Odd issue with one receptacle.

[gijoecam]

Calling all electrical gurus!

We have a 2007 JayFeather 29Y. On the end of the kitchen counter is a receptacle (and on our model, the kitchen is part of the slide). I noticed at the end of last year that it quit working (which resulted in a disappointing crock pot meal becoming pizza night!) Never got around to looking at it. My wife plugged in an ultrasonic pest repeller for the winter, and low and behold, the light on it blinks.

If I plug a small load into it, it seems to get power. If I plug a cell phone charger into it, the LED on the charger comes on for a second, then acts like you pulled it out of the receptacle (the LED fades), then comes back on over and over again about every five seconds.

I've never seen a receptacle behave like this. Slide out or in makes no difference. Checking with a multimeter shows power from hot to neutral or ground, but it appears any load drops it out. (Also, it's not the ground fault as that protects all the others, and all the others work fine).

Any thoughts?

[Cannon]

Have you pulled it out and checked wiring. Sounds like a loose neutral.

[oldmanAZ]

Like Cannon said, pull the outlet out and check the wiring. I had a similar, odd, and intermittent problem we suffered with for a month. It was a loose wire in the outlet.

[RogerR]

If you don't have a loose wire replace the receptacle . Corrosion inside the receptacle can occur from arcing while plugging and unplugging equipment. Moisture, poor construction, etc. can also cause the problems.

[o2silverado]

It could be a loose connection in the jbox where the romex meets the rubber cord for the slide. It is definitely a loose connection whether it be in a plug or a junction box.

[gijoecam]

Update: still no resolution. I pulled the receptacle out today, but no joy there. Connections are all tight, and I re-seated the wires in the slots to be sure.

Chased the wires back to the junction box, but that box is mounted under the cabinet as part of the slide. I suspect that's where the issue lies as the flexible cord for the slide also feeds the microwave through that same j-box, and it works fine. Worst case, I may have a broken wire and may need to pull a new piece of Romex around the cabinet.

Hopefully more updates tomorrow...

[ALJO]

The bathroom GFI feeds the junction box(es) under the lower kitchen cabinet and then feeds the plug on the side of the counter. Besure that plug has the wire proper in the wedge contacts.
Microwave is on its own circuit.

[o2silverado]

Determine all of the outlets on that circuit. Then pull each of those. It could be a issue in any of the other outlets on that circuit. Check your outside outlet since it is fed from the bath as well.

[Shackrat]

The behavior you are noting is indicative of an open neutral. If you take a DVM and probe the hot (small blade) to neutral and hot to ground you'll read 120v. Small, low current devices such as phone chargers will work, but anything with a decent load will not.

Sound like your symptoms? If so, keep reading to confirm as open neutrals are a very dangrous condition.

Here is how you confirm an open neutral. In one half of the receptacle, plug in a lamp with a standard bulb (not LED) and turn it on. It won't light. Now re-measure the voltage on the other half of the receptable. If you measure 120v hot to ground, but 0 (or a few) volts on hot to neutral you've got a confirmed open neutral and need to check for a bad neutral (white wire) along that branch circuit.

I haven't pulled apart any wiring on my Jayco, but on my previous Forest River, push-in aka "back stab" connections were frequently used. These are prone to failure in a house that never moves let alone an RV. I would pull all receptacles along that branch and make sure nothing is back wired. Also a quick check of the neutral bus in the converter panelboard is another suggestion (kill the main breaker first). I found a lose neutral connection on my brand new 30.5MLOK.


Good luck!

[venoran]

Something to check here, as everyone else said it sounds like a bad neutral connection.

In my trailer I have found a splice box (I guess their run of romex was too short in one area) in the wiring behind the cabinets. It uses push-in connections for the individual wires, where the metal contact cuts through the insulation and makes contact with the copper.

I googled around and found some images of what the splice boxes look like that Jayco uses, they are Pass & Seymour "self-contained" boxes. Not my pictures, but exactly what my splice box looked like.

There may be one of these in the line somewhere, if the wires aren't pushed down into the metal plates far enough you might get a poor connection. Just push in the side tabs with a screwdriver and the top will pop open, you can make sure the wires are well inserted and have good connection.

[gijoecam]

UPDATE WITH CARNAGE PICTURES

Finally dove into it today. Pulled the receptacle out and wired up a household receptacle. No love. Opened up the junction box at the slide. Everything was tight and looked good. Popped the cover of the fixed end of the short cord that goes to the slide.... And found this disaster!


It appears the wiring for the receptacle got a bit warm. Given the condition of the wires for the microwave, which were mostly intact, I'd say the wire nuts weren't properly tightened down, which caused resistance in the connection. We often use a small space heater on that receptacle (or at least used to), and that likely caused the heat in the connector that eventually melted-burned the hot wire in that stranded piece of flexible cord.

I pulled both sets of connections apart. Although the cords are the size of 10 gauge wire, they're rated 14. I picked up a new piece of 12 gauge cord at lowes for a buck a foot. I'll make sure the wire nuts are actually tight, and that there's sufficient contact between the stranded and solid wires.

Related: is it normal to use wire nuts to connect stranded cables to solid wires?

[ALJO]

How is the clearance of your lower kitchen cabinets to the floor? Many had problem with scraping the floor. I moved my cabinets up to 1" clearance and also adjusted the slide proper.


Use on the gas line rubber hose "baby-powder" and it will last a long time. It preserves rubber naturally.

[Vicr]

Originally Posted by gijoecam

UPDATE WITH CARNAGE PICTURES



Related: is it normal to use wire nuts to connect stranded cables to solid wires?Attachment 44313Attachment 44314Attachment 44315

Yes, it is normal but the ends of all the wires need to align and then twist the wire nut on.