By Kevin L. Vaughn

Just this week a neighbor here in Florida arrived with a brand-new Forest River Class A.  It was his first RV, and he had arrived here from Canada.  Being energy conscious, he invested in an Electric Outdoor grill instead of LP like most of us have.  Naturally, he had the typical RV appliances running inside like the refrigerator, microwave and the air conditioners.

So as the story went, as soon as he plugged in his electric grill, he heard “POP” and all the electric power went out in the coach.  Well he circled around and found me at home and asked for my assistance to track down the gremlin.  Although he already checked the pedestal, I started there again and worked downstream.

When I finally got to the GFI outlets, Forest River had put six of them at the foot of the bed, directly to the right of the breaker panel. There was no easy access to the back side of them. Two of the six GFI outlets would not reset, leading me to believe that perhaps they were really FUBAR.

By this time the local Mobile RV Repair showed up to take a deep dive, which was a two-day event.  It was to simply find the Magnum Invertor.  As the owner shared, it was mounted mid-coach, between the frame-rails, behind a wooden cover in a typical tight spot making it near impossible to remove.

The owner said he tried to reach tech support and received a recorded message that his specific product was no longer being made NOR supported by their techs.  The first thing the Mobile Tech tried was to turn off the power and restart it again, and was met with no success.  So this big Mobile Tech guy cammed himself into the basement and stuff his arms into the frame rails to loosen the mounts hoping to remove and replace the Invertor.  After a few of the mounting screws came out, the invertor twisted to the right and way back on the left rear side was a button sticking out.  It was the “RESET BUTTON” that when depressed, restored the power to the coach.

I have to comment that I am floored by the mindless design of putting the POWER and RESET on different sides knowing these are stuffed into unforgiving places in the bowels of an RV.  Furthermore, really great engineering by Forest River burying this thing so you had no idea there was even a RESET for the device.

So, when you get a moment, I suggest you find this device on your RV (if you have one), locate the buttons, photograph the model and serial number, and perhaps locate a valid tech support phone number in advance of a fire-drill like this.

Safe Travels and Jacks Up!