Curious Behavior of SurgeGuard 34560. Shore power = no power. Generator = power.

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crowdedcamper

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To summarize, we're unable to power our motorhome testing now on 3 different shore power sources (See shore-power-1.jpg, shore-power-2.jpg, shore-power-3.jpg), but we are able to power the coach with the onboard Onan generator (See generator.jpg). We're in a 2014 Coachmen Encounter motorhome for a year now and with an inline surge protector, SurgeGuard Model 34560, installed.

Two days ago while at a campground, we lost power to the motorhome. We could hear the surge protector switch back on after the 2 min 16 sec delay, only to have it trip again. After several instances of this, I unplugged it. After some quick inspections and plugging it back, it seemed to work fine... until today.

Same thing happened again today. However upon plugging the unit back into a 50 amp receptacle, the red fault lights remain on or blinking and no power gets to the coach. I also tried plugging into a 110 outlet with the same result. But when I plug into the onboard Onan generator, we get power to the motorhome as expected.

At a loss.
 

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Your Surge Guard may just be doing its job -- the power at your campground may just be faulty.
 
Thank you for the thought. That did occur to me, but I'm getting the same result at three different campgrounds now. And I used a multimeter to test the power outlet to be sure.
 
I have had the same thing happen to us. Our EMS would shut down our power several times a day. I thought it was strange cause it did this at every RV Park. What I found out was that our EMS was out of calibration. I checked the volts at the park receptacle and found it to be 125.5 volts with a multi-meter and observed the voltage on the LED readout of the EMS and it was 131 volts. So, I calibrated and no problems so far.

The delay in connection is for the protection of your A/C.

Check the incoming voltage and contact the company of your surge protect in how to calibrate if this maybe the problem.
 
I would speculate that the reason you have power with the generator, but not on shore power, is the surge guard is installed before your transfer switch. If it detects a problem, it will not let power proceed past the surge guard. The generator on the other hand, is wired after the surge guard, so the generator power doesn't go through the surge guard. My friends Coachmen is wired the same way. You could either have a problem with the parks electrical supply, or your surge guard has gone kaput. My friends surge guard went last summer. We bypassed it temporarily until he could get another one. His was the same as yours. His generator would still supply electricity to the rv, even though the surge guard was malfunctioning.
 
The generator power probably doesn't pass through the Surge Guard at all - most powerline monitors are wired to the shore side only.

Based on your photos and the 3 different campgrounds, my best guess is that you have a faulty shore power cord. The 34560 doesn't give detailed line status (just OK/NG) so it's hard to determine exactly what is wrong. I notice that the fault shows on different legs, sometimes L1 and sometimes L2, so wondering if the wires are loose or broken at the point where the cord attaches to the 50A plug.  Were all three campgrounds 50A hook-ups, or was a 50/30 adapter in use in any of them?
 
I would contact Surge Guard before buying a new power cord. Possibly check the cord for continuity with a volt meter. I had a surge guard like yours stop letting power in this spring. Sent it to them on their dime and they sent me a new one. Never said if it was blown by a surge or not but don't see them replacing it if it was good when I sent it to them. It didn't cost me anything to do.
 
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