- Joined
- Jul 27, 2019
- Messages
- 11,726
- Location
- Midlothian, VA
- RV Year
- 2017
- RV Make
- Newmar
- RV Model
- Ventana 4037
- RV Length
- 40' 10"
- Chassis
- Freightliner XCR
- Engine
- Cummins 400 HP
- TOW/TOAD
- 2017 Chevy Colorado
- Fulltimer
- No
Hanging out in Charleston, SC awaiting my move into Hilton Head Island Motorcoach on Tuesday I figured I'd enjoy a lazy Saturday. Laying in bed watching TV amazed at how nice OTA TV channels are and all of the sudden my NEST smoke detector above my bed turns yellow and announces "Alert - smoke in the basement. Alarm will sound soon and will be loud." I go flying out the door as did the dog, I yelled "lunch cookie" to auto retrieve dog, she came back running into the coach and I gave her a quick cookie then launched back out the door. I started opening all basement doors to ventilate as I didn't want the alarm to go off. I smelled something burning, electrical I assumed and started looking. I didn't see smoke. I checked the inverter, battery bay, shore power area, all looked good so I figured it was the same ole same ole OASIS! Verified inside by it not working with AC I / II ON. No breakers were tripped which is surprising.
This one really stumped me. Thank goodness for my electrical tester pen to test current. Something was very odd in 120V readings. I figured it was one of the connections I redid in the past and those new fangled connectors some of which were still in use so I decided to redo all connectors. Still no luck! Great! I then found the issue as shown below, the wire completely separated, looks like some deterioration for some reason. My concern was this wire looks like it's coming from the other side of the unit, how am I going to fix this? Well, it's not, it's actually a 120V line coming from the main junction area just pushed under the insulation. I pulled it out and then removed the heat shrink to find it's a 10 awg line and spade connector which I didn't have so a trip to Lowes to get.
New spade installed and all works fine once again. Just when I was enjoying OASIS finally working right after years of it being on only one 120V line from a short, failed relay, etc. So in this case it appears corrosion caused this failure. I can't say I have good thoughts of ITR Heat's electrical work. The hydronic heating system works great, when it works, but there have been far too many electrical issues and in this case they are not handling corrosive effects properly. I can only think what if they designed systems for aircraft how critical that would be and the impact of those failures.
ITR Heat - you need to do better on your electrical work! This is just another failure and another major safety problem for RVers you could be responsible for.
As to the NEST smoke detectors, which were installed as a result of OASIS shorts in the past, I have to say how happy I am with having installed them. I replaced both inside with NEST detectors and added two in the basement, one over the inverter, one over the shore power reel which picks up the smoke from the neighboring OASIS system as it did today. Great alert, very clear and got me moving immediately for action.
