Interior Lights - Short or ground issue?

[BC320G]

Hello,

I have a new 2022 320G and am having a really frustrating issue. I've only been out twice in it - first time, zero issues. Second time, my fridge wouldn't get cold on 120V shore power (off plug from home garage, ran for 12+ hours), however worked on 50A power when I got to our site. On propane, it starts to get cold within an hour.

Brought the rig home for a boondock trip and I think I better understand why the fridge didn't work off 120V power - any time I hit the backlit interior light switch (blue - on the main control panel inside), the interior lights flicker and dim and often shut off, the battery gauge goes bonkers (full to 1/3 to dead to nothing) but when I turn the switch off, voila, battery shows full (as it should - I've had them disconnected and they are brand new, and fully charged off our last full service trip). Slides work fine under all conditions.

My issue seems to be directly correlated to the interior light switch. It is even making the other lights (underbelly and nose) flicker and turn off.

No chance the batteries are dead, they are less than 30 days old and have barely been used. The issue seems to be limited to 120V power and 12V power, our multi-day full service at 50A service was fine.

I've checked behind the panel and nothing obvious. Battery connections also checked and fine.

Has anyone every experienced this? Really frustrating, have not owned this thing for more than a month thus far.

[howson]

BC320G -- from the description, my guess is when the interior light is toggled there's a short induced back to the battery. Finding the problem will require troubleshooting wires with an ohmmeter. A self-resetting circuit breaker may be tripping when the short is triggered explaining the visual indications.

I can't visualize how the 12V issue could affect the 120V heater circuit on the refrigerator. 12V is used by the frig's control board to manage ALL cooling modes.

[Country Campers]

The only connection between the 12 v dc sysem and the 120 v ac system is the converter/charger. I would guess that the connection between the converter/charger to the 12 v dc panel is good but the connection between the battery and the 12 v dc system may not be good. Check the battery wires at the battery as well as the connections to the self resetting breakers that are found near the battery, there will also be some ground connections in that area to check as well. You may also want to check the connections in the power distribution panel for both circuits, please turn off shore power and disconnect the battery cables when doing this, make sure they are all tight.. Even on 120 v ac shore power the fridge requires 12 v dc to operate. The lighting circuit is also 12 v dc.

Brian

[TedS]

Any chance the 120volt at home is powering only one leg of the 50 amp and it is not the leg the refrigerator is on?

[TedS]

Does that interior light switch work as it's supposed to when you're on a 50-amp pedestal?

If everything works as it should on a 50-amp pedestal, the trailer circuits are good. Then the problem would be with the 120 volt hookup at home.

[BC320G]

The light switch seems to cause the same mess when unplugged from 120v at home as well

[Yoda]

Hello,

I have a new 2022 320G and am having a really frustrating issue. I've only been out twice in it - first time, zero issues. Second time, my fridge wouldn't get cold on 120V shore power (off plug from home garage, ran for 12+ hours), however worked on 50A power when I got to our site. On propane, it starts to get cold within an hour.

Brought the rig home for a boondock trip and I think I better understand why the fridge didn't work off 120V power - any time I hit the backlit interior light switch (blue - on the main control panel inside), the interior lights flicker and dim and often shut off, the battery gauge goes bonkers (full to 1/3 to dead to nothing) but when I turn the switch off, voila, battery shows full (as it should - I've had them disconnected and they are brand new, and fully charged off our last full service trip). Slides work fine under all conditions.

My issue seems to be directly correlated to the interior light switch. It is even making the other lights (underbelly and nose) flicker and turn off.

No chance the batteries are dead, they are less than 30 days old and have barely been used. The issue seems to be limited to 120V power and 12V power, our multi-day full service at 50A service was fine.

I've checked behind the panel and nothing obvious. Battery connections also checked and fine.

Has anyone every experienced this? Really frustrating, have not owned this thing for more than a month thus far.

Corey
On place to check is where GD combines all of the 12V negative return lines (white wires) and ties them to the frame. On my unit they used a big blue twist wire nut and I found it loose. My connections were buried in spray foam below the main 12 power bar. It was located in the front compartment far right corner. The 12V positive power bar is covered by a black plastic cover. Below and right is where I found the blue twist nut.

It may look something like this. The negative return wires (white) can be seen below. On wire form the blue wire nut (not visible) attaches to the frame. The yellow, white and blue wires I added for my 12V CPAP in the bedroom project.


A closer look at the ground connection. The last picture is of the blue wire nut that was buried in the foam below. The single wire running to the frame was loose. My solution was to build a ground bar, or negative return bar is the more correct term and attach each wire separately.

This is the primary ground area GD used on my unit, but there are others too

Hope this helps

Keith

[Jlawles2]

Well after reading several threads with ground issues on the trailers, I fell off the deep end and spent more money. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yoda Your welcome Keith.

[Yoda]

Well after reading several threads with ground issues on the trailers, I fell off the deep end and spent more money. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yoda Your welcome Keith.

You got off cheap. I went with Blue Sea.....but glad I could help.
Keith

[BC320G]

I have made some progress troubleshooting. We were boondocking this past weekend and experienced the same: with the lights turned on, the monitor panel goes wonky and power flickers, battery gauge shows nothing, water pump won't work etc.

A second set of eyes identified that the red led beside the monitor panel fuse was lit up - bingo. Tapping the fuse resolved the issue - however not a permanent "fix" as this seems to be temporary. Over the course of three days I had to do this about 5 times to keep things working.

The pattern seems to be based on loads - when lights and water pump come on, the fuse kicks out after several moments. As it is resolved by contact, I was a bit concerned the board has an issue so did not do the simple fix of swapping the fuse and exacerbating maybe a bad solder behind the board and getting stuck out there.

Brought it home, pulled the fuse to see one leg of it clearly has heat markings (tarnished), and it looks like only half of the receptacle was making contact with the blade on that same side. I crimped the receptacle down tighter and put a new fuse in and things seem fine after some quick testing - I would like more time to run it and see if that was all it was.

Learning process.... thanks for all the replies!