trailer blues

As far as letting it burn to the ground, that was my dads first comments after he say the burnt up box.

 

If you have a battery disconnect switch and it's OFF, then anything battery operated won't work if power is lost to the converter.

I got the trailer back to level by running the hydraulic pump with a cordless drill and a hex key. Only thing is the valves are electric and I had to put jumpers across the terminals to open them.

 

I removed the control box to jumper different devices to get them to function. No wiring diagrams anywhere in the information package and nothing labelled. We called the dealer service department requesting wiring diagrams, they said they tried to get diagrams from the factory before without success. How are they going to fix this thing? The dealer said "well, just bring it in and we'll look at it."

 

They had gone away from home for a week so I went out there and cut their grass,and drink some of their beer. When I went inside the trailer I noticed that the microwave clock wasn't on, no big deal, cheked the breakers everything was on. Checked the plug in outside and someone had just knocked it loose from the post. I opened the fridge to get a beer and almost puked. The fridge was off for a few days and the scallops and shrimp in the freezer were about to walk away on their own. What I didin't realize was that when the main power is off the fridge won't automatically switch to LPG if the battery disconnect switch is off. Lesson learned.

Last week again they finished up for the weekend and closed everything up. They were called by a neighbour the next morning and told that their 5th wheel was kneeling on the ground. I live within 1/2 from their spot so I took a drive out to investigate. Sure enough the front of the trailer was the bottom of the legs. You could smell the burnt electonics from 20ft away. I opened the front compartment where the contol box is located and was not surprised to see the cover melted really bad. This control box controls all the slides (3 of them), awning, front jacks, rear jacks all electrically and hydraulically from 2 different places and by remote control. Being an electrician, I removed the box from the wall and to my surprise there was a hole burnt through the back of the box the size of my hand. It had also actually burnt the plywood behind the box. Thank goodness the plywood is either treated with fire retardant or maybe there wasn't enough oxygen in the space to feed what could have been a devistating fire. Absolutely lucky the thing didn't burn to the ground.

I'll have to afro engineer things to get it closed up at the end of the season so they can return it to the dealer for extensive repairs whom are baffled as they've never heard of anything like this happening. 

So now that nothing works they can't move the trailer for their upcomming short trip to the Big Valley Jamboree. Being the kind hearted son, I lent them mine for the next 4 days. So if your in Camrose this weekend and see a CF31QB being dragged behind a GMC dirtymax, throw out a wave.

Sorry for the long post but thought I'd share this with everyone to keep in mind that anything can happen no matter how meticulous you are.