I need some guidance please!

[DJ18]

I'm sure my level of ignorance of things electrical will at least entertain...
but I am looking for help. when we plug in at home, to a standard outlet in our house, nothing happens. when we plug into a regular RV outlet at a campground, nothing happens. When we plug into a gfi plug at a campground we go to, it trips the plug. so we take the plug to another outlet, and it sparks when first plugged in, but nothing is tripped and everything works. Our camper is plugged in at our house quite a lot. we run the air and some other things yet our electric bill is never much higher.

the caretaker at the campground where the gfi plug trips says we must have a short. would that be a short in the 110 system or the 12 v system? or is the fault in their wiring (which is kind of old)

I don't know how to test for shorts, in spite of looking on line for instructions. We have a lot of capped off wires in the command center over the couch, the radio apparently had a bad electrical problem and wires were melted, clipped off and covered. also we have wires that went to the propane tank sensor that are not connected. A new converter was installed before we bought the trailer, and it looks as if it were carefully and properly installed. I'm really at a loss to know how to even begin trying to figure this out and would be very grateful for some guidance.

[Razorback]

I think I would start by plugging one of these into an outlet in the trailer while you are connected to shore power and see what it says....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000RUL2UU?ta ... th=1&psc=1

[Razorback]

Wow!! That's a big pic!!

[Salty]

I think you have answered your own question. What Razorback has suggested is valid and useful, however, the answer lies here: " when we plug in at home, to a standard outlet in our house, nothing happens. when we plug into a regular RV outlet at a campground, nothing happens."
To me that means, at home and at campgrounds other than the offending one, everything works as designed and your GFI outlets are happy.
a GFI is designed to trip at a very low current level. The wiki here may help.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resid ... ent_device

In my mind the issue lies with the offending campground.This is of course is based on your description. I can armchair troubleshoot all day. There's no substitute for taking measurements.

[DJ18]

would the outlet tester just test my individual outlets for shorts? Last time we went, I was going to assume the short is in his old wiring somewhere, but this time, last week there were 4 or 5 other bigger campers plugged in and we were the only ones having a problem. my in-laws plugged into the same gfi outlet and it didn't trip. so I reluctantly decided I needed to learn more about shorts, trailer wiring and electricity.

or can I just test the reading at my trailer plug with a multimeter?

[Salty]

The average multimeter won't test for leakage current, which is what a GFCI is looking for. It's looking for a current path between hot and ground in excess of 5 milliamps or so. Very small. The issue could be the insulation in the power cord your using, or the receptacle. Another issue could be the GFCI itself. I've had them go bad.That wouldn't be my first choice here though.
To measure the resistance of the insulation on the electrical cord you're using requires a tool called a megger. It's an electrical tool used to measure breakdown voltage of the insulation in a pair of wires.
Suggestions:
Use a tester like above
Try a different power cord.
Change the offending GFCI ( they're cheap)
After that, nothing comes to mind at the moment.

[Jason]

When I had that issue I turned off each circuit breaker in the camper one at a time until the issue went away. Then I diagnosed the circuit that was causing it. For me it was the (un-insulated) ground wire for the AC touching the body. Not sure why that mattered.

[Salty]

Hmmm...
On original 80's Avions with a 30 amp system and a single AC, I believe the Microwave is on it's own breaker, the AC is on it's own breaker. The remaining receptacles are on a single 20 amp breaker.It's a ring. they're all connected in parallel.
@@Justin How did you resolve your problem?

[silverloaf]

Hmmm...
On original 80's Avions with a 30 amp system and a single AC, I believe the Microwave is on it's own breaker, the AC is on it's own breaker. The remaining receptacles are on a single 20 amp breaker.It's a ring. they're all connected in parallel.
@@Justin How did you resolve your problem?

Salty,

I think Jason's issue was the AC ground wire contacting the body, which is the DC ground point. Does this cause an electrical conundrum?

[Salty]

Funny you should mention it. Since, at least on my trailer, the AC/DC/Earth ground are the same. There had better be a zero difference of potential between them. By the same, I mean quite literally connected together. Since the skin is grounded/bonded, the contact of the bare ground in an AC romex to the skin should (had better) have no effect.