1997 Hi-Lo / No Power - Hi-Lo camper travel trailer forum

nohurrie · 09-19-2010, 07:02 PM

Hope someone has had this problem before and can help thanks. I had my hi-lo up by the house the other day getting ready to go camping. I plugged it in to the outlet at the house using a cheater plug. Later that evening I looked out the window and noticed that there were no lights on inside the trailer and went out to see why. NO POWER. I left it for the morning. Next morning, I checked the fuse box and no switches were tripped, however, when I would unplug and then plug the AC back in I would notice a little spark and a pop sound (short?). I unplugged the inverter (converter?) and plugged it in directly to the extension cord, same thing, slight spark and pop. Manual says look for trip switch between battery and pump. I don't have one, and all fuses are intact. Before I spring $200 or more for another inverter I'm asking for help here. I did though let the trailer run off of the DC (forgot to turn on the outlet outside) till it was almost dead but have since recharged it. Nothing on this unit is working, can't put it down to move. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks and may GOD bless
Dean

AplusMM · 06-21-2011, 10:59 AM

I know this thread is very old but in the interest of helping others who may have a similar problem I'd be interested in hearing what the solution to the problem ended up being.

If I was going to work on this problem I would start at the main breaker in the camper and work backwards by checking for power there, if none I would go back to the outlet where your camper is plugged in. If no power there I go to the breaker feeding the outlet. My guess is that that outlet was tripped but I have seen a lot of plugs (on the camper power cord) that had a loose wire in them. That's really bad on 50 amp service if the neutral wire is loose because the two 110 volt legs then join together to make 220 to everything in the camper. The first thing to go is usually the converter and everything 110 volts that was on when it happened.

As for a small spark when plugging in, that just simply means there was something turned on inside the camper causing a power draw. If you unplug or plug in a higher wattage light inside your home while it is turned on, you will get the same type of spark.

I have also had a few customers that didn't know that a tripped breaker does not flip the breaker all the way off, it is half way between on and off forcing you to push it all the way off before turning it back on. An easy way to check for this is push the toggle toward the on position, if it moves any at all it is tripped, push it off then back on and start checking again. It is possible for the breaker to trip again immediately, this tells you that there is either a dead short on the circuit or the breaker is weak (I found that on a 30 amp main at a state park the other day, the park said it wasn't their problem because there was power on the outlet when the breaker was reset. Customer had to pay my service call bill when it was the state's problem).

Sorry so long winded, I just like to see questions answered.

RichR · 06-21-2011, 02:07 PM

Did you check the 110 volt outlets inside to see if power is getting to them? The lights are 12 volts and must go through either the battery or the converter to work. The switch the manual talks about is a circuit breaker in the battery compartment that looks like a little metal box with two electrical connection posts on it. Some had a reset button on them. There could be two of them. One that goes to the lift pump and one that goes to the trailer circuitry. Those are good places to check to see if there is any power going in or out of them.

PopRichie77 · 06-21-2011, 03:32 PM

This is an old thread, nohurrie posted in 2 places, turned out to be a breaker tripped. He hasn't posted again since Sept 2010.

Rolff · 06-21-2011, 08:16 PM

I had a similar trouble in my '95. The emergency brakeaway plug got pulled so my battery was drained, this popped the trip switch the manual mentions. I spent an hour looking for it and finally called Tom in the Hi-Lo shop. He narrowed it down for me. The Trip switch was directly below a power cable and invisible from above and just hard to see from the front. Pushed it and all was well. I removed it and rotated it 90 degrees to get better access and so I would remember where it was.