Inverter gone bad?

[The Blue Flock]

Went camping over the weekend (had a great time!) but during the trip I turn on coffeemaker and whole RV (18’ 325BHQS) power outage... inverter starts to beep... I get error 3 code “ac output too high”. So I unplug many items and all is well.... move on. Came home tonight and beeping again (unit stays on shore power) this time doesn’t come back on at all and refer not on at all. I don’t think that the inverter ever allowed the ac to bypass to run refer.

Appears the refer was running on battery the whole time, and ac was only charging battery for it to run?took voltmeter and batteries were at 12.95

Will be taking it in, just don’t want a bunch of bs thrown my way from dealer... I know enough about electricity to be dangerous, but definitely not a professional. I will say that the display changed from bypass to battery operation. TIA!

[RogerR]

Try the simplist thing first. Turn off the power and check every one of the fuzes. Replace any bad ones. Turn off all the breakers. Have someone turn on the power and flip each breaker on and see if any pop.

Good luck. This may not help but at least if it is a fuze or breaker better to find it yourself.

[ALJO]

Fridge runs on AC power and the controls on 12 volt DC, when plugged in shore-power.
What Power Converter do you have?

[The Blue Flock]

Fuses and breakers ok. Type is a xantrex freedom X

[The Blue Flock]

Fridge not running, everything else is running fuse for frig is good, bad breaker??

[Dgibbster]

Just a note to check chassis ground connections as we had a bery similar problem and ground bolt at frame broke causing no battery charging with generator or shore power.?

[CampNow]

I'm assuming you have an OEM installed residential frig that only operates on 120 vac (not a propane/electric RV frig), correct?

If so, can you access the inverter? I'd be checking the inverter's input voltage (12 vdc), output voltage (120 vac), and verifying whether the bypass switch is operating properly. The bypass switch may be internal to the inverter or standalone. When there's no shore power, the bypass switch routes the inverter's 120 vac output to the frig. When there is shore power, the bypass switch routes shore power directly to the frig.

[Dgibbster]

If fridge runs on shore power and you also have outlet 120v outlet power on shore power, but when unplugged and dry camping appears to only be running on battery power unless running generator, also fridge power cutting out and inverter not working, battery getting run down? This is what happened to us, although we have a motorhome and were able to run the engine to get house battery charged up nothing else would charge battery so as soon as we shut off generator the battery would run down like at night and fridge was ****ting off and blinking error codes. After checking everything for power and connections appeared to power problem to converter and found other posts regarding similar issues on other different model’s and that turned out to be broken head off ground stud/bolt at frame causing converter not to switch AC charging supply.

[The Blue Flock]

Camp... yes it’s a whirlpool refer. I will check the grounding of unit. When I **** down camper (turn off disconnect in unit, remove shore power) and restart, inverter fires up and works for 30 seconds. Lights flicker, inverted shuts itself off completely, but all other appliances in trailer working off shore like normal. Haven’t had time yet, but not being grounded seems like a Possible cause. Refrig is the only thing not working, possible tripped gfci... where is the plug for refer anyway??? Surely not hard wired...

[The Blue Flock]

**** = shut.

[CampNow]

Originally Posted by The Blue Flock

Camp... yes it’s a whirlpool refer. I will check the grounding of unit. When I **** down camper (turn off disconnect in unit, remove shore power) and restart, inverter fires up and works for 30 seconds. Lights flicker, inverted shuts itself off completely, but all other appliances in trailer working off shore like normal. Haven’t had time yet, but not being grounded seems like a Possible cause. Refrig is the only thing not working, possible tripped gfci... where is the plug for refer anyway??? Surely not hard wired...

I suppose it could be a bad ground.

However, that doesn't explain why the inverter is able to "work?" for those 30 seconds. Kinda hard to troubleshoot this kind of stuff from afar---I have no way of knowing how your trailer is actually configured, physically and electrically. If it was me, I'd be checking the following during those 30 seconds and after it fails:

1. Inverter input (DC) voltage
2. Inverter output (AC) voltage
3. Inverter load (with a clamp-on ammeter)
4. Bypass switch to determine why shore power is not being provided to the frig when the inverter fails (or goes off-line)

You may have two problems. A bad inverter and a bad bypass switch. If the inverter was the only issue, the bypass switch should be providing shore power to the frig when it senses no power coming from the inverter.

Lastly, if you're not interested in checking any of the above, as a minimum you might consider unplugging the residential frig from your trailer and plugging it directly into an extension cord with shore power just to rule out any problems with the frig.

Good luck.