Main fuse blowing - why?

So last summer I took my trailmanor to Yosemite and the ground wire touched the positive wire and shorted both batteries. Kind of a bummer, but it was ok as I had a fuse to make sure I did not blow anything up as it could have been a fire or something else bad.

Here is my question:

1. How come when I use the trailer I cannot turn all the lights on without blowing the fuse up front with my new battery?

2. Is there a way to put water in the trail manor with it all closed up? Seems like a pain to have to undo it and put water in it when I get to the campground.

Let me know as I must get these issues resolved before my one month travel up and down the coast of Cali.

Thanks,

Brent

1. How come when I use the trailer I cannot turn all the lights on without blowing the fuse up front with my new battery?
You don't say where the short occurred. What size fuse did you put in line. The std fuse is 30A. If you are blowing the 30A fuse with a few lights and nothing else on, you still have a short somewhere. Does the fuse blow immediately?

2. Is there a way to put water in the trail manor with it all closed up? Seems like a pain to have to undo it and put water in it when I get to the campground. There have been several discussions as to mods that can be done to fill the water tank with the TM closed. I suggest a search.

The fuse I am using I believe is a 30A fuse and the lights work for like 5 minutes and then go off. We had the heater running when it happened so I don't know if that played into it or not.

I will search for water filling options as I would love to be able to do this without opening up the trailer.

Brent

[Bill]

Originally Posted by hwork50

The fuse I am using I believe is a 30A fuse and the lights work for like 5 minutes and then go off. We had the heater running when it happened so I don't know if that played into it or not.

A 30-amp fuse located at the positive battery connection is correct.

When you say "heater", you mean the furnace, right, rather than an owner-supplied electric heater?

It sounds to me like you have a wire or a socket or a device that is very nearly shorted, but not quite. As the device heats up, something moves or expands, and the hot wire touches ground, creating the short.

The diagnosis is easy, though time-consuming. Turn off everything. Then turn on one light and leave it on for 10 minutes. If it pops the fuse, you have found your culprit. If it doesn't, turn it off and turn on another one for 10 minutes. Include the furnace in this lineup, as well as any other 12-volt devices that you were originally using. Eventually you will find the device that blows the fuse. (Of course, the techies among us would suggest using a binary search, to speed up the process. You get the idea.)

I will search for water filling options as I would love to be able to do this without opening up the trailer.

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Welcome back!

Bill

[Bill]

The more I think about this, the more I don't understand why the main fuse blows, rather than one of the smaller branch fuses.

Have you replaced the fuse holder, or do you still have the white nylon (plastic) tubular fuse holder?

Bill

So I looked at the fuses and it seems as though we had a 3 AG amp fuse in the line between the battery and the TM. We upped the fuse to an 8 amp, we think as it said 8 on the box and it practically started a fire in my buddies garage. We share the TM and he owns half and I own half.

The little in line fuse problem just got a little bigger.

Let me know your thoughts Bill or Bob on this.

Thanks,

Brent