DC power problems

[tmlatowski]

Has this ever happened to anyone? Camping a couple weeks ago in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. My wife was at the campsite (I was fishing) when the neighbor ran over and said he saw sparks and smoke coming out of the power pedestal. All power was out in the camper (2017 Cougar 28sgs) He found the maintenance man who opened the box and found charred wiring, and the connectors on the neutral side burnt and melted. He repaired the wiring and reset power, everything seemed OK. However, 18 hours later my battery went flat. Best option at that point was to replace the battery, which got us through the rest of the trip. When I got home I took the camper to the local RV service, and found the DC converter destroyed and some minor issues at the fuse panel.

I am searching for theories about how this could happen. I believe it was a campground problem, but is it possible that something in the rig could have caused this? Should I replace the power cord? I noticed that one of the LEDs on the male end isn't lighting, but I can't find anyone to explain their function.

I certainly don't want this to happen again!

[Harleydodge]

Sounds to me like the pedestal had a loose or poor connection causing a high resistance.

A good EMS (Electrical Management System) would have saved your converter (and been cheaper) Consider it a lesson learned and grab one before your next outing.
Not sure about the LED's on your power cord, but if one is out, there is likely an issue. I'd be replacing it.

[tmlatowski]

I should mention that I had a Progressive Industries SSP-50X are the pedestal.. This is surge protection only though, not EMS

[Steveo57]

If the neutral was loose you can have very weird voltages including high voltages up to 240 volts. That's probably what happened and it fried your converter. The problem was a loose neutral at the pedestal and there's probably nothing wrong in your trailer that caused it. Did anything else get fried?

[FlyingAroundRV]

Sounds kind of similar to what happened to us. A miswired extension lead at a friends house took out the converter, the fridge element and our "expensive" Walmart BluRay player (c. $50). Lesson learned and Progressive Industries HW-30C installed shortly thereafter.
The night before last, we were at a private park in Waterloo Harbor NY and the EMS was on-again, off-again all the first night with voltages showing 136V. I finally pulled the plug and asked to move to a different site the next day.
The point of all that glub, glub was to say that it seems like the converters aren't very tolerant to voltage issues.

[tmlatowski]

There was some damage at the fuse panel (tech described it as corrosion) that caused low voltage in one of the lighting circuits. He cleaned all the fuse connectors and put in dielectric grease. Also one of the LEDs on the male end of the power cord doesn't light up.

[Steveo57]

There was some damage at the fuse panel (tech described it as corrosion) that caused low voltage in one of the lighting circuits. He cleaned all the fuse connectors and put in dielectric grease. Also one of the LEDs on the male end of the power cord doesn't light up.

A corroded connection in the DC panel isn't going to cause you a problem on your AC side. Those LEDs on the power cords are known to go bad. The only way to check to that you have power to both legs of your feed is with a meter. But if everything is working inside the trailer then that's a good indication that it's just a bad LED.