Surge Protection and Electrical Management

[Former StClairSailor]

A good friend of ours who has a motor home ran into mechanical issues while traveling in FL. He limped into a repair facility and the service person determined a suspension part was needed. Our friend was told he could hook up to the facility's 30 amp connection while waiting for several days for the part. After making the connection, he noticed the air conditioner did not come on and he smelled smoke. After looking around he found burn spots on his inverter. He disconnected the power and put out the word of his issues. I had him check the 30 amp receptacle. He found 120 volts on both legs to ground. Or in other words, 240 volts was put onto his rig. He now has to have the inverter replaced and check to determine if any wiring was burned. Then plug in his 120 volt accessories to determine how many if not all have been damaged. Could all have been avoided had he had an electrical management system and surge protection. OUCH.

[Dam Worker]

Protection is cheap compared to replacement. I would not be with out one now.

Tom Marty

[MARK A]

I am wondering if a surge protector would have helped him? Your protector is assuming a properly wired receptacle and detects faults. The 50A service is in effect 240A, the rig just uses the legs separately. So, what he did in short (no pun intended) was send 125V in on one leg of a 30A cord/plug and 125V in on the common leg. Hmmm
I hope he didn't sustain too much damage.

Mark

[twindman]

I am pretty sure a surge protector will see the 240V input and shut down everything. It specifically is meant to notice mis-wired receptacles such as no ground, or voltage outside the range.

[Irlpguy]

Sounds to me like the repair facility had him connect to a welder plug rather than a 30amp plug wired for an RV. I am pretty sure my Progressive hard wired unit would have caught this and shut power off to the unit.
Would not be without one now, cheap insurance and piece of mind.

[1retired06]

Agree our Progressive would have shut down

[h2ojocky]

Progressive EMS would definitely avoid problems.

http://www.progressiveindustries.net/ems-hw-hardwires

[JandC]

The hard wired or plug in style would have prevented his issues. My neighbor in Florida had an electrician run a 50amp plug to his shed so he could plug in his fiver prior to trips. First time he used it, without his surge protector, burned up his fireplace and a couple other things.


My practice is no matter where I am plugging in my surge protector is always in use.

[twindman]

I stopped at a friends place in Calgary. His son is an electrician, I guess. I was the first to use his new 50Apower post. Good thing I had the surge protector, as it wasn't wired properly. He had it fixed in about 10 minutes and all was good.

[kozzy]

30 AMP is only one hot, they had that wired with voltage going to the common.
Yes, Progressive would have found it. I have the hard wired unit, its great. Only thing that sucks with it is on really hot summer days, in RV parks in the south, when everyone is running there AC, and the voltage in the whole park drops, my power shuts off. I know its safe, but damnit..

[Mark N.]

There is no doubt a Progressive unit would have caught the problem beforehand. I have the portable version, and I plug it into each and every outlet I am about to use, before I even bother backing in or pulling into the slot. There is just too much at stake to NOT verify a safe and sound power source before you try to connect.

[Starmaster]

We spent a night in Montgomery AL a couple of days ago. My Progress EMS kicked out about 10 time over the night. The reason was high voltage on one leg, over 132 volts. In between the drop outs the voltage was running from 128 - 131 volts on the bad leg, 121 on the good leg. I reported it to the park and there was an electrician working on it the next morning just before we left.

I have no idea how high it went, but was glad I had the EMS in place, just too many things that over voltage can burn up. You never know when or what kind of electrical problems you'll find at an RV park. To get protection from these you need an electrical protection system in place. A surge protector would have provided no protection for the problem we had.

Dave

[Phil P]

Hi

X2 on Progressive.

Had I had the one installed in the trailer instead of the portable I would not have suffered the damage caused by losing the neutral in the anaconda cord.

Phil P

[richfaa]

We purchased the PT 50C for our 06 3400 at a rally in 2006. I note they can be had for around 300.00 now. We paid 216.00 for ours in 2006. We plug it into the power pole before we ever plug in the Rv and can not tell you how many times we had to move to another site due to a failed reading .It has also knocked us off line many, many times most common failure is open ground next is high or low reading on a leg of the 50 amps. We are in CG all over the country and many times as they fill up as more and more RV's connect to the grid the voltage will drop and the PT 50 drops the RV. It is a must have.