Pigtail Solitude 310

[Rvlife]

Snagged the pigtail in the tailgate today. Sparks flew and smoke billowed. Had to disconnect the battery to cut the power. (The battery kill switch didn’t cut the power.).

What’s the worst case scenario? Should we expect damage to the electrical system or blown fuses? We’re hoping to simply replace the pigtail.

Fortunately we were parked at storage.

 

[traveldawg]

Ouch! That happened to me once. Luckily no harm done.

Where was the smoke and sparks? If the end of the pigtail maybe just replace it; if in the box inside the hitch maybe inspect closely to see what other damage was done. If it is in the rig then a more extensive investigation is in order for wiring damage.

 

[Rvlife]

Sparks and smoke were coming from the pin box. The black wire and perhaps the grounding wire were the only ones that detached. The black was touching the metal and we think (hope) that was causing the sparks and smoke.

Interestingly, the exterior lights of the camper came on. Didn’t turn off til we disconnected the battery.

 

[traveldawg]

Black is battery power (from your RV's battery); white is ground. So, yeah, short that black to ground and with no fuse in the circuit you'd get a lot of sparks and smoke until the battery went dead or something else finally burnt the wire out.

As for the outside lights coming on until you disconnected the battery: the brown wire probably got shorted to the black wire as that would light up the trailer's running lights. Some people short pins 4 and three (black and brown) to keep their rig's running lights on in the evening .

You probably ought to disconnect the pigtail at the junction box in the inbox and then run some tests on the wiring going to the battery before reconnecting that battery to be sure the interior wiring from the pinbox to the battery (and other connections) isn't still shorted.