Two Outlets went “dead,” reading low voltage

[Cate&Rob]

HappyCampers29RS
See this thread for how some of us have used standard "hardware store" extension cord replacement ends to solve this problem (if indeed it is a damaged Molex connector)
https://gdrvowners.com/forum/operati...lex-connectors

Rob

[Country Campers]

HappyCampers29RS

Having the same unit as you do we did have an issue with losing power to the chairs while on a trip. The faulty area was the receptacle on the kitchen side end table by the couch. This was the last place I had electricity. I removed the receptacle and found the wires were not making contact , re-did to the wires and they worked. I realize you said that you had power to the end table by the recliner slide but it may be possible that the power is not passing thru that receptacle. These receptacles are pressed together with a special tool but you can carefully remove the whit back and check the wires for contact. Once you get inside one it will be easy to see how they work. Make sure there is nothing holding the wires from making contact. You can press these back together with a board or by hand, it take some force to do this.
As always while working with electricity be safe and remove all power from the unit , we do not need a shocking experience reported.
If this does not fix the problem then you may need to go under and remove some of the corplast.

Brian

[TucsonJim]

Unfortunately, I can assure you there is no way that running it on the dogbone adapter would cause that issue. Only thing that would cause is popping the breaker you are plugged into at the house. You would need to pull the coroplast (protective cover) to get a look at the junction box and molex plug we are talking about.

I concur with Neil. If it was the dogbone, you'd have more than one outlet affected.

Jim

[HappyCampers29RS]

HappyCampers29RS

Having the same unit as you do we did have an issue with losing power to the chairs while on a trip. The faulty area was the receptacle on the kitchen side end table by the couch. This was the last place I had electricity. I removed the receptacle and found the wires were not making contact , re-did to the wires and they worked. I realize you said that you had power to the end table by the recliner slide but it may be possible that the power is not passing thru that receptacle. These receptacles are pressed together with a special tool but you can carefully remove the whit back and check the wires for contact. Once you get inside one it will be easy to see how they work. Make sure there is nothing holding the wires from making contact. You can press these back together with a board or by hand, it take some force to do this.
As always while working with electricity be safe and remove all power from the unit , we do not need a shocking experience reported.
If this does not fix the problem then you may need to go under and remove some of the corplast.

Brian

Hi Brian! Thanks so much for this tip - interesting! So I have electricity to the recliner side end table by the couch, so that might be the place to look. We assumed that the outlet behind the recliners and the dining table were on their own, so if one wasn’t working that would explain why the other wasn’t either. But you are saying that although that outlet works, the power may be stopped there and not making it to those other two outlets, correct? I will show this to my husband when I get home and I will let you know what we find! No shocking experiences, I promise! Thank you!

[howson]

HappyCampers29RS

Having the same unit as you do we did have an issue with losing power to the chairs while on a trip. The faulty area was the receptacle on the kitchen side end table by the couch. This was the last place I had electricity. I removed the receptacle and found the wires were not making contact , re-did to the wires and they worked. I realize you said that you had power to the end table by the recliner slide but it may be possible that the power is not passing thru that receptacle. These receptacles are pressed together with a special tool but you can carefully remove the whit back and check the wires for contact. Once you get inside one it will be easy to see how they work. Make sure there is nothing holding the wires from making contact. You can press these back together with a board or by hand, it take some force to do this.
As always while working with electricity be safe and remove all power from the unit , we do not need a shocking experience reported.
If this does not fix the problem then you may need to go under and remove some of the corplast.

Brian

I can see how that can happen--the wire coming off that end table then goes into the Molex to power the outlets in the slide.

HappyCampers29RS , if there's no power on the end table outlet closest to the couch slide, check the other end table's outlet, too (same circuit). There's two more outlets in the kitchen on the same circuit (if the drawing I am referencing is accurate--which it may not be). You can always verify what outlet is on what circuit by turning off the circuit breaker and then checking to see which outlets(s) don't work. (Might want to briefly turn off the refrigerator to keep it from trying to switch to gas.)

[Country Campers]

I can see how that can happen--the wire coming off that end table then goes into the Molex to power the outlets in the slide.

HappyCampers29RS , if there's no power on the end table outlet closest to the couch slide, check the other end table's outlet, too (same circuit). There's two more outlets in the kitchen on the same circuit (if the drawing I am referencing is accurate--which it may not be). You can always verify what outlet is on what circuit by turning off the circuit breaker and then checking to see which outlets(s) don't work. (Might want to briefly turn off the refrigerator to keep it from trying to switch to gas.)

Yes this is how the electricity flows from one side to the other.
Power goes back thru the kitchen slide into the end table on that side then across to the end table on the recliner side and then down under the floor to the Molex connector and then powers the recliners. It took me a while when this happened to figure out the wiring direction and how it all worked. By the way it is not up to RV standards but I did replace the one receptacle with a standard house receptacle and an old work box. These are not recommended to be used in an RV so if you do decide to do this please do at your own risk.

Brian

[HappyCampers29RS]

I can see how that can happen--the wire coming off that end table then goes into the Molex to power the outlets in the slide.

HappyCampers29RS , if there's no power on the end table outlet closest to the couch slide, check the other end table's outlet, too (same circuit). There's two more outlets in the kitchen on the same circuit (if the drawing I am referencing is accurate--which it may not be). You can always verify what outlet is on what circuit by turning off the circuit breaker and then checking to see which outlets(s) don't work. (Might want to briefly turn off the refrigerator to keep it from trying to switch to gas.)

Ok so we went back in to look at everything. We verified that both end table outlets are working. All kitchen and hutch outlets working. All bathroom and bedroom outlets working (even the one on the ceiling for the TV). All basement, wet bay, outdoor kitchen outlets working. The only two outlets in the entire rig not working are the one behind the recliners and the one behind the dining table. Took out the outlet in the end table by the couch, closest to the recliners. Everything appeared normal, connections all tight. Guess we will be diving deeper into this over the weekend and going under the slide. Thanks for all the suggestions...was hoping for a little bit of an easier fix, but we sure are learning a lot!

[Jkwilson]

One thing to keep in mind is that a bad connection alone won’t cause low voltage. You can hook a flashlight battery to two strands of rusty barbed wire a quarter mile long and the voltage will be the same at both ends of the wires.

Low voltage happens when current flows through a bad connection.

That fact can be very helpful when tracing a problem. If you have a string of outlets with a bad connection in the middle, you’ll only see a voltage drop if something is plugged in where it is trying to draw current through the bad connection. Having a wiring diagram (or making one as you go) can be a time saver.

The other key to finding the problem is to measure hot to ground in addition to hot to neutral. If the readings are different, it points to a connection problem on the neutral side.if the are the same, but low, it points to a problem in the hot side

[howson]

One thing to keep in mind is that a bad connection alone won’t cause low voltage. You can hook a flashlight battery to two strands of rusty barbed wire a quarter mile long and the voltage will be the same at both ends of the wires.

Low voltage happens when current flows through a bad connection.

That fact can be very helpful when tracing a problem. If you have a string of outlets with a bad connection in the middle, you’ll only see a voltage drop if something is plugged in where it is trying to draw current through the bad connection. Having a wiring diagram (or making one as you go) can be a time saver.

The other key to finding the problem is to measure hot to ground in addition to hot to neutral. If the readings are different, it points to a connection problem on the neutral side.if the are the same, but low, it points to a problem in the hot side

This is great info! As a homeowner I've found (and fixed) random problems with outlets, but I do not have a lot of experience thus if you don't mind I'd like to pick your brain a little more (to learn).

Let's assume for a moment the bad connection is in the Molex. The Molex is between the (accessible) outlet in the end table and the outlet in the slide. What would you expect to find is the failure mode in the Molex connector given the 35v measurement at the slide outlet? (The OP measured 120v at the end table outlet.) Could water in the Molex act like "something is plugged in"? I think we can rule out 1) a short since that will pop the circuit breaker (not the issue), and 2) an open (disconnected wire) in the Molex as that would result in 0v measurements at the slide outlets (also not the issue). Or am I missing something?

I hope HappyCampers29RS retakes the readings in the slide outlet and reports what they find based on your hint to check "hot to ground in addition to hot to neutral".

[ncitro]

This is great info! As a homeowner I've found (and fixed) random problems with outlets, but I do not have a lot of experience thus if you don't mind I'd like to pick your brain a little more (to learn).

Let's assume for a moment the bad connection is in the Molex. The Molex is between the (accessible) outlet in the end table and the outlet in the slide. What would you expect to find is the failure mode in the Molex connector given the 35v measurement at the slide outlet? (The OP measured 120v at the end table outlet.) Could water in the Molex act like "something is plugged in"? I think we can rule out 1) a short since that will pop the circuit breaker (not the issue), and 2) an open (disconnected wire) in the Molex as that would result in 0v measurements at the slide outlets (also not the issue). Or am I missing something?

I hope HappyCampers29RS retakes the readings in the slide outlet and reports what they find based on your hint to check "hot to ground in addition to hot to neutral".

I’d expect a high resistance connection in the plug. Probably corrosion on the terminal’s. That would show low voltage but not allow any meaningful current to flow when trying to use something plugged in to the downstream outlet.

[Jkwilson]

This is great info! As a homeowner I've found (and fixed) random problems with outlets, but I do not have a lot of experience thus if you don't mind I'd like to pick your brain a little more (to learn).

Let's assume for a moment the bad connection is in the Molex. The Molex is between the (accessible) outlet in the end table and the outlet in the slide. What would you expect to find is the failure mode in the Molex connector given the 35v measurement at the slide outlet? (The OP measured 120v at the end table outlet.) Could water in the Molex act like "something is plugged in"? I think we can rule out 1) a short since that will pop the circuit breaker (not the issue), and 2) an open (disconnected wire) in the Molex as that would result in 0v measurements at the slide outlets (also not the issue). Or am I missing something?

I hope HappyCampers29RS retakes the readings in the slide outlet and reports what they find based on your hint to check "hot to ground in addition to hot to neutral".

Assuming power runs from the end table outlet directly to the slide outlet, if the hot to ground voltage is higher than the hot to neutral voltage, there is likely a problem in the neutral. If hot to neutral and ground are the same but low, there is a problem in the hot.

Water in the Molex may cause some leakage, it won’t draw enough current to cause any issues absent a GFCI. Water really isn’t a great conductor of electricity. You’d see somewhere around 6mA to 120mA . The bigger issue with water is corrosion of the contacts in the connector.

[HappyCampers29RS]

So, we were outside talking and decided to take a look under the slide, just to see what we could see. THIS is what we could see!

[ncitro]

So, we were outside talking and decided to take a look under the slide, just to see what we could see. THIS is what we could see!

Well that would certainly do it. Looks like from the photos you spliced it back together? Working properly now?

[howson]

So, we were outside talking and decided to take a look under the slide, just to see what we could see. THIS is what we could see!

Wow--good find!

As asked by ncitro , splice them back together? Any way to mitigate the wire from chaffing against the spring in the future?

[HappyCampers29RS]

Wow--good find!

As asked by ncitro , splice them back together? Any way to mitigate the wire from chaffing against the spring in the future?

We are researching best method to splice back together and how to protect the line from the constant chaffing. Wow, poor design, I have to say! I hope GD has recognized this on the newer models!