RV 30 AMP Power Distribution explained

[Music] hey guys welcome back to mr. RV Tech today we're going to talk a little bit about power distribution this is a commonly misunderstood feature in RVs and what I'm referring to specifically is how the 110 volt alternating current and the 12 volt or 24 volt DC or direct current interact with each other in an RV and the importance of each and what their roles are so today I'm going to start off with a very basic orientation in a what I'll consider an entry model travel trailer this is a Puma made by Forest River we're going to take a look at the distribution panel and talk about the two different kinds of power alternating current and direct current and how they interact with each other how your battery gets charged how do you diagnose or troubleshoot if you're having an issue so we're going to dig deep into that and take a look at a world friendship company power distribution box you'll notice by this logo the world friendship company they do build a lot of electronics converters and distribution boxes for RVs so if yours looks like this in this demonstration we'll definitely pertain to you please keep in mind however there are many different configurations and other brands that need to be explored as well and that's why moving forward I will have several videos pertaining to power distribution we will get into some larger 5th wheels as well as drivable motorhomes and diesel pushers this is just an entry-level explanation of power distribution and how it works in an RV the way I like to describe this most of the time especially to entry-level customers that purchase RVs for the first time is we have two different things going on inside of this box that we'll see in great detail in a minute but the way I refer to it as is we have a 110 volt alternating current on these circuit breakers so this will be considered more like the house side what you would find in your residential application at your home and then on this side I call this the car side because this is the DC Circuit's and they're fused off of the battery so house and car is one way to think of these 110 volt circuit breakers are gonna run large appliances and AC components in other words in this case we do have our air conditioner but believe it or not it requires both 12 volt and 110 volt alternating current to operate our microwave is certainly just like our home and requires 110 volt alternating current our converter which is the device that charges our battery we'll be taking a look at that it is a hundred and ten volt appliance that transforms that current into a usable charging direct current 13 point 6 volts DC to be specific next moving on we have GFI which stands for ground fault interrupter many of the receptacles in an RV are going to be ground fault receptacles due to them being either exterior locations or locations where there's water such as a vanity counter or the kitchen counter reefer no this isn't referring to some kind of illegal drug here in the business we call a refrigerator a reefer so this is another appliance much like our air-conditioner that's going to require 12 volt and 110 volt service in order for it to function properly so it does have a breaker as well and then our water heater would be the last one if you have a combination water heater that works on gas and electric it will be utilizing both sides of this distribution panel as well so those are labeled clearly here for you to read and they can be turned on and off or reset should they trip due to an undesirable condition next we have our DC distribution panel this thing think of it more as four lights and control boxes and small circuit boards that are going to be running things that would run off of a battery you can see we have a distribution panel with several few sockets much like a fuse box and a vehicle and then we have a series of 15 amp fuses a one amp fuse a 40 amp fuse and then down inside here which we'll see in a minute we have a auto resetting circuit breaker in a few slot fora slide outs and these should be clearly labeled as well if your manufacturer has done their job correctly in this case we have front back furnace monitor panel stereo system and our liquid propane detector and then at the end here you probably can't see it on film right now but that would be our slide out circuit breaker that I was referring to so let's open up this box and actually take a look at the guts so that we can see how it operates and why it why it operates that way to remove these doors you will simply lift one side or the other and bow it in the middle and it will come out these two tabs will go back in when we're finished so we're going to set this aside this particular model only has two screws holding it on one here and one here and then there are two clips at the bottom so we remove those two screws and remove the door you can see the two clips that walk in to these two tabs we're going to set that aside you've got the distribution box open it's plain to see that these are completely separated entities inside and please be advised this is a safety warning this is hopped because I am plugged into Shore power and you can get shocked so you want to make sure and use safety precautions never touch anything with bare metal or your fingers inside of your AC distribution box what we're going to do here is test the alternating current side or the AC 110 side of our distribution panel and make sure that the power is in fact being distributed to all of our appliances with the breakers circuit breakers in the on position we should certainly be receiving power out to our loads like our air conditioner a refrigerator microwave and so on so what we want to do is set our RMS voltage meter to AC voltage we are going to take the black lead and we are going to place it on the ground bus bar this will be indicated by green or a bare copper wire next we will take the red lead and we will touch the lugs on the bottom of the circuit breakers and we should receive a fairly consistent voltage reading among each of them in this case it's one hundred and thirteen point nine volts so I'll simply check each one and verify that the power is present and leaving the circuit breaker and going to the appliance and we do indeed have incoming power at the Maine 30 amp breaker and it is being distributed out of all of these circuit breakers these branch circuits that being said we don't just want to check ground to power 110 volt circuits also require a neutral as a return path so what we also want to do while we're checking this is to put our black lead on the neutral bus indicated by white wires and do the exact same tests again so I'm going to place it on the lugs at the bottom of the circuit breakers and I should receive almost identical readings across the board make sure you check each one perfect so now I'm confident that I have a neutral a ground and power being distributed to each of my appliances on the AC 110 volt side next we will be testing DC distribution what I'm going to do is switch my meter to DC voltage and I should have zeros before I begin these tests now a couple things that are important to mention is number one you can see that I have four large cables to read and two white the reason for that is two of those cables are coming from my battery on the front of the trailer the other two are coming from my converter which we're gonna take a look at in a moment that is what people say or refer to as a battery charger that's this section down here we'll talk about that in a minute so what I want to do is check the output of my converter to make sure that it's charging my batteries and distributing power through my distribution panel now in order to do that as I stated earlier a good working converter should be putting out a 13 point 6 DC voltage reading so we're going to check that now we can look down underneath and see where the cables come through to determine which one is the converter in this case this is my converter output look for positive this is my converter outlook output look for negative and you can see on the meter I have fourteen point nine volts the reason that's higher than thirteen point six is all of the lights on this trailer are on because it is being inspected therefore there is a higher load so the charge rate has increased but it is most certainly working and charging the battery now if we come back over here and we take a look at our legend we can see that the converter is the fourth circuit breaker from the top so to test this and truly know whether or not it's charging my battery I can turn it off and see if my voltage drops to the static battery voltage so to do that I'm going to place my leads back on the converter outputs verify voltage at fourteen point one volts and I'm going to trip the fourth breaker from the top labeled converter and my voltage has dropped to eight point eight volts so my battery is discharged and needs to be replaced and I can turn it back on and as you can see my voltage has returned to 14 volts now that's a good test for the converter it definitely shows me that it's getting power from the hundred and ten volt AC side and that it does have a DC output in this case however we definitely need to replace the battery next to test the branch circuits coming off of our DC side we want to still use this ground and then we want to check our lugs that are associated with fuses so every single look that has a wire should have the same voltage as the circuit board and I do in fact have output on every single one of them which is fantastic now I don't need to check my fuses because the incoming power is on this side the outgoing is on this side and eventually turns out to be here so if I just test the lugs then I know that the fuses are good these two fuses are for the converter section if these fuses blow your battery charger will not be working one thing that can make that happen is if we exceed the amperage rating of this converter these 40 amp fuses will protect it from being damaged and they will break and open and not allow that charger to send power out of this distribution panel located right here here's a close-up look at our converter section removed from the bottom of the distribution panel as you can see located here we have 310 volt AC wires that are wired to the converter circuit breaker up above black which is hot neutral which is white and green which is our ground then we have two DC cables as outputs red is positive white is negative and they are feeding the distribution panel this is equipped with a cooling fan and a heat sink back here to keep it cool different amp ratings are going to cause it to work harder or less hard and therefore the fan will blow to keep it cool so to hear a fan whining sound coming from this converter distribution box is not uncommon it is a variable speed fan so it decides how fast it's going to spend and how much noise it's going to make so if you hear changes nothing's wrong it's doing its job so what we can do here is test our inputs and our outputs to make sure this is functioning properly please note this is a hundred and ten volt appliance and many of the components are exposed with bare wires fuses and metal parts that could potentially shock you which could result in injury or death so please use caution and if you don't understand anything in this video please ask me because the last thing I would like to do is get anybody hurt or damage their RV so if you're not sure please don't proceed with this step the last thing I would like to mention in this demonstration today is a really cool feature that most of these manufacturers of these distribution panels have integrated LED lights onto the fuse panel so if you see a red LED light in your fuse panel that means you have a blown or missing fuse in addition to it being on the distribution panel they put this window in the door which is really cool this way you can easily walk by and if you see it glowing red then you know there's a blown fuse inside that needs attention this takes the guesswork out of pulling fuses and you know holding them up to the light to see if maybe they're open or getting your voltage meter out and doing continuity testing you can simply go to the location where the light is and replace the fuse and you see the LED went off and our lights are back on very cool feature I certainly appreciate it as a technician and I would assume that owners would appreciate that as well well there you have it folks that was a basic demonstration of power distribution in an entry-level RV these do get more complex there are obviously different components and different RVs yours is not going to look exactly like this chances are if you have an entry model Forest River product or Keystone product you will see this world friendship company power distribution box in your RV or one very similar to it in later videos I will discuss larger more complex 5th wheels and we'll go over their distribution panels as well this particular one was a 30 amp so we only had one leg of power coming in when we move up to the 50 amp demonstrations we'll have two legs but let's save that for a different video I hope you learned something please be safe anytime you're testing any electrical equipment use the proper tools and make sure you have the proper knowledge if you have any questions or comments please put them down below the video I promise to respond to you I really appreciate you guys watching my videos I hope I'm getting knowledge out there that's what this is all about thanks again if you like my videos please subscribe and hit the like button tell your friends share it on Facebook I really really appreciate the support stay tuned for many more videos to come

Channel: MR RV TECH

Views: 167,546

Keywords: rv power problem, rv no power, 30 amp, 30 amp rv, trailer power, 30 amp trailer, rv power distribution, rv fuse, rv breaker, rv power issue, rv electrical, rv electricity, trailer electricity, RV BREAKER BOX, 30 AMP BREAKER BOX

Id: X8MDSYqY5yA

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 16 2019