Making an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.....

 7:24 am - Sunday - January 9th - Anza Borrego Desert, CA - 42° F, 43% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the north by northeast......mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2013 we were having lunch with good friend Ernie Prociw (pronounced Procie) who drove over to Cedar Key, FL from Stuart, FL to visit us.....↴

.....we've courtesy parked in his driveway twice over the years....he has a 30 amp receptacle awaiting our return.....😊.  The view this morning.......↴

Beautiful sunrise on the eastern horizon

On Friday, after we returned from dumping our tanks I plugged in my pancake air compressor to inject air into the new sight tube I installed on the black tank to clear a blockage.  While that worked, another problem developed with the electrical system in the Newell.  I had plugged the compressor into an electrical outlet inside the through bay.  To power up the coach for this endeavor I turned on the big Kohler 7.5 kw propane generator to provide AC power to the compressor.  After I finished clearing the 'plug' in the sight tube I discovered I had lost power to that outlet, as well as the outlet in the TV compartment over the driver seat.  Actually, at the time, and well into late Saturday evening I thought I had lost power to the entire right side of the coach as the volt meter for that side of the coach was reading zero.

I immediately began trouble shooting the problem by making sure both breakers on the generator were in the 'ON' position, and they were.  Then I switched the coach over to the inverter, and the problem persisted.  I then plugged the coach into the Honda generator with no change.  From there I made sure both 50 amp blades on the male end of the shore power cord were getting power, and they were.  Next I checked where the shore power cord connects to the coach wiring, and was still getting power on both legs.  At that point it was getting dark do I deferred any additional trouble shooting to Saturday.

First thing Saturday morning (after posting my blog) I opened up my closet and began to test the circuits on the main breaker box with my multi meter.  I found that both the red and black wires were hot going into the main 60 amp duplex breaker (60 amps on both sides), and then tested each of the 12 individual breakers and was getting power to ALL  of them....now how can that be if I have no power on the right side of the coach?  I was baffled, and so was my good friend Steve Ward, who owns the sister Newell coach to ours.....his serial number is one digit before ours.  He is an expert on all things electrical, and was helping me over the phone from his winter locale on the Colorado River (about 200 miles from here).  My mistake was in assuming that everything was dead on the right side of the coach.  We all know what happens when one 'ASSUMES', right?

Finally, around 5 pm it occurred to me that I had never really tested all the outlets on the right side of the coach, so I proceeded to do so.  Well, what do you know?  They were all working EXCEPT for one in the through bay, and the TV cabinet.  The sensor wire which powers the volt meter for the right side of the coach is wired into that outlet.....doh!  So now everything makes sense.  It appears both the outlet in the through bay, and the TV compartment are daisy chained together, which means I only need to check one circuit to find the short.  The short is somewhere between the breaker (#4) which controls that circuit, and the TV compartment receptacle, and more than likely where the line which goes to the through bay receptacle is spliced into circuit #4....I just have to find the short, and repair it.....that will be the fun part, which begins Sunday morning.  At least I know now what I am looking for, and how to fix it.

The rest of Saturday was kind of a blur as I spent a lot of time both working the problem, and thinking about it.  Steve was a great help in focusing me on each step of the trouble shooting process, and encouraging me.  Ultimately I was my own worst enemy for assuming facts not in evidence.  Once I stopped assuming things became much clearer.  Lesson learned.....I hope...lol!

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