Very mild electrical shock

[dsfriday]

Has anyone ever tried to check their tire pressure will the coach was hooked to shore power? Did you feel something like a pen prick? I did. Today, I was checking tire pressure on our BFT, had it parked in the driveway and plugged into 110. Everytime I pushed the tire gauge against the valve stem on the front tires, felt like a pen prick. At first, thought there was a sharp edge on my tire gauge, then, thought I had picked up a piece of steel in my finger. When I got to the left rear duals and my arm came in contact with the wheels, the same sensation. Then the thought occurred to me, since I was so close to the power cord, somehow, someway, I was getting a very mild electrical shock. Sure enough, when I unplugged the power cord the pen pricks stopped. So when the coach is plugged in, I have a very mild electrical current running through the chassis. Is this normal?

[Dave&JanPotter]

It is not a normal situation and is a serious problem you should fix immediately. Your coach uses a grounded connection to shore power which includes one wire dedicated to ground so the coach should not float above ground when connected to shore power. When you get that mild shock, you are becoming the path to ground and since you do not know the source of the current leak you also do not know when it could increase, perhaps to a level that is dangerous to your safety. Its sort of like the squirrel that ran along the high voltage wire leading to the transformer on the power pole serving my house last Friday night. He was ok as long as he was on the high voltage line but when he ran across the fuse and spanned to the ground line, the fuse blew, I lost power and the crows had fried squirrel for supper. I guess I am sensitive to this subject based upon my professional experience as Chief Engineer on a large diesel-electric powered ship. We were paranoid about grounds and spent a lot of time chasing them down. On an older coach, I'd say that you might have had an internal connection come lose due to vibration, but since you have a new coach, I'd call Kim at BF Customer Service ASAP, as something may not have been connected correctly to begin with. I found on my coach that the wire nuts on my main shore tie connection to the coach were the wrong size and had begun to melt under load so the factory does occasionally make mistakes.

[whemme]

dsfriday,

It may be that the center ground terminal on your particular shore line power socket may actually not be grounded. Or I suppose that same ground connection in your coach wiring may also be open. Like Dave said, you should get that checked out because it could be dangerous to your health.

[dsfriday]

Born Free is on plant shutdown and Kim is off. Tomorrow, I'm going to visit with local electrican and see if he can verify that my outside house plug in is grounded. It does have the 3rd hole for the ground connection but may be something internal is amiss. I noticed when I connect power cable to coach and then plug cable into outside house outlet, I get a little snap, spark. Hopefully, he can also verify that cable is making ground when plugged in.

[BornFree_n_Now]

Might consider having a unit such as this to test any power source before you connect your coach to it ~~

http://www.campingworld.com/browse/skus ... unum=24900

[dsfriday]

Found the problem and it wasn't the coach. My outside house plug-in isn't grounded. Had an engineering buddy come over with meter and with coach plugged in there was about a 9 volt discharge at the rear duals, the source of the pin pricks. Futhermore, he concluded the grounds anywhere in the house were subpar (older home with wiring upgrade but evidently no attention paid to grounding. Checked the garage which is new and all grounds check to 120 volts and with camper plugged into garage oulet about 30 mini volts, or whatever the term, discharge at rear duals. Thanks again to those who came to my aid, this RV thing would be total frustration with this website. Thanks again, Denny.