Backwards buttons

[rmnpcolorado]

Here’s a weird deal that I’ve never run across before. We brought our trailer home for the summer and are ready to go out on our first weekend voyage and the button actions are backwards. Slide in sends the slide out, retract extends the tongue jacks. We’ve fried two 40amp fuses, which leads me to believe that something’s crossed, so we have no fridge power or lights. Thoughts?

[JRscooby]

Bobbo wrote:
Take green electrical tape and wrap it around the ground wires. Take red electrical tape and wrap it around the hot wires. Taking photos is great, as long as you can find the photos.

Then you will have any RV professional that needs to work on it in the future confused. If you want to mark with color, use industry standard. Yes, I understand green is ground when working with AC, you hamn sure do not want to ground AC to the battery. The fact we often use frame for negative on many DC circuits leads to careless use of language when AC and DC are used on same vehicle.

rmnpcolorado wrote:
For everyone wondering, it was that I indeed had the wires backwards. Black to positive, white to negative and all is well again. We take the battery completely off in wintertime and keep it in our basement. Even though I try to leave the wires on their respective sides, I suspect that when it was moved in and out of the shed they shifted and I didn’t think about it until I had no power. I’m still trying to figure out which one is supposed to have the inline fuse though, as it’s a red wire. I’m assuming positive. I want to make tags to identify them right on the wires.

Thank you for telling us you found the problem. It is very likely the fact of the mistake will be all the memory aid you need. But in my world everybody has duct tape, and most have a sharpie.

Few inches of duct tape, make a flag large enough to write positive or negative with sharpie

[Bobbo]

Take green electrical tape and wrap it around the ground wires. Take red electrical tape and wrap it around the hot wires. Taking photos is great, as long as you can find the photos.

[CA_Traveler]

rmnpcolorado wrote:
I want to make tags to identify them right on the wires.

And then take and retain pictures.

[rmnpcolorado]

For everyone wondering, it was that I indeed had the wires backwards. Black to positive, white to negative and all is well again. We take the battery completely off in wintertime and keep it in our basement. Even though I try to leave the wires on their respective sides, I suspect that when it was moved in and out of the shed they shifted and I didn’t think about it until I had no power. I’m still trying to figure out which one is supposed to have the inline fuse though, as it’s a red wire. I’m assuming positive. I want to make tags to identify them right on the wires.

[JRscooby]

Huntindog wrote:

rmnpcolorado wrote:
I think you’re exactly right, as when I disconnected the battery, replaced the fuses, and powered back up, all was good.

Now to figure out how I messed that up. I’ve only done this how many times before…

You probably blew the fuses on the convertor. There is ususally 4 of them IIRC. They are there just for when the battery is hooked up backwards. To prevent future brain farts, only dissconect 1 battery cable.

Few inches of duct tape, make a flag large enough to write positive or negative with sharpie.

[Fizz]

stickdog wrote:
I've learned pictures are better than my memory.

YUP!
Got a new boat last year. When I winterized it I saw the mess of wires going to the battery. Good thing I took a picture because I would have been lost this Spring trying to get it right.

[Huntindog]

rmnpcolorado wrote:
I think you’re exactly right, as when I disconnected the battery, replaced the fuses, and powered back up, all was good.

Now to figure out how I messed that up. I’ve only done this how many times before…

You probably blew the fuses on the convertor. There is ususally 4 of them IIRC. They are there just for when the battery is hooked up backwards. To prevent future brain farts, only dissconect 1 battery cable.

[stickdog]

I've learned pictures are better than my memory.

[JRscooby]

Boomerweps wrote:
Confusion sometimes occur from people working on house electric and mobile electric. House electric BLACK is hot, white is neutral or return, green is ground. Mobile 12vdc RED is hot/positive and black is return/negative/ground.

4x4van wrote:
And to make it even more confusing, many RVs use yellow as positive and white as negative!

I have not worked on all that many campers, but every one I have used white for ground. Now the positive, I have seen black, red, and brown. Yellow is new to me, but I would accept the possibility.
OP, Disconnect the battery, grab your Ohm meter, and check for continuity frame/end of white wire.
Reversed polarity is all that is needed to reverse direction a DC motor runs. And reversed polarity will blow fuse to protect the converter.

[4x4van]

And to make it even more confusing, many RVs use yellow as positive and white as negative!

[Boomerweps]

Confusion sometimes occur from people working on house electric and mobile electric. House electric BLACK is hot, white is neutral or return, green is ground. Mobile 12vdc RED is hot/positive and black is return/negative/ground.

[JRscooby]

rmnpcolorado wrote:
So to clarify, I had the large wires correct-white on positive, black on negative. But what about the little wires? I had the white on positive and the red with the inline fuse on negative.

I think right here is the problem. On all RVs I have messed with white is ground for the house part.

[CA_Traveler]

OP What you have learned is that DC motors turn in the opposite direction when the polarity is reversed.

Check everything especially items you don't use often and have a great trip.

[opnspaces]

I think he's describing his mis wire. the red with the fuse is positive. In fact any wire with a fuse near the battery is positive.

All the white wires are negative. You'll have to trace the small wires. Could be positive for the tongue jack. Or could be positive for the emergency breakaway switch.