thermostat controlling it, neither does the air conditioner.  In other words, if the only way to turn on your air conditioner is with the knob on the unit itself, then it doesn't use 12 VDC, so you can eliminate that as a factor in troubleshooting.

(For what it's worth, if your 2002 midbath is like my 2003 midbath, the master 12V breaker is a small gray or black box--about the size of an ice cube, as I remember--with a tiny round unlabeled reset button. It's located inside the opening of the drawer under the fridge, on the left. Pull out the drawer and feel around to the left.)

So we're confining the troubleshooting to the 120 VAC system. My next question would be: OK, the microwave oven and air conditioner don't work--those are on one 15 A leg of your power system--but do your household outlets, which are on the other leg, also not work? In other words, with the generator running, is this outage confined to the microwave + air conditioner circuit, or is it a total outage of all 120 VAC circuits in your rig?

I assume you have already cycled the circuit breaker that controls the microwave + air conditioner circuit; if not, you should do that. Cycling the generator's breaker was a good idea. If you've cycled both of those breakers (important: be sure to turn them all the way off and then on again) without any effect, then I'd be inclined to suspect that the automatic transfer switch (ATS) has frozen in the shore power position. That's a relay box that's mounted on the back of your converter, behind your fuse + breaker panel.



The ATS's job is to choose between generator and shore power: if the generator is running and shore power becomes available, it will switch over to shore power. But if it gets stuck one way or the other, then only one of the two power sources will be available. It has happened to more than one of us, myself included.

In short: if you have verified that no 120 VAC breakers are tripped, and if you have no AC power to your microwave, air conditioner, or household outlets, then the automatic transfer switch is probably the prime suspect.

Unless you're very confident about handling potentially lethal 120 VAC wiring, replacing the ATS is a job for a professional.

One last tip: in future, a non-contact AC voltage probe (about $15-$20) is a very useful tool for safely and easily tracing AC power. With one of these you can quickly see where live power is available and where it stops, just by running the plastic probe tip along wiring runs, or holding it next to outlets or circuit breakers.