Having problem checking a potential blown fuse

[John D]

Hi RV friends!
New RV Owner here.
Have a Jayco Alante 2020 27A.
Trying to chk possible blown fuse.
Owners manual tells me to:
Disconnect shore power
Turn off inverter
Disconnect battery main negative battery cable
Did all these things.
While trying to disconnect the negative battery cable, I got shocked today. Okay but had to stop
I had the battery disconnect switch off so no current would be coming thru. So what went wrong? The only thing I can think caused the shock was the entry steps were still operational maybe that caused the current.
Any advice is welcome.

[GTS225]

Did you have the shore power UNPLUGGED? (Not just breaker turned off.)
Did you have the inverter turned off? (Maybe even a breaker for it?)
Did you happen to have a generator running and hooked up?
Lastly, what is the voltage of your battery bank(s)?

If "no" to all the above questions, and the voltage is below 24, then you shouldn't have gotten any kind of shock. It takes about 40 volts to penetrate the human skin, unless you're wet. The entry steps couldn't generate power unless they have thier own power power supply. (doubtful)

Now, precisely what did you get as a shock? Power passing through a part of your body, or might you have shorted a wrench to ground while attempting to disconnect the battery, and percieve the sparks as a shock?

Some of these details need to be addressed to determine EXACTLY what happened. If there is an electrical issue that you've discovered by accident, it needs to be corrected before someone REALLY gets hurt.

Roger

[Marcm157]

Is it possible you were disconnecting the positive cable and your wrench touched the metal body? If you did have everything as you state and keeping with everything GT said above it sounds more likely you grounded the positive terminal of the battery.

[Vicr]

As an electrician and RV owner of over 20 years your "trouble shooting" makes no sense. First of all what does "possible blown fuse" mean? Also, all that disconnecting and shutting things down won't accomplish anything when trying to diagnose what caused a fuse to blow. Please re-phrase your issue so we can understand what is wrong.

[RustyA]

Hey John,
Do you have something not working you needed to check the fuse for? If it is a 12v device you can use a 12v test light to test your fuses safely without all the disconnect instructions. Clip the test light connector on known good ground near fuse panel. Touch the tip of the test light to each side of the blade fuses. An open or blown fuse will only light the test light on one side.

[Midnightmoon]

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Just a friendly reminder. Personal attacks and arguments between members are prohibited by the Community Rules.

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[Johnynorthland]

Hi John D, I’m not sure exactly what happened to you but perhaps you just experienced a spark, which can be normal when disconnecting/reconnecting a battery.

If you blew a fuse, you need not disconnect the battery. Do you know exactly which fuse it is? If your unable to find it, buy yourself a test light and start checking which fuse is blown. You can do a little YouTube search and find a video on how to do this. Like this one below.


https://youtu.be/o_AWj2fcQS4


If you replace the fuse, make sure you replace it with the same amperage/color code. If it blows again, you will need to search for the cause. It could be a number of things. It could be just a bad fuse, a wire short or a defective electronic device. In either case if you can not find it or your not comfortable doing any of this type of work, bring it to a reputable shop.


Keep us posted with your progress, findings and outcome.


Good luck, hope it’s something simple to fix.