Shore Power Plug 2008 Vectra

[Joelj]

We are new to the motorhome camping, well motorhome in general. We are on our first trip. We got here plugged in the power am I supposed to do anything else with the power? Do I cut the chassis batteries off? Now all of the sudden my lights are starting to flicker and my a/c has cut off. Any help would be appreciated!

[Wmlunt]

Sounds like your converter is not on?

[creativepart]

No you do not turn off the House batteries or the Chassis battery cutoff when on shore power. You only turn off those two battery cutoffs when you are done camping and put the RV in storage between uses. Never while using the RV.

As to the lights and A/C that’s tough to guess but it could be dying house batteries and a Converter that is not operating or has had the circuit breaker flipped off.

[be happy]

You stated this is your first trip, were you plugged in at home and if so did all work there?
Its a good habit when plugging in to campground power to have the campground power breaker off. Plug in turn breaker on. I would also invest in a meter that you can see the voltage in the camper.

As said leave the switches alone all should be in the on position. I would go to the breaker panel in your unit and turn each breaker off then on. As long as you are at the breaker box (and not plugged in) you might as well take the cover off and tighten ALL the power wires both +/- as they do become loose.

[Morich]

It's really hard to say beyond a guess as we don't know which Vectra you have!
With the limited info you have given us, and the mention of flickering, I would not expect this to be a breaker or something turned off at a switch. Those will rarely flicker if you mean on and off. They tend to be off or on!

One thing that does often cause lights to flicker is loose wiring! Without knowing if you have a transfer switch, one of the ways we might have lights that flicker is if the battery disconnect switch is off, making them not power the lights and then the transfer switch might have loose or corroded wires so that the power from the plug doesn't pass smoothly through to the converter that makes 12VDC to power the lights??

But we really need more info to go beyond guessing!
What Vectra do you have? We can look at electrical drawings if we know which to look at for details.
Do you have a ATS (Auto transfer switch)?

Yes, leave the cutoff switches on. But this may be a case where the converter is not getting the power to charge the batteries and they may now be run down.
When the lights flicker, do you have lights on the microwave and do they flicker. That would indicate the 110AC power is the problem rather than the 12VDC which runs the lights ona small items.