I brought our 16 Deluxe home from the factory last week. We camped three nights on the way back and tried all the various appliances on-board and found no issues using the 30 AMP campground service. Today for the first time I plug in the shoreline (using the 15 AMP adapter) into my garages 20 AMP outlet which immediately trips the GFI.
Trouble shooting begins:
- I tried three other circuits which also have a GFI and they tripped the GFI as well.
- 1st Phone call to Scamp Service Dept. and they said some GFI will trip while others might not.
- Double checked my efforts and using a tester checked each circuit/via the receptacle and found no wiring mismatches.
- Shut off all 110V breakers in the Scamp. I then plugged in the shoreline and the GFI tripped.
- 2nd phone call to Scamp and was told that their trailers do not work with GFI very well and it has to do with adapting down from 20 AMP to a 30 AMP shoreline. I was told to find a NON GFI receptacle and plug in and everything would power up OK.
Has anyone else encountered this issue?
It would seem to me that if all Scamp side breakers are OFF and it still trips the GFI there would be a problem between neutral and ground somewhere. The factory answer troubles me.
One last note: If I remember correctly when we went through the demonstration of how things worked in the trailer at the factory the unit shoreline was plugged into a regular 20 AMP extension cord on the factory floor. I do not know what their extension cord was plugged into. (GFI or not)
- Jeff
At work sometimes we run into a bad extension cord. I don't know if this will help but i use this thing when camping and around the house to check my work when i'm done my be something similar could work to find the issue. Everything on owner 2017 Scamp 13' is working good so far. Please post it when you find the problem it's a learning curve for all of us. Take care.
Duane
Have Scamp will travel !
I wanted to update my original post having solved this problem.
I found my particular trailer had an earth ground to neutral fault.
SAFETY FIRST !! – Unplug the trailer shoreline so NO 110v POWER is going into the trailer.
I am no electrician but armed with my multi-meter (the trailer un-plugged with no power present) I tested each 110v circuit (for continuity) in our trailer until I narrowed it down. I found that one of the receptacles had the neutral (white) wire and bare earth ground touching. This ‘short’ was fixed by moving the wires apart so they no longer touched one another.
Now when the shoreline is plugged into my home GFCI receptacle everything works OK and the GFCI no longer trips.
I did contact the Scamp factory to alert them of the issue in hopes of preventing this mistake in the future.
Easy fix and I believe a critical safety lesson.
This fixed my issue as well. Since we purchase our Scamp 16 new in 2018 we have not been able to plug it in to a 110V protected by a GFCI. I went through all the outlets and sure enough, the outlet on the outside of the camper had its ground touching the neutral. I separated the wires, remounted the outlet, and we're good to go.
This is what i like about this web site. We all learn from one another and the love of Scamp camper's their the best even with the little in perfections. Just like people we are all a little different. :)
Have Scamp will travel !
Sometimes I see when a similar thing occurs, folks will find a work around for the GFCI breaker faulting instead of troubleshooting the cause. In this case your GFCI was correctly indicating a fault and you traced it down and found it. Great job!
Our Trailers:
2015 19 Escape
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Thanks for taking the time to call the factory. This lets them know what's up, and if they get someone else calling in then they know what's up and that they need to do a little training or education. So it's a win-win all around.
Hoping your adventures are wonderful,
Sue
2017 13' Bunk Bed/Big Bed
Subaru Outback 2011
Thanks for the info!
Shaney