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Power Cord Reel

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Michael Kauffman:
Hello everybody,  in my continuing RV maintenance course on the 98' Beaver Patriot, I've come upon a new problem.  All of a sudden I couldn't get any shore power.  This happened after I moved the coach to another area on my property and had to run a 12ga. extention cord to it.  I thought that I had a bad GFI outlet or something at the house.  After fumbling around and a lot of head scratching, I moved it back to where I could hook back up to my 30amp RV outlet.  Still nothing, I had power to the coach but nothing at the transfer switch. Ah ha! the only thing in between was the power cord reel.  After moving the reel by hand, I could hear my inverter coming on, I had power.  I moved it a little more, NO POWER!

I have a 50 amp Cable Caddy power cord reel made by H&H Braund Mfg. in Canada.  I took it out and took it apart thinking it must have brushes inside.  Well it does have brushes but the neutral brushes were pitted and melted into their bakalite housing.  The brass ring (contact plate) for the neutral was also pitted and had melted into it's plastic housing so that the ring was offset up and down by 1/4" (kinda like a merry-go-round).  The brushes press against the ring as it goes around and around while reeling in the cord in or out.  It's a weak link in the incoming AC power in my opinion.  Can you imagine running 2 AC's through that thing with a bad neutral connection?  I'm glad it didn't catch fire.  

Anyway, I'm in the market for a new power cord reel.  Is any brand better the another.  I don't think that I want to go back to anything with brushes and contact rings.

Thanks, Mike  

John and Judy Gardner:
Hi Mike, might want to consider a manual crank power reel, had one installed last year in Engene, really like it and it is pretty maintenance free. Just a thought.

Edward Buker:
Glendinning has been making power cord reels for a long time and started in the marine industry which has harsher conditions than the RV requirements. I have not heard of many fails and I think they make a quality product. They may also have a brush system but I have seen boats with larger loads than our RVs dockside over the years and do not remember owners discussing fail issues. Not sure if the space constraints are the same. This is a new RV design power cord system from them.   http://www.glendinningprods.com/rvcm_crr50.html

Regards Ed

Gerald Farris:
All reels (power or manual) use slip rings and brushes to transfer the power from the rotary reel to the fixed cord to the transfer switch. If you want to avoid slip rings and brushes you should look into a power cable feed like the Glendinning Cablemaster that was factory equipment on my Marquis. If does not roll the cable onto a reel, but it runs the cable over a rotating pulley to feed it into and out of a storage locker. So the cord is hardwired to the coach, and brushes are not needed.

http://www.glendinningprods.com/rv.html

Gerald  

Joel Ashley:
I agree with Gerald and Ed that you need a new Glendinning reel that isn't really a reel;  as Gerald said, it just grabs the cable and pulls it in or out of a cylindrical storage container - no moving electrical contacts to go haywire.

-Joel

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