Breaker Problem

I have a 2011 Cameo F37RESLS. When trying to use the central vacuum, it came on for a second then quit as though it tripped a breaker. I also lost power to the bathroom plug near the sink, the outside receptacle and the receptacle in the storage bay. I removed the wall where the vacuum is located. The receptacle for the vacuum has no power, as expected. All breakers in the main panel have power thru them. I can’t find a GFCI plug anywhere. The only GFCI breaker is in the main panel. I have reset and also checked that it does have power. It seems to be wired only to the plug on the bottom of the kitchen island. There must be a breaker somewhere that I am missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Carlin Craig

Craig,

That gfi in the main circuit panel should feed outside outlet by front awning rail, bathroom outlet, and all kitchen counter top/island outlets.

I believe it should also power the vacuum and the basement outlet by TV antennae output.

If you have solar,solar prep, or an inverter, some of these may be on a sub-panel.

Do you have a subpanel?

Separately someone might have installed a unnecessary gfi outlet in one or more of the locations identified above. This extra gfi outlet on a breaker panel gfi circuit can cause real headaches most notably sometimes one pops and sometimes the other pops. The popping of the gfi in the breaker box will kill power to all outlets on the circuit. When the gfi outlet itself pops, depending upon how it is wired, will cut off power to only itself, or to itself and all of the outlets downstream of it. And sometimes, but not always, it will pop the one of the breaker panel also.

Hope this helps.

Thanks very much for your response. I cannot find a gfi plug anywhere. I don’t have an inverter or solar. I do have an onboard generator but I am running on shore power presently. I tripped the gfi breaker in the main panel and the only outlet that lost power was the kitchen island plug. Perhaps I have a loose connection on the next plug in the circuit after the island, but it would seem the breaker in main panel would have popped if that is the case? I don’t have a subpanel that I can find. I am the original owner and have not installed a gfi outlet anywhere. Thanks again!

Yikes Craig, this implies that outlets next to water sources in bathroom and kitchen are not protected by gfi.

My guess is they put the gfi in the wrong slot at the factory. It needs to be in the slot that feeds the outlets I described earlier. What circuit the kitchen outlets are on is not difficult to track down. Not sure you will be comfortable swapping the breakers even if the power is off, but I can walk you through it or get you to a point that can save you a lot of time/$ with an RV Tech.

None of this explains your initial problem with the vacuum not having power now. That is probably a bad connection not related to gfi.

I have a 2010, which may be slightly different, but not by much. I am not at camper, but can go there to confirm what breaker the vac is fed from on my 2010 model. (I suspect the gfi, but don’t want you jumping to that conclusion).

Just a thought, have you tried (1) tightening all of the lugs on the circuit breakers? (you do this with shore power disconnected!!!! and then after removing the 4 screws that hold the breaker cover plate in place, and re-installing that cover plate before reconnecting shore power!!!!), and (2) throwning all of your breakers fully off, then on, then off, then on again? This can be done on shore power or off shore power, but if on shore power don’t do that to air conditioning breakers if the A/C units are on or running, or the microwave if it is cooking something. Everything else should be fine with the short blip. This will get all non-gfi circuits confirmed as on… does the vac work now?

If yes, you still need to get the “wet” areas protected with gfi, but you know you do not have a lose wire.

I will check connections on all non-working plugs (bathroom, basement, vacuum, and outside). I did remove the hot lead from the gfi in the main panel and put it in another 20 amp breaker, after removing it’s hot lead to remove the gfi breaker from the circuit. After reapplying power there was no change in the non-working outlets. I have not checked the lug tightness, but will. I did verify that all breakers show 120 V in the on position. Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know when I find the problem. I think it might be the outlet behind the basement wall that the vacuum is plugged into. It appears to have two romex cables. One inbound and one out. I hope to find one loose.

On my 2011, I have a GFI next to the kitchen sink and a GFI breaker in the panel. In my mind, it seems like the bathroom plug is also GFI, but I can’t swear to it.

This is going to sound odd, but check your transfer switch. When mine went, I lost power to all outlets on the full wall slide only. After looking at the transfer switch, I have absolutely no idea how there was any power in the coach. I don’t think this is your problem since you have power after all breakers, but worth a look since you’re in that wall anyhow.

I may have missed it in my reading. But, verify the there is no GFI in the bathroom, kitchen, or the outside outlet. If you have done this already, i apologize. I’ve been working too much.

I’ve been snowed in in the Rockies the last few days. I finally found my problem. The plug near the bathroom sink had a loose connection. It has 1 inbound cable and 2 outbound cables all connected on the blade connectors on this outlet. I could see scorch marks on the plastic backing from arcing. I put pigtails on the outlet connectors and wire nuts on the cables with electrical tape. Power was restored to the kitchen island outlet, the vacuum outlet, the basement outlet, the outside outlet, and the bathroom. The only GFCI breaker I have is the one in the main panel and does control all the above outlets but it did not trip. Thanks to all for your advise.

I have a 2011 Cameo 37CKSLS and I have a GFCI breaker that is tripped and for the life of me I cannot find the GFCI plugs anywhere……does anyone have any suggestions….thanks.

GingerL,
That gfi in the main circuit panel should feed the outside outlet by front awning rail, bathroom outlet, and all kitchen counter top/island outlets.

I believe it should also power the vacuum and the basement outlet by TV antennae output. All of these have regular looking grounded outlets.

If you reset the popped gfi in the main panel and it pops immediately, there is something wrong with what is plugged into those outlets, or like a user above, a wire in one of those outlets has jiggled loose.

If you have solar,solar prep, or an inverter, some of these may be on a sub-panel, and that sub panel should have a gfi for those outlets. Since yours is a 2011, they may have wired a feeder breaker (in the main panel) to that sub panel, and simply left the gfi in the main panel with no load.

Do you have power at all outlets listed?
1. Outside outlet by front awning rail;
2. bathroom outlet;
3. all kitchen counter top/island outlets;
4. Kitchen Island outlet if you have an island; and
5. Basement outlet by TV antennae output/vacuum.

If yes, pop or throw the gfi in the main panel. Did you lose power to some or all of the outlets listed above? If yes you lost power, you found the outlets protected by the gfi breaker. If you still have power to any/all of those listed outlets, they are not protected by the gfi in the main panel.

If you still have power in some/all of the listed outlets, go to this next step.

Turn the gfi circuit back on, but make note of any if the above outlets that list power in that process.

In this next step, you will temporarily turn off power to every circuit in the camper, so it is best if you turn off any heavy loads like AC for a few minutes while you finish this test.

In the main panel, to the far left should be the main feed in breaker. It is the wide breaker, about 1.5 inches wide. For the time being, do not touch that one. (mine is labeled “Main. Main.”

Now, turn off (flip down) the breakers one at a time; checking each time that you still have power to the remaining plugs listed. If you lose power, make note of what breaker that outlet is on. Turn that breaker back on. Do this in sequence, one breaker at a time, left to right. You can skip the gfi breaker because you already know what it does.

If you have another wide breaker like the “Main. Main” in mine, or a smaller one that is labeled “Subpanel.” If so, this feeds a sub panel. If this one turns off power to the outlets, just take note of it, and turn it back on, and continue with testing all of the other breakers in the main panel.

Throwing the far left “Main. Main” breaker turns all power in the trailer off. This is why you do not test it. If you have a sub panel, throwing the sub panel breaker will turn off all circuits in that sub panel. That breaker (in the main panel) that feeds the sub panel may be 3/4 inch wide or 1.5 inch wide, depending upon what was wired into the sub panel and how it was wired.

If you have a breaker in the main panel that feeds a sub panel, you will need to find that subpanel and continue testing the breakers in that sub panel.

Hopefully this gets you close to where you need to be. If all of this sound Greek to you, no offense to you or the Greeks, you should find someone close by that knows enough to walk you through this process. It should not take more than ten minutes to test all breakers.

If you report back, we can chat about a fix if one is needed.

GingerL wrote:I have a 2011 Cameo 37CKSLS and I have a GFCI breaker that is tripped and for the life of me I cannot find the GFCI plugs anywhere……does anyone have any suggestions….thanks.

Hi John…thanks so much for the help. We have been out of service for the last two weeks so I couldn’t reply. It turns out it was the vacuum cleaner in the basement that was causing the problem. For some reason the GFCI breaker was also affected so I had to replace it. So the vacuum is unplugged and the new breaker is working like a charm. Thank you so much for all of your help.