Re: [A/S] landline electrical

[j.dandrea@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hello everyone.
Well we are back from a wonderful, but somewhat frustrating trip.  The frustrations all 
seem to fall in the area of electrics. Perhaps someone has some ideas to help as I have 
spent every penny I have set aside for repairs for 2004.
Does anyonehave a suggestion for a fix for the following problem.   
First off...I have a 1978 Sovereign with the bedroom in the back.  The set up is for two 
twin beds with lights over each bed.  the past owner wired one of the small fans, about       
6 x 6 inches into one of the reading lights.   The fan is setup to help move cool air 
from the front of the trailer to the back.  The Soveriegn is a 31 foot.  It has a fully 
working, but very old airconditioner.
My problem is twofold.  First.  If I run the air with anything else, it blows a 12 vold 
fuse in the box.  the fuse is a 20.  I tried a thirty as well  and it blew that one as 
well.  SOOOO.  I decided to not run air with anything.  We were very carefull to always 
run air just by itself.  then we got in a very hot place, 105 degrees, with an unreliable 
power source and it was constantly tripping the main switches.  Fortunately, I had an old 
swamp cooler, the window type for houses, in the back of the truck (that's a story in 
itself for another time).  I rigged it in the front window, plugged it into the front 
plug in and it worked fine.  I figured it must not draw the same amt. of power as the 
one on t op of the rig and that was why it worked.  Am I right?  I also wondered if it 
ran because it was plugged into a 120 circuit.  However, that makes me wonder even more 
why the Airconditioner mounted on the top that is meant to run off of electric power and 
not 12 volt is blowing fuses in the 12 volt system.  Were these old AC units designed to 
run off of both 12 volt and 120?
Second problem.  The same fuse blows all the time even when the AC is not on.  The result 
is we have no lights over the beds in the back of the rig.  I tried several things.   I 
tried to get the lights to work without the little fan turned on.  The fuses, both a 20 
and a 30 blew.  ???????  what do I do next.  The repair guy who did the other work said 
we need a new fuse box,but this was working fine, with the exception of the fuses blowing 
when the AC was on.  Now the fuse to that circuit doesn't work at all.
OK.  What do you experts suggest?  How do I  trace what goes to that fuse to see if it 
is overloaded in some way I don't yet know?  Is it possible there is a short somewhere?  
Could the AC have caused a short in the system somewhere as well as blowing the fuse?
HELP

Joan in Seattle.