↓Episode 58 Electrical Problems – DIY or Take to a Service Center

Full Show Transcript:

This is Eric Stark with Radio Arizona RV. It's about six o'clock in the morning on a Thursday. It's snowing this morning. What a better day to talk about electrical systems in RVs. And the real question is whether to take it to a dealership, to a repair facility, or just tackle the problem on your own. So that's what we're going to be discussing today and this is episode number 58 about electrical systems. Basically, taking it someplace or doing it yourself. Now just as reminder, check out our website, RadioArizonaR.com that'll take you to all our other websites where we sell RV parts. If you're new to the show. We own sun pro manufacturing, which we make sunshade products for RVs slide out awning, fabrics. We sell a bazillion of them. They're flying out the door every day. Awesome product, great warranty, great prices, the problem free slide out awning fabric.

00:59 Now before we get into the show, I want to talk a little bit about scams. My mother is 82 years old and she's been a target for the last few years, but it seems like it's just getting worse. I am trying to convince her to not buy into these scams. And trying to get her to believe that they are scams has become somewhat of a challenge. My brothers and I are dealing with phone calls and problems and trying to keep the money in her bank, not in some foreign country for some guy who's, you know, bilking it from her. I'm sure everybody is getting robo calls. You're getting emails, you're getting all these different ways that people are coming at you in different ways to try to take your money. My mom's no different, I'm no different. I see the stuff all the time. We get the phone calls, get the emails, but she seems to want to fall for it.

01:53 And this is just kind of a word of warning. Be careful, be cautious. Most companies are not going to call you and ask you for banking information. Most companies aren't going to call you with some sort of story. That sounds kind of wild. One of the recent scams is a company calls her up and tells her that they do the antivirus software on her computer and they need to log in and change some settings because the company was just bought by a new company and they're updating everybody and rather than have the persons do it on their own, they're just making it part of their customer service package and just calling everybody and giving them access to their computer and going in and changing the settings that need to be set. Well my mom went for this and it almost cost her a thousand dollars and she gave out her bank account information.

02:45 The guy logged into her computer, changed some settings. He changed the password so she could not log back into her computer and he became the administrator locked her out. The only time if that computer is on the only person who could access it would be him. Now my mom had enough sense after the fact because he wanted her to go to Best Buy and get two gift cards for $500 each and call him back and give him the number on the gift cards. Well, on the way to Best Buy, she decided she'd go to the bank and run it by them, and they told her it's a scam. But she'd already given them her bank account information so they could see that he was already trying to get money. So, they closed the account, shut down her credit cards, everything. She had to start from scratch, which was a real chore.

03:32 And she didn't lose that thousand dollars or more. She just lost the money it took to take her computer to a shop so they could reinstall windows so she could access it again. And now I would have done that for her. But she's in California, I'm in Montana and my brothers aren't computer savvy, so it wasn't going to happen that way. She had to pay 120 bucks, which isn't bad, cheaper than a new computer. But two weeks later she did the same thing, gave someone access to her computer, they went in and deleted the antivirus program, tried to get some money from her, gain control of her computer, had to do the whole thing all over again. So frustrating. Right! In talking to my mom, I told her there are three people she can trust.

04:21 My dad died years ago so she can trust myself and my two brothers. That's it. No one else do not talk to people on the phone about your computer or about finances. If they want information, banking information, credit card information, hang up. It's a scam. She's finally connecting those dots. But it's taken a toll on her. I'm bringing this up because we have parents, some that are listening to the show are aging, getting older and sometimes you don't even have to be older. You know they target older persons because they seem to be a little more naive, but they in many cases have much more wisdom than we do. But we sometimes just fall for it. Everything sounds just right. Case in point, I got some emails from Netflix while they looked like they're from Netflix and I don't have a Netflix account, but my wife does.

05:12 So that's the first thing that kind of set off a red flag. I don't have a Netflix account. And the other thing is they went to three separate email addresses that I have all the exact same time asking me for credit card information, which Netflix doesn't do. If they do need to update your credit card information, they tell you the expiration date has expired on this card and they show the last four digits. And, the grammar was poor. This was better grammar than I've seen in a lot of scam emails, but it was still poor. The spelling is wrong. When you start looking at it, okay, this isn't Netflix and I've gotten these from ones that look like they're from PayPal, from Wells Fargo, they look good but they're not. And then if there is a hyperlink and you hover over it, yeah, you're going to get a little window that pops up and tells you what the website address is or the URL.

06:04 And if it doesn't say PayPal, like truly PayPal and they usually don't is some other email or a website, it's not legit. And I would just rather error on the side of caution, delete it, wait for another one to come or even have my Netflix account turned off if that's what it takes to make sure or log into your account after you close out those emails or delete those emails, log into your account and just see what's going on. If your credit cards up to date, then you know it was a scam. It's being cautious. I know this has nothing to do with electrical systems, but it's been on my mind and I just thought I'd share it. Be cautious. There are a lot of scams out there. Lots of them. People are trying very hard to take your cash. Some of these guys are in other countries.

06:46 If they're getting 15 to 20 a day from scamming two or three people, they're doing good. You know, that might not be a lot to people here in the United States, but it's a lot to people in other countries. You know, $20 a day, you're the big man on campus. All right, so that's enough of that. That's just my long-winded rant there about scams because it does irritate me not only when it's other people, but when it's my family ticks me off even more. But anyway, let's talk about Electrical Systems. Let's get into this. When you are out using your RV or you're getting ready to go someplace and a problem occurs generally it's something that's not working. But from time to time it might be a short in the system. You're going into, your RV has been plugged in and the battery's just stone dead.

07:31 Nothing works inside. You put on a charger; nothing works. And maybe the battery is bad, but you still must check for a short to make sure the battery wasn't drained by something else, that there's not a short in the system, but it goes beyond that. It's also understanding your system, your electrical system. You know there's two different systems. In an RV, you have a 12-volt system and you have 110-volt system and you must know which one it has. The problem you have is to be able to isolate that and in most cases is not too difficult, but that's what we're going to talk about. How to isolate it and then make that decision whether you're going to have it repaired or not. Now the thing about taking an RV to a dealership or a service center is that you know you must take it to them.

08:20 You're going to have to hook up your trailer and tow it to the dealership. If it is a motorhome you must drive to the dealership. Either way, you must get your RV to the dealership. More than likely you're going to have to leave it. Someone's going to have to pick you up. And you know when you leave your RV there, it could be as simple as leaving it for a day, but a day could turn into weeks, weeks could turn into months. I've heard of RV owners; they take the RV someplace to get an electrical problem fixed and it's there for weeks or months. And sometimes when they pick it up, the problems not even fixed. They say it is, they paid for it, but it's not fixed. So, there's some hassle in doing that, taking it there, dropping it off. If you must get a ride to get back home, then you've had to go to work or whatever it is.

09:50 So that takes time out of your day. And there are times where you could take your RV to a dealership or a service center and they find a problem. It could be as simple as a fuse. They put in a fuse and it costs you $100 bucks because they had to diagnose it. They spent time on it, which it does take time. I mean even to replace a fuse; it's not just replacing the fuse. What led them to that? You know, maybe it took them a half an hour to get to the fuse before they realize the fuse is bad. You know, there's variables there. But nonetheless, it can be $100 for basically changing a fuse, a very simple diagnosis there, you know? Or it could be much more complicated, and it could turn into hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars, depending on what the problem is. So, if it's me and I was going to take my RV to the dealership, which we know that's not going to happen since I truly believe in Doing It Yourself, I would do a little troubleshooting first.

09:58 I would do some basic troubleshooting to make sure it's not something as simple as a fuse, even a fuse, if they replaced it for free, you had to take your RV there. It took time out of your day. Now you have hours invested in that fuse regardless. I would do some troubleshooting myself, save the hassle. If you feel you can tackle the problem, then that's the better way to go. Then you don't have to worry about taking it anywhere. You can pick at the problem at your leisure or you can dedicate a Saturday to it or one full day or each day after work. You can look at it, work on it a little bit. But as I said earlier, you need to determine which system is causing the problem. Is that the 12-volt system or the 110-volt system.

10:43 And to some of you that will sound basic, like who wouldn't know the difference. But I get phone calls, I get people coming into my store constantly asking about these problems that have to do with the 12 volt or 110-volt system and they don't know the difference. Some of them might say, my lights don't work when I'm plugged in. There's a problem with my 110-volt system that is not correct. Your lights inside your RV do not run on 110 volts. They run on 12 volts or they say that their lights are 12 volt and 110 volts. That's not correct. They're 12 volts. They're not both. They don't go back and forth. So, there's some confusion there. And for some it's a little more difficult than others to understand. They don't get the two systems in the RV. It's been that way for decades.

11:36 It has not changed. A 12-volt system in an RV, let's just look at this for a moment. That’s going to be your interior lights and porch lights, exterior lights of any kind, maybe a compartment. And I'm kind of clearing that up, saying it that way, because clearance lights and running lights are not part of the 12-volt system on your RV. They're separate systems. When you're 12-volt clearance lights or running lights aren't working, that generally is going to be something either with the connector at the front of the trailer that plugs into your tow vehicle or the tow vehicle itself. It's not part of the 12-volt system on your RV. So, if your running lights aren't working, it has nothing to do with the battery in your RV, has nothing to do with the fuses in your RV or in most cases it won't.

12:26 It's going to have something to do with the connector at the front of the trailer and the tow vehicle itself. Okay, so that's out of the way now. So, we're talking about interior lights, porch lights, compartment lights as part of your 12-volt system. If you have a powered awning that's part of the 12-volt system, generators use your battery in the RV, the deep cycle battery to start, that's running off your 12-volt system, an RV refrigerator. This designed to run on propane or 110 volts and 12 volts. Maybe not all three, maybe it's just propane and110 it still needs 12 volts for the circuit boards to work. Now 12 volts is going to the refrigerator. Your vent fans, if you have a Max Air fan, if you have a regular 14 by 14 vents with a small 7” fan blade, those are 12 volts.

13:46 If your refrigerator has exhaust fans on the back of it, those are 12 volts. If you have an electric step, like in a motor home, that's 12 volts. Stereo systems that are automotive type, they have that look and feel of what's in a car. Those are 12 volts. Leak detectors are 12 volts. Your furnace runs off 12 volts, so that's not all inclusive. There are probably some things I missed there but get the pitcher. Those are the 12-volt things and your 12-volt system is protected by fuses. There are some circuit breakers for 12-volt appliances, but they're not always the same as a 110-volt circuit breaker. Sometimes 12-volt circuit breakers are small. They just have two connectors on them. They're in the system, in the wiring somewhere, maybe by the appliance, maybe by the fuse panel. It just depends on what it is and how the RV was put together.

14:09 Sometime there's compartments with all the 12-volt breakers and fuses in one spot. That can very easy to identify them. Before I move on to the 110-volt system. When you look at the wiring in an RV, sometimes it can be overwhelming. You open a compartment door and there's wires and circuit breakers and panels and stuff. Don't let it overwhelm you. It looks like a lot, but when you start really isolating it, breaking it down, where do these wires go? It becomes less complicated. It's like the hood of a car. You know, you take off the air cleaner, get a few things out of the way. Suddenly, the engine is right there, you can see everything. It's not so scary, it’s the same in an RV. So, don't be overwhelmed if you see a bunch of wires, you know it's like some computer at home, you have 200 cables running behind your desk and it doesn't scare you from doing anything.

14:57 Audio, video systems are the same way. Lots of wires, lots of connections. It's just a matter of seeing which wire goes where and what is doing. Let’s break down the 110-volt system that's going to run appliances such as your microwave, the rooftop air conditioner or a basement air conditioner, residential type refrigerators. Now we're not talking about RV refrigerators here, we're talking about residential type refrigerators. Now an RV refrigerator could have 110 volts on it, but it's connected to the 12-volt system so it could not be a problem. Then any kind of add on fans you have like something that would sit on a countertop that plugs into one of the 110-volt outlets. You know the regular outlets in the wall sometimes called wall outlet plugs, so any kind of fan that plugs into the wall outlets. Some audio systems might be 110 volts.

15:52 Televisions could be 110 volts. You see more 110 volt televisions then you do 12 volt televisions and then any other appliance you would plug into the wall outlet, you know, fans, chargers, whatever it might be, Radios, portable Radios and the 110 volt system is protected by circuit breakers. Yeah, you're going to see a rack of them. They look very similar to what's in a house. 15-amp, 10-amp, 20 amp. You might see double twenties, double 30’s, you're going to see a main one that controls all the circuit breakers or all the power into the RV. Isolating these two systems can make life a lot easier for you because now you know where to look. And again, I want to emphasize this. Sometimes RV’ers just don't know where to start because they're not sure of the system. I get people that ask me about their wall outlets.

16:43 I have a GFI and it's not working? So is my converter bad, no, it has nothing to do with it. I mean technically it doesn't. I don't want to get into all the diagnosis here, but a converter is not going to be plugged in most cases to the same circuit that a GF I would be on. I mean GFI’s do go bad and they can cause other things to not work, but in general things that are plugged into the wall outlets after the GFI and GFI’s are usually found where there's water in kitchens, bathrooms, something like that. You must understand that as well. But we'll get into that kind of in a different way in just a moment here. But understanding the differences now you have direction. If you know it’s 110-volt system that's got the problem, you're not going to spend time looking at the 12-volt system.

17:30 You're going to look at the 110-volt system. What runs off 110 volts. Maybe it's a circuit breaker that keeps blowing or popping. So, you must isolate that circuit breaker and what it is controlling. So, every time you turn on the microwave, let's say for example the circuit breaker blows. Well that would be a problem more than likely with the microwave. If you disconnect the microwave and the circuit breaker doesn't blow, you plug something else into that outlet and the circuit breaker doesn't blow, then you can say that's the microwave. Pretty basic tests there, which can save you a lot of money. Do you see where I'm going with this. You know, if, if an outlet doesn't work, it doesn't mean you have to rush it to the dealership. Are the circuit breakers blown? Are they in the off position or halfway between on and off?

18:17 Then you just push it to off and push it to back on. That's resetting the circuit breaker. So that's simple. Now it could...