Open Neutral Wire

kylecm

Member
Good morning

Well, my 2014 Siesta 24SA had to go off to Thor in Indiana to have the floor replaced. It has made it back and I have found two MAJOR issue caused by the service department. the first was the valve gate was put on 45 degrees out of position. Yep, the gates now open to the side instead of down to the hole. https://flic.kr/p/226yxWK

The second item is that the outlet above the dinette and the one that is under the seats, do not work. Using a tester, it shows "open neutral". I can find the on junction box under the seats but does anyone know where the next one is before the breaker box.

When I throw breaker #12, the outlets in the slideout loose power plus the 120v for the fridge. however, the fridge works so I am assuming that the neutral wire in the junction box between the fridge and the slideout must be the issue. However, I have no idea where that could be located.

Anyone have schematics for the 2014 SAs? Or has ever had the same type of problem??

My assumption is they had to disconnect it before removing the slideout to repair the floor. The tech must not have gotten a good connection when they reinstalled the slideout but I have no idea where that junction box would be located.

I still cannot believe they would not have tested the outlets when they reinstalled the slideout. Ugh.

Thanks in advance

Chuck
 

stevehar

2015 Thor Siesta 24SR
Hi Chuck, welcome back to the forum.....
I have schematics for my 2015, but I don't think they will do you much good. They really don't show how the wiring goes. You might have to do some old fashion trouble shooting with a meter.

View attachment Sprinter chassis 1163872_1902263_31.pdf

That sewer connection swivels, if you push on it, it should rotate down towards the hole.
When I got mine even the dealer didn't know this.
 

220629

Well-known member
First thing which I would do is get in with a multi-tester to verify proper voltage and connections. The quick tester can give false results depending upon what the problem is.

With shore power off, ground and neutral can be checked using the ohmmeter.

A circuit tracer may help.

This is inexpensive from Harbor Freight.

https://www.harborfreight.com/circuit-breaker-detective-96934.html

It should follow wires. I don't know the range and sensitivity of the HF tester. I have no experience with the particular model.

It is designed to plug into a receptacle which is fine for circuits which are working. You can expand the capability by chopping a cheap extension cord and adding alligator clips to the female ends. That allows plugging in the signal unit and clipping to wires. If you are truly missing a neutral connection, that mod also allows you to use a jump wire back to the neutral buss. With the circuit completed through the jumper you can trace the current in the line side to the receptacle to reveal the wire routing.

This tracer has sensitivity selection and read from feet away. That tracer that I have comes with adapters. I have also designed some of my own.

https://www.amazon.com/Amprobe-Current-Tracer/dp/B01J807TBA

Good luck.

vic

Added:
The tracers pull a high frequency, high current pulse form the power source. The "tracer" unit is a receiver which is looking for that signal. It is basically a radio receiver tuned to a specific frequency.
 
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autostaretx

Erratic Member
For those of you who aren't aware of this issue, a floating neutral can really fry your 110v electric applicances:

FloatNeutral.png

Outlets A and B are now bridging the 240 v feed (the two hot pins on your 50 amp shore power plug) and fight each other for the voltage/current. Counter-intuitively, the lower wattage (higher resistance) load (A, above) will see the higher voltage.

If *only* A had something in it, it wouldn't see any voltage, because there's no "return path" to the 50 amp plug. The high/low voltage "float" requires that something be plugged (or wired) into both sides of the feed (A-side and B-side).
Whatever's in the other two outlets can be considered as part of the A and B loads.

--dick
 

220629

Well-known member
For those of you who aren't aware of this issue, a floating neutral can really fry your 110v electric applicances:

...

--dick
That is really great information for 240 volt power systems.

So as to not panic the masses...

That said, it doesn't apply at all to the RV 30 amp 120 volt receptacle source, even if derived from a 50 amp adapter. There is no 240 volt feed/source wired into the 30 amp RV cord. The 30 amp adapter uses one side.

:cheers: vic
 

kylecm

Member
First thing which I would do is get in with a multi-tester to verify proper voltage and connections. The quick tester can give false results depending upon what the problem is.

With shore power off, ground and neutral can be checked using the ohmmeter.
Vic, Thanks for the info. Here is where I am now:

VAC

Phase (hot)-to-neutral voltage - 118v
Neutral-to-ground voltage - 47v
Phase (hot)-to-ground voltage - 118v

Resistance

Phase (hot)-to-neutral voltage - open
Neutral-to-ground voltage - open
Phase (hot)-to-ground voltage - open

I was able to physically trace the wire from the slideout to the driver side storage, under the RV, and to the passenger side storage. It then enters the coach and goes behind the cabinets. At some point, it must go into a junction box (under the sink) and then to the breaker box. However, I can't figure out which wires go from the junction to the breaker box. basically, I can't see them.

I guess my next step is to start removing cabinets. UGH

Thanks

Chuck
 

Cheyenne

UK 2004 T1N 313CDi
Chuck,

IMO this is not your problem but Thor's!!!

Contact them and explain the situation and ask them to agree to pay a local to you RV repair centre to fix their mess.

Keith.
 

kylecm

Member
Hi Chuck, welcome back to the forum.....

I have schematics for my 2015, but I don't think they will do you much good. They really don't show how the wiring goes. You might have to do some old fashion trouble shooting with a meter.



View attachment 93122



That sewer connection swivels, if you push on it, it should rotate down towards the hole.

When I got mine even the dealer didn't know this.


Hey Steve!!!

You are kidding me. It swivels???? Haha, I already took out the 8 bolts and moved it by hand. Thinking about it, Thor must have swiveled it to drain the tanks before they winterized it but never moved it back. It’s currently connected to a sewer drain but as soon as I disconnect I am going to see if mine swivels. That is hilarious.

Thanks for the schematic but you are correct I was looking for something that actually shows the physical location of the junction boxes.

I think I found one under the sink and behind the cabinet but then that would not make sense if in fact their repair if the floor and slide-out caused the issue. It must have been a coincident.

Talk again soon

Chuck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

kylecm

Member
Chuck,



IMO this is not your problem but Thor's!!!



Contact them and explain the situation and ask them to agree to pay a local to you RV repair centre to fix their mess.



Keith.


Keith

I agree 100% but given my experience with Thor it has always been just to fix it. Their phone support is awesome. After that it all goes to crap. My local RV shop Reines is about the same. I think their highest Yelp was a 1 star, lol.

Chuck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

stevehar

2015 Thor Siesta 24SR
Chuck, the 47V from neut to grnd is not good. I looked at my outlet behind the couch and I get
.1V from n to g. On my rig thor ran a 16Guage cord from the electrical panel under the coach the up thru the floor and up into the slide into a work box from there they ran romex to the outlet...If yours is similar I would look under the coach and make sure they just didn't cut the cord and reslpice when they put the slide back in.

cable.jpg
 

kylecm

Member
Re: Open Neutral Wire - fixed

Took a long time but this is what I found. The slideout is in series with the fridge. The 120v outlet for the fridge can be accessed from outside the vehicle.

The ground wire in the outlet was long enough that over time it worked its way through the neutral wire. I was not a direct connect but enough that it would bleed enough voltage that the neutral had become a ground.

thanks for all the help

Chuck

 

220629

Well-known member
Took a long time ...
Since yesterday? Not long at all in my book.

Seriously though, thanks for the follow-up. So many times these threads end up hanging. That doesn't help anyone in the future.

For some reason your picture link showed in the reply quote, but not your reply/post.
Here it is.
ThorDamagedWire.jpg

Old school logic and visual inspection works again. Nice job tracking it down. :thumbup:

:cheers: vic

Added:
:hmmm:

Looking again at that picture...
Something looks odd about the situation. It appears to be an in-line tap device, but then there shouldn't be chopped off conductors (aka wires).Tough to tell with pictures though.
 
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kylecm

Member
Since yesterday? Not long at all in my book.

Seriously though, thanks for the follow-up. So many times these threads end up hanging. That doesn't help anyone in the future.

For some reason your picture link showed in the reply quote, but not your reply/post.
Here it is.
View attachment 93179

Old school logic and visual inspection works again. Nice job tracking it down. :thumbup:

:cheers: vic

Added:
:hmmm:

Looking again at that picture...
Something looks odd about the situation. It appears to be an in-line tap device, but then there shouldn't be chopped off conductors (aka wires).Tough to tell with pictures though.
Vic,

Well, yesterday was when I started asking for help. I had been chasing this one for the last month. I can't store the RV at the house so most of my maintenance troubleshooting is done with my wife reading her kindle and me playing with the RV at a campground.

thanks again for all the help,

Chuck
 

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