-
Marathon 110v issues. GFI?
Hello there,
Just spent the whole day trying to track down the reason why certain 110v amenities are not working on our ’98 XLV.
I was running an extension cord to power a trailer from the GFI outlet located in the exterior entertainment bay. At some point in the night, the outlet stopped putting out power, yet the GFI had not tripped. The bus is plugged into 30A shore power. I assumed another GFI upstream had tripped and interrupted the circuit yet upon checking, we could not find a faulty or tripped GFI. All breakers in the two rear, main and aux, panels appear fine as do the two sub panels under the coach in bay 2 on port side. Inverters seem fine.
Almost all the interior and exterior outlets are dead. There are two GFI outlets still working inside; one above the sink and the other in the head area.
Not sure what to do at this point. I plan on calling Marathon tomorrow but was hoping for some ideas from the gurus here on the forum.
Thoughts?
Much appreciated.
C
-
19 Replies
-
Not super familiar with your vintage Marathon. The first thing I would check on mine would be the inverter (s) what is it saying?
Good luck
Bill
-
Check the pin breakers on the inverters
-
What you should do next time is plug extension cord in to a 15 amp plug on power pole, your pushing it anyways with 30 amps , what in the trailer needed power? 15 or 20 amp GFI’s can’t handle much load anyways. no electric heaters, electric heaters are hard on inverters even if their not inverting, passing through the contacts on the inverters kill them
-
There is usually only one GFI plug in a chain of plugs. That one GFI will supply that feature to every plug connected to that circuit.
I also have had the GFI plugs go bad.
Check the incoming hot wire and see if there is power to the GFI plug.
Those types of plugs most of the time will not handle the rated load with out them heating up which damages the plug.
Because of these conditions I replaced all the GFI plugs on my 99 CC with regular plugs, with exception of one bay plug where I was using for outdoor functions.
-
I agree with Buddy. You shouldn’t have more than one GFI or CFCI on a circuit/breaker. His suggestion to start at the outlet and work backwards is a good one! If you end up replacing any outlet … do NOT use back stab outlets; they will work loose over time especially in a coach. Back wiring or maybe ring terminals on the side posts is the way to go!
I was originally told and then then learned that you get what you pay for when it comes to electrical outlets. I don’t know what level of quality of outlets your converter put in, but (1) if they used cheap outlets that could be the problem or (2) the outlets are aged and getting soft.
Other posters will correct me if I’m wrong …. 30amp shore power is substantially less power than 50amp. 30amp is typically only a single 120volt leg where 50amp is typically TWO 120 volt legs. So 30amps is 30 amps and 50amps is a total of 100amps. So its likely between the trailer and whatever the coach was pulling from shore power … more than 30 amps was pulled and something “tripped” somewhere.
Lots of good suggestions of where to look!
-
Some coaches will trip shore power GFCI receptacles because of how they are grounded.
-
You would have to set your inverters on 30 amp shore cord size and then 15 amp max on each inverter. If the inverters are still passing power, your problem is likely the GFCI.
Did you talk to Marathon?
-
Thanks for all the suggestions.
I did talk to Marathon as well as to Jim at Coach Pro. Jeff at Marathon was very friendly and we went over many possible scenarios, unfortunately to no avail. I was a little surprised when I asked for an inverter distribution diagram they told me they did not give out diagrams or schematics. Seemed odd, especially since we are talking about a 22 year old coach.
Jim is always helpful and we went through everything he could think of. At this point I’m bringing in an electrician buddy to see if we can’t find the culprit GFI. I’ve poked, prodded and probed to my limit of sanity.
The only outlets that still work are on the 133 line. Seems like all the outlets on 132 are dead and, as far as I can tell, there is no breaker for that circuit.
One lesson learned…I’m not plugging my hot dog wagon into a GFI on my Prevost again. Ha!
-
Not sure what you mean by “pin breakers”. From what I see, there is only the one breaker on the units. Are you meaning the push pins on the panel above the remote inverter panels in Marathon bedroom? And, yes, I pressed all those.
Thanks
-
My 96 Marathon has, in the bath closet a 120v electrical panel behind a trim wall (this is in addition to the large DC panel, a 12v dimmer switch panel, and backside of the DC circuit breakers). These are all covered by decorative (carpeted?) trim panels.
In the 120v panel, in addidion to some 120v relays there is a row of seven 120v self resetting circuit breakers. These seem to be all the 120v circuits that run thru the inverters and don’t have breakers in the main or aux electrical panels. I’ll try to attach a pic.
-
Lower panel on left (front wall of closet).
And I got the same answer from Marathon when I asked for wiring diagrams/schematics. The reason I asked was in my original Marathon binder/owners manual (from 1996) it states “If a wire pull list is not included one is avail. from our office”. Apparently that changed. Sure would be helpful.
-
That looks like a well labeled and somewhat comprehensive junction of wires and electric glory. Unfortunately, I have nothing that even resembles that on my ’98.
I’m pulling all the GFI’s tomorrow in hopes of finding the culprit.
Thanks again
-
Marathon electrical evolved over time as Techlon system was implemented. Wiring Diagrams are Coach number specific.
Inverter 110 VAC Distribution is as follows:
469-514
515-545 (See image)
546-610
610-636
and so on
So what is your Coach Number.?
-
Hey Ed
Thanks for the diagram. My coach is number 514.
-
Hey Ed,
That diagram you sent looks the same as what’s in my JBox. Thanks for that, it should be very helpful.
Log in to reply.