Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Generator Problem

Sunday evening when I started the generator, it ran fine but was not sending power to the RV. Keith, Jayne and I spent most of Monday morning troubleshooting circuit breakers and fuses without any success. We finally decided it was most likely the automatic transfer switch which after a long search, Jayne found it under one of the drawers in the bedroom.

Fortunately, I was able to get a mobile service technician to come out and confirm that it was bad. What should have been a simple replacement was anything but simple because there were two 12 volt wires going into the box that the technician did not recognize. Calls to Jayco and Cummins with long wait times were of no help. Finally, a call to Progressive Dynamics, the maker of the switch, gave the technician enough information that he was able to order a replacement which I had shipped overnight. Unfortunately, the technician has a dental appointment today for an abscessed tooth so it may be a couple of days before the new switch is installed and I have power throughout the RV.

Many thanks to Keith and Jayne for their help including sharing their generator to charge my batteries. Most of my blog posts are about the nice side of RVing, but the ugly truth is you have to be prepared for a fair number of problems, particularly, with the more sophisticated motorhomes. It's not all rainbows and unicorns.

They did not make it easy to get to and replace this transfer switch

FYI - If you ever need to find the automatic transfer switch on your RV, you may want to hire Jayne as she is relentless in her search. If you ever need help replacing the cover on a Cummins generator, Keith is your man (Tip of the Day: If you charge Keith a dollar for every swear word he uses during the process, you can probably make enough money to pay for both jobs).

Update (7/20/2020): The new transfer switch was finally installed today and I have full power throughout the RV. We have been having some 90+ degree days, so being able to run the AC again will make boondocking much more pleasant.

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