I have pulled a "if it ain't broke fix it till it is" with the switch. I rewired the switch the way I thought it was wired(I drew a diagram on a board above the switch junction box then drew it out on a piece of paper (see diagram in earlier post) all while the wiring of the switch was still intact. I also had pictures of one side of the switch. I removed wires, checked out switch,then I rewired the switch & the a/c wouldn't work. Neither a/c's worked. I rechecked it, tried a/c again & nothing. the switch didn't work any more. Probably something I did trying to see how the "nob" worked I damaged the switch. Just a guess. If you reference the wiring diagram of the "switch" then wouldn't it be "safe" to say wire all the white's together & all the blacks together & you're golden. Insert loud annoying buzzer sound here. When I did this it tripped the house breaker where the garage is wired where the 30amp rv cord is plugged in @ the wall. Tried this several times with the same results. I was running out of time & ideas(I was working with fella down the road who I was bouncing my ideas off of & he gave me some direction. I had to get the gen to work the front A/C for driving to the campground yesterday. Then I needed to be able to set it up using shore power when I got to the campground. So with time running out I wired the 2 A/C's black to the Gen black wire & the 2 A/C's white wire to the gen white wire. Successful. Ok now the shore power. Undo the gen from a/c's & attach 2 a/c blacks to shore black & 2 ac white's to shore white when I get to campground. Test & Eureka!! Success. She thinks. To leave the next day I hook gen back up to head out on trip.

Friday I check oil level on gen & it's 1/2 qt low. I fill it, go to get something inside, start it inside & start the a/c to cool when I go down to pick 3-5 yr olds & their exhausted mother to pack & head out to campground 5o+ miles away. all is going well, I lock house up, make sure all is ready jump in to rv & the ac isn't working? Hmmm? I look at light on gen switch & it isn't lit. i go outside to look at gen & I did not tighten the fill lid so oil is all over the place. You can only imagine the mess. my heart drops, not because I'm assuming I've caused the gen to seize up & now I'm going to have to replace but that I am on my way to pick up 3-5 yr olds & their exhausted mother for a trip on a 90 degree day without A/C. Uggghhhhhhh... So i wipe the gen down, close it up, look for more oil & there is none. I drive rv down to house tell my son in law what happened & head out in car to get oil. We fill oil on rv & start it & to my delight it starts. I go in to turn on a/c & all is well for about 5 min. insert annoying buzzer here again. after about 10 min the a/c blows fuse on gen. Now what?????? Just what I need, a hot rv with 3-5yr olds & an exhausted mother. We decide to tough it out cause plans are made. All is under way & I take the long way to the campground using I-40 east. @ our 1hr mark we hit a 40 min traffic delay, after stopping for a quick bite to eat we head out for the 17 miles to exit to camp ground. another 40 min traffic delay. Finally we arrive 5 hours later to our destination. The kids were pretty good considering all things but they went to bed 2 1/2 hrs after their normal bed time.
Oh, my dash air works but it's hardly a help in the heat.

mom & I barely sleep before the early am alarm goes off for our march of dimes walk we are meeting the rest of the family at. Off we go & there are 3 families & no rep. The knoxville walk there are several hundred folks so when no one showed up we were miffed. I wouldn't want to be the mod rep who was supposed to head this up. That's a whole other story....

Now my refrigerator keeps searching for propane whether I have it on shore or 12 v. That's a whole other post.

BTW the switch is broken(I think)& I'm still looking for a safe way to hook up & to get the ac to work on gen.

Anyone with mucho rv elec knowledge passing by my house in the near future. I'll meet you somewhere.

Tere

Jim, looking at the switch it appears to be the same rotary switch we had as a selector between gen and shore power. I don't remember the wiring diagram for the switch but it has common output from different feeds so you do not back feed the de-selected source. This is probably the reason you are tripping breakers.
I cannot find the diagram I made for the one I had. I may have sent it to a friend along with the switch. I have upgraded to two inlets to match the input from the genset. Why install a 6K gen and have a single 30 amp shore inlet?
Good luck, this thing has too many options to easily figure it out without a factory diagram.
Tim

The back feed is definitely the problem w/out the switch. Would love to see your diagram. I may contact manufacturer too.
Tere

About a year ago, I had started a post about converting this Barth to 50 Amps. Gunner had a simple solution. Buy a 50 Amp power cord. Run it in place of the existing 30 amp cord. Split the 50 Amp cord so that one leg powers the factory 30 amp service. The front a/c would be wired to this circuit. The other half of the 50 amp cord would be used to power the rear a/c if or when it is used. Our generator isn't big enough to run both a/c's at the same time anyway, and we have never been in a situation where we needed both a/c's on at the same time anyway. When driving, we run the front a/c when the weather is hot. This situation requires no new switch, no 50 amp transfer switch, no new 50 amp power panel( already have 2 30 amp power panels in it), just a 30' power cord. In fact, I don't know why the previous owner who installed the 2nd a/c, ever installed the stupid switch in the first place. It made no sense. The only place he could have run both a/c's at the same time was on shore power and even then he had to run the generator for one of them. Dumb.
What do you all think of gunner's idea?
Humbo

How does the transfer switch for your generator work, the generator power going to your drum switch must bypass the transfer switch to enable you to have two active power sources at that switch. Atomatic transfer switches will not allow both.

If you never need to run two AC units than you could remove the AC circuit breaker and replace it with a tandum breaker, you can buy a Square D tandum breaker at Menards. Connect each AC unit to the tandum breaker and run whichever AC unit you want, eliminate the drum switch.

Does that 30 amp main breaker in the photo supply another sub panel?

Would this switch work?

http://www.sourcingmap.com/rot...switch-p-147400.html

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bones:
Would this switch work?

Not Really, that is a 40 amp on/off switch, doesn't function as a rotary drum switch.

Gunners idea would work great, you would just need to run the second leg threw a separate 20 amp breaker to protect the AC unit. You would really only need a 30 amp cord just needs 10/3 with ground. Add a 240 volt 30 amp plug on the end of the cord and plug it in.

Sometimes, the solution to a problem is so obvious that it eludes us until we've exhausted our brains trying to figure things out.
A. The switch that is used to go between the front and rear a/c unit is broken.
B. The front vent of rear a/c is about 24" from the rear vent of the front a/c.
C. We've never used two a/c's at one time.
D. Solution: Eliminate the unneeded a/c, in this case the rear one. Just go back to the original Barth wiring of the 30 amp service. Cost of materials, $0. Labor time, about 30 minutes.

If we ever decide to use the rear a/c, (can't imagine why), we'll just run a 2nd 30amp power cord to the 2nd 30 amp panel which is now empty. That will cost about $54 for the cord.
Like I said, the object is to become the 'master of the obvious'
Humbo

Put a Fantastic fan in the BR - that's what I have. PO put one in the kitchen (I upgraded to thermostatic), another in the bath, and in the BR.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jim and Tere:
Sometimes, the solution to a problem is so obvious that it eludes us until we've exhausted our brains trying to figure things out.

HA HA You just crossed the road without having to go around the world to do it!

Tom

Jim and Tere:

quote:

Sometimes, the solution to a problem is so obvious that it eludes us until we've exhausted our brains trying to figure things out.

You’re right. Whoever installed that 2nd AC sure made it a complicated mess –now it's time to apply the KISS method and keep the project as simple as possible. After studying all the posts (including the good photos and diagrams), it looks like a good approach would be:

1. Throw away the rotary drum switch – far away!

2. In the box where the switch was, cap off each of the two GEN wires with wire nuts and then tuck them back into a corner of the box where they can just be forgotten.

3. Take the 3 remaining black wires (AC1, AC2, power from breaker box) and tie them together with a good wire nut. Ditto the 3 white wires. Now both AC’s should be connected to Circuit 1 in the breaker box. You can run either one individually, but not both at the same time; if you goof up and do turn on both, it will just blow the breaker. (You’ve wired it like this before under panic conditions and it has worked, and not worked; there seems to be no reason it shouldn't work well this time).

4. Test. Connect the rig to shore power and check each AC individually. Disconnect shore power, start genset, check each AC individually. Unless something really dastardly was done to the wiring by the 2nd AC installer, everything should work okay.

5. Go back to the old switch box, tuck the wires in “neatly” and cover with a plain metal plate (should be less than a buck at any hardware store). Hide the plate with whatever you find artistically pleasing.

6. Devise a “flag” to hang on the AC not in use to alert that the other AC needs to be turned off before starting this one. A clothes pin clipped to the fan switch knob?

This should pretty much put the rig back to its original state, but with the added AC connected to the existing 20 amp AC circuit along with the original AC. No changes needed to the 30 amp power cord (I always found the 30 amp cord much lighter and easier to handle than the 50). Total cost – 4 wire nuts and a plain electric box cover and a little pleasurable labor (providing those young ‘uns aren’t champing at the bit to go someplace). Note that with both AC’s connected, if one ever conks out, the other is ready as a backup.

The remaining issue is the transfer switch for the generator (ref. Tom and Lorraine post, 8/31, 11:39 AM). From the physical configuration of the switch (can’t read the info on the internal switching), it appears that it might be set up so the rear AC only operated off the generator and the front AC only operated off the shore power (pure conjecture). But to operate both at the same time, there would have to be an additional switch position for that, and the transfer switch would have to be bypassed (not a good thing). Does anyone know a good simple way to check the transfer switch operation? Another guess – the guy who added the second AC forgot or didn’t know about the transfer switch, put it all together and when it didn’t work as expected, just quit and didn’t mess with the transfer switch (that would be good). In any case, you should definitely check the transfer switch.

Anyway, Jim, it looks like you’re on the right path. Good luck!

Bill Beard
Barth Owner Emeritus (three times)