Electrical issue

[CWEsquire]

About to head out and when we touch the camper we get a electrical shock, hit the disconnect and still getting it….. found a few wires pinched and fixed them but still getting zapped. The transfer switch is a bit loud? And the fan in the fuse power centre is not coming on….. we did have to replace the battery as it seemed to have possibly boiled over. We are getting 14V at the battery just plugged in and main power off. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Learjet]

Originally Posted by CWEsquire

About to head out and when we touch the camper we get a electrical shock, hit the disconnect and still getting it….. found a few wires pinched and fixed them but still getting zapped. The transfer switch is a bit loud? And the fan in the fuse power centre is not coming on….. we did have to replace the battery as it seemed to have possibly boiled over. We are getting 14V at the battery just plugged in and main power off. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Google RV hot skin...check your ground wire on your plug and receptacle.

[CWEsquire]

Hey Learjet, you nailed it! The plug in the garage had a bad ground! Thank you for the help!

[craigav]

Originally Posted by CWEsquire

Hey Learjet, you nailed it! The plug in the garage had a bad ground! Thank you for the help!

However, there is more that you should do than just correct the bad ground.

In a normal and correctly wired RV, there should never be any hot skin even with a missing ground. The ground wire and its connection should be considered as simply a last chance safety "just in case" there is current flowing from the HOT wire coming into the RV and flowing to the chassis of the RV (which should not occur) and therefore the ground wire provides for another safe return path for the electricity instead of flowing through someone which with wet ground and depending on the person could be deadly.

What you should do is determine where the electricity (incoming hot wire) is leaking to the chassis ground. Common locations are with a broken or cracked water heater element, chafed wires, defective appliance.

It is not overly uncommon for a very little leakage to occur, perhaps 5 or less volts potential (from the hot chassis skin to the earth), however 5 volts is not normally enough for you to have felt when you first determined there was an issue.

I am not sure of your electrical skills, do you have a dvom (voltage meter) and know how to use it? Keep in mind that what you encountered is still a potentially dangerous condition. The ground connection again is simply a safe path for the electricity to flow if the chassis (skin) somehow gets energized which it should never do. One other thought, it wouldn't be a direct short as that would have tripped the breaker, however there is voltage where it shouldn't be otherwise you would have never felt the current even with a missing ground. ~CA

[Mopar_Earl]

Likely there was current flowing to the ground on the outlet itself. I had this happen to an outlet in my garage where I plugged my trailer in. Was fine and then one day I knocked the cord out of the outlet. I plugged it back in not realizing which of the two it was plugged into. I was doing my disc brake conversion. All was good. Then the next day everything metal was shocking he. Got my meter out and checked from the frame to earth and there was voltage. Turned out that the lower outlet was passing voltage onto the ground making the ground hot on my trailer. I moved it to the upper outlet and all was good. I replaced the outlet and that cured the issue. Outlets only last so long.



Earl

[CWEsquire]

So I changed the sockets and left it for about 1hr with one lead of the meter in the dirt and the other on my steps and it was .05 VAC. Now at the campground there are 4 or 5 campers in a row that I have checked and all have voltage coming from the step to the ground. Not sure what to do now?? Might be time to get an electrician in to take a look!

[Learjet]

turn off the power converter and see if the voltage drops that you are measuring to ground

[craigav]

Originally Posted by CWEsquire

So I changed the sockets and left it for about 1hr with one lead of the meter in the dirt and the other on my steps and it was .05 VAC. Now at the campground there are 4 or 5 campers in a row that I have checked and all have voltage coming from the step to the ground. Not sure what to do now?? Might be time to get an electrician in to take a look!

Are you saying that at the campground, you measured ".05 VAC" on your steps to earth and the same\similar measurement on the other RVs? If so, then that is not an issue as that low of a voltage could simply be induced through almost anything metal in the RV and not a concern. I would start being concerned around 5 VAC or more between the steps and the earth as usually if you have a hot chassis, and in particular along with a bad ground, the voltage between the steps and the earth could reach close to the line voltage (~120v) but it would still a concern to investigate at a much lower voltage reading as mentioned above, certainly a reading of 10~15vac or more needs to be checked out. I would just keep monitoring it at this time if the voltage is .05vac and there are no other electrical issues occurring at this time to cause you any concern.

One other thought, check the "steps to earth" voltage with the electric water heater element on and again with it off and see if the voltage changes, that would be interesting to know in case the electrical heating element is cracked. ~CA