GFI Not Resetting
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Forum Name: I need HELP!!!
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Printed Date: 09 Jun 2025 at 3:56pm
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Topic: GFI Not Resetting
Posted By: OhMyRedbeard
Subject: GFI Not Resetting
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 1:06am
I know there have been posts regarding this before but it’s 1:40AM and I’m currently at a campground, only for my wife to discover that the outlets aren’t working. This would be our 3rd trip since purchasing our 2024 RP-190C. The first two trips went fine (will detail those trips below and things we are doing differently this trip)
Trip 1:
Friends yard.
Systems Used: City water connection, power from a heavy-duty extension cord/30A puck. No hot water heater use. Dometic RM-2551 refrigerator on electric. No issues.
Trip 2:
Friends yard
Systems Used: City water connection, power from a heavy-duty extension cord/puck. Hot water using gas element. Dometic RM-2551 refrigerator on electric. No issues.
Now for the thing that will likely keep me from sleeping tonight.
Trip 3:
Cheboygan State Campground, Cheboygan, Michigan.
Systems Used: Water from fresh water holding tank. Power from 30A mast (breaker turned on at mast). Hot water using electric element. Dometic RM-2551 refrigerator on electric. Air conditioner on electric (humid as balls in northern MI at the moment). One small 5 cup-coffee maker.
Everything was working this trip (all day yesterday and as best I could tell, until about 3 hours ago) including our outside outlet as we had a Bluetooth speaker hooked up to it), and when my wife and I got into bed and attempted to charge her phone (the woman loves her pre-bed TikTok), we discovered the outlet wasn’t working and I began my chaotic, anxiety fueled search for answers.
Currently hooked up to shore power. Here’s what is working:
Air Conditioner (fully functional)
Microwave/Convection Oven (fully functional)
Water pump (fully functional)
All lights (including exterior and interior, fully functional)
Bathroom exhaust fan (fully functional)
The two USB ports immediately to the right of the entrance door, below the TV backer and next to the outlet
Here’s what isn’t working and what’s going on:
None of the outlets work other than the two aforementioned USB ports.
Refrigerator is behaving strangely. It does power on, but the “CHECK” light is rhythmically flashing twice, accompanied by what sounds like a spark igniter attempting to run the fridge off of gas, which makes me think it may not realize that it’s hooked up to shore power.
Now on to what I have tried
1. Flipping all circuit breakers in the panel from “On” to “Off” before back to “On”
2. Removing access panel from road-side of the trailer, unplugging fridge, flipping breakers, attempting to reset the CFI from the plate mounted buttons on the outlet under the bed (facing out from the compartment containing Hot Water Heater and water pump), replugginng fridge.
3. Attempted to reset breaker on power mast (On-Off-On).
4. Attempted to plug into 20A outlet on mast (flipped 30A off first). Flipped 20A breaker on, attached shore power cable with puck, attempted to reset GFCI, no luck.
Even though there are things working that to my knowledge shouldn’t be working if only on battery, it’s as if something in the upstream of the power isn’t recognizing the 120V from the mast to allow me to reset the GFCI.
Any long-term podders have *any* idea what’s going on?
Additional Tidbit: When connecting to *both* the 30A and 20A outlets at the mast, I can hear the distinctive “Beep” from the microwave/convection oven when flipping the breaker, so I am assuming that the trailer itself and whatever circuit the microwave/convection oven is powered by is recognizing the incoming power.
Another update: Ran an extension to the mast on the campsite next to ours where our friends have their Wolf Pup hooked up, and same issue. Wanted to do this to eliminate our power mast as the issue
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2024 RP-190C
2021 Nissan Frontier
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Replies:
Posted By: JR
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 7:54am
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I hope you're enjoying Cheboygan SP. You are correct it is very hot and sticky up here now for Michigan. Very good detail on what is going on with the electric in the RPod. Do you have a multimeter tester? It would be very handy in testing out and finding out the problem you are now encountering. If you don't no worries.
I think the problems you are having is related only to the GFCI outlet. You can use a 120 volt light like a table lamp (or multimeter) and plug it into the different outlets to find out if any of them work. If the GFCI outlet is tripped it should not allow any power any of the 120v outlets in and outside of the camper. Verify that all the 120v outlets are or are not GFCI. There should be only one that controls the power to all of the outlets. With the exception being the outlet for the fridge, microwave, and water heater (those outlets have their own breakers). If you have only one GFCI outlet and you can't reset it then most likely that outlet is defective and should be replaced. Once that is replaced you can see if the fridge starts operating correctly. If not you could always use the LP gas mode to operate the fridge until you get home and do some more extensive testing on that problem. Hope this helps from Manistee.
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Jay
179/2019
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Posted By: JR
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 8:02am
Also if you are going to be replacing the GFCI outlet use all electrical safety procedures. If you don't feel comfortable doing this type of work get an electrician to do it. Be safe.
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Jay
179/2019
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Posted By: OhMyRedbeard
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 10:13am
Originally posted by JR
Also if you are going to be replacing the GFCI outlet use all electrical safety procedures. If you don't feel comfortable doing this type of work get an electrician to do it. Be safe. |
Jay, thanks for your reply! I’ve done some troubleshooting with the help of some folks over on another unofficial, more generally FR forum and I think that you’re absolutely right in that it’s the singular GFCI outlet that has already gone bad. We picked it up from Northern Michigan RV in Gaylord less than a month ago and we’re just down in Crawford County so I don’t think they’ll give us too much guff about taking a look at a single GFCI outlet on a camper this new. The green light on the outlet is on but flickering intermittently, and all of the electrical that aren’t directly downstream of the GFCI circuit (or whatever, I’m a cook and not an electrician!) work flawlessly. Could be as simple as something having been jarred loose randomly from the back of the outlet. At least that’s how I see it. I was initially worried that my entire electrical system was borked but really, I think that if you’re gonna have an electrical problem that this sort of thing is a best case scenario from a fixability standpoint. Luckily the pedestal had a 20A standard outlet so between that and an extension cable, I was able to get sufficiently caffeinated, even if the coffee maker lived on the picnic table a bit.
Very happy that we discovered this now and not when we head to Newberry in 2 weeks
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2024 RP-190C
2021 Nissan Frontier
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Posted By: JR
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 2:34pm
Enjoy your new R-Pod and keep on making those camping memories.
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Jay
179/2019
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Posted By: jato
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2024 at 2:56pm
You can be thankful for Jay's expertise' in this area as well as getting this repaired before heading up into the U.P. About the only RV store I am aware of in the UP that carries a lot of supplies is located in Escanaba, unfortunately it was recently acquired by Camping World, which I am not a fan of. Will be in Manistique this week and will be enjoying weather in the 70's with lows in the upper 50's to lower 60's, and swell reprieve from the 'warm and moist' weather we have experienced for the past couple weeks.
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God's pod
'11 model 177
'17 Ford F-150 4WD 3.5 Ecoboost
Jim and Diane by beautiful Torch Lake
"...and you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free."
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Posted By: GlueGuy
Date Posted: 05 Aug 2024 at 8:58am
A GFCI tripping "could" be the GFCI itself, or you may have an appliance or something downstream with a ground fault. The flickering is suspicious, but just because a device is "fully functional", it does not mean that it can't have a ground fault.
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bp
2017 R-Pod 179 Hood River
2015 Ford F150 SuperCrew 4WD 3.5L Ecoboost
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Posted By: gpokluda
Date Posted: 05 Aug 2024 at 12:23pm
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Make sure you replace the outlet with an RV specific outlet which does not have exposed connectors. If you go with a residential outlet, you will need to put it in an electrical box, such as a old-work(remodel) gang box.
I've never been a fan of the RV specific outlets but unless you want to retrofit all new residential outlets and gang boxes, you're kinda stuck.
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Gpokluda
2017 Rpod 179(sold 2023)
2022 Escape 5.0TA
2022 Ford F150 4X4 3.5EB
Kawasaki KLR650
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Posted By: OhMyRedbeard
Date Posted: 07 Aug 2024 at 2:27pm
Still here and will report when/if I get it resolved. I don’t wanna be one of those people that gets an answer and then disappears as I believe in putting the information out there to potentially help someone with the same problem in the future. Our dealer’s service department is sort of giving us the runaround and I’m about to schedule an appointment with a very well respected local guy to come take a look at it. I’m trying to see what the dealer would be willing to fix for us at no out-of-pocket to us (since we’ve only had the thing a month), but time is also running out before our Newberry trip and I’d like to resolve it before then.
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2024 RP-190C
2021 Nissan Frontier
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Posted By: GlueGuy
Date Posted: 07 Aug 2024 at 2:37pm
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A simple test would be to disconnect the "downstream" wire on the back of the GFCI outlet and observe (1) if the flickering stops, and (2) whether it trips on its own.
You can bypass the GFCI with an extension cord to supply power to the other things you need to power.
If you're clever, you can jumper the downstream hot line with the upstream hot line, which will also bypass the GFCI. Do this as a test only, it is NOT a permanent fix.
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bp
2017 R-Pod 179 Hood River
2015 Ford F150 SuperCrew 4WD 3.5L Ecoboost
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Posted By: Rpod-Couple
Date Posted: 07 Aug 2024 at 7:07pm
The problem may be even simpler than the GFI. I had the same problem on my 2021 R-Pod. Forest River stripped the lead too short that attached to the GFI and it was not making connection. Probably jiggled loose on the 150 mile trip from the dealer. I stripped it a bit longer and reattached it. Easy and safe for you to inspect if you don’t have the Pod plugged into AC,
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Steve & Elaine
2021 R-pod
2023 VW Atlas Cross Sport
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Posted By: OhMyRedbeard
Date Posted: 08 Aug 2024 at 8:12am
Hey, thanks for the reply! I just checked the “Master” GFI under the bed and all of the connections are solid. Was your problem with the master outlet or was it a downstream outlet that you discovered the issue?
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2024 RP-190C
2021 Nissan Frontier
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Posted By: OhMyRedbeard
Date Posted: 10 Aug 2024 at 4:30pm
Status update: It’s fixed!.
It 100% ended up being a crap tier GFCI receptacle. Had someone replace it, and everything is now right as rain. Considering we leave for the U.P. in 11 days and the guy just happened to have another job cancel on him due to weather, I couldn’t have asked for better timing. Y’all definitely accurately diagnosed it as being related to that, which was backed up by my own testing. Live and learn! Thanks to all of you.
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2024 RP-190C
2021 Nissan Frontier
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Posted By: JR
Date Posted: 11 Aug 2024 at 7:28am
Thanks for the heads up and follow through glad you got it fixed. Enjoy the UP, the black fly season should be just about done.
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Jay
179/2019
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