Got it!!!!

If you have been following our blog then you know we had an electrical issue with our camper on this last trip.  The problem started in Williams AZ and then in the Grand Canyon.  A circuit breaker would trip at first when we were setting up in a new campground.  Then in the Grand Canyon it tripped during the night each night.  Recall we back tracked to Flagstaff and had a Camping World Center take a look at it.  The replaced the converter unit.  The converter unit was one of the items that was feed by that breaker, so it sort of made sense.

Things were great for  about a week, then it started again.  Once we got home and had it plugged in at home on the second day it tripped the ground fault interrupter in the garage plug.  

I started working on the problem myself.  I hate problems that come and go on their own. 

  On the 12 volt side I just went over the grounds and cleaned them up.   

For 110 volt side I  disconnected all of the wires to the breakers and all of the neutrals.  I then got an extension cord and another cord that I could plug into the extension cord and the other end the wires were bare.  With that arrangement and my VOM I traced all of the receptacles in the camper.  

I then put wires back in the panel one at a time and left it sit for a few hours then added another.  The last think I did was plug the refrigerator back in.    After about an hour the ground fault tripped.

I now had eliminated 90 % of the wiring and only had to go over every inch on one run of wire.  I started in the refrigerator compartment wiring and got lucky.  As I moved wires around I got an arch.  

The picture below is a 14/2 wire that runs from the refig receptacle to a receptacle in the kitchen that we plug the coffee pot in.  It's the last device in the run.  I pulled a new wire in to replace this one.

For the picture I had rotated the wire 90 degs.  It was rubbing against a metal pipe for the refrig.

It looks like it was once wire tied back, but the heat from the refrigeration unit made it brittle and it broke off.

I don't think we needed the $300 + converter that they put in.  Apparently the wire would contact the metal pipe when ever movement would shake the camper.  Like us walking around, moving slide rooms in or out, or even the wind when it was blowing 30 + MPH.