Well my surge protector saved me one more time.

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WILDEBILL308

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Well my surge protector saved me one more time. Stopped off at Galveston Island State park on the way home from the FMCA 6 state rally in Conroe. Plugged my Surge Guard in and got a reading of Reverse Polarity and bad ground. Called the office and they worked on it for a while then told me it was good. Well the Surge Guard was still giving me the same report. So I ended up moving to s different spot. I am still amazed at how many people tell me they never had a problem and don?t need a Surge Guard or some other protection for their rigs. This reminds me of the old saying ?Pay me now or pay me latter? If you don?t have a Surge Guard you may be paying a lot latter.
Bill
 
X2 Bill.  Our transfer switch got fried at home, when we had a negative surge,,, very low voltage,,, plugged into a 20 amp outlet.  Got the Progressive unit, and I feel much better plugging in now.
 
I have not (yet) plugged into a 240 volt outlet but I have had reverse polarity.. once (This does no harm to the RV but can harm the owner). I have had a number of brief power losses.. These tend to tear up the A/C comp;ressor as it attempts to restart with a full head of steam (Full head pressure).. usualy they do not succeed at that.

My surge guard give me something like 172 seconds of darkness post-restoration of shore power.. More than enough to make the compressor happy...  Surge Guards,, A HW-50 sells for just over 300 bucks.. A/C installed, 1,000 bucks..  guess why I use a Surge Guard even though the park is properly wired and not only that but it is not daisy chained, Each and every site goes straight back to the distribution box so nobody else is on my loop.
 
Chances are that people have been plugging to that outlet with Reverse Polarity and an Open Ground for some time and never knew it.  It generally won't cause damage to the RV, but could cause damage to the occupants if some electrical device onboard shorted out. The reverse polarity may have bothered a few electronic gadgets, but they probably chalked it up to sunspots or "gremlins".

My experience in RV parks is that they nearly always claim my RV is "bad' and their power pole is "OK". Few of the handyman/maintenance people in RV parks actually know much about electrical power systems and the electrical code - they often just hook up wires and see if things light up.

The most potentially damaging thing in a 50A hook-up is an open neutral, which will produce intermittent over-voltage. For a 30A hook-up, it is miswiring as 240v instead of 120v, but that is rare in an RV park. Happens mostly in home wiring, and gets fixed as soon as the first person plugs into it!
 
Well some may have used it but my Surge Guard would not pass power to my coach. I know what can happen with out it so if it won't connect I won't be using that power supply.
I tried the 30 amp plug and it tested good. All the power I could test in that area tested bad on the 50 amp plug.
Yes Gary after working on it for a couple of hours with it showing uneven power on the legs and power on the ground they said "It's good"
Bill
 
If you have a surge guard, hopefully it does more than just that. Surge Guard does make some high quality power monitoring and analysis models. Personally, I would probably buy a Progressive unit for myself, but then I would also check out the power supply before plugging anything into it anyway, plus have a voltage monitor inside my unit and also annually, at least, do polarity checks on the RV outlets, and check the power distribution panels to be sure everything is tight....an a lot of other stuff.

Just one of those things for RV owners to learn to trust, but verify, and expand their preventative maintenance. I did have some owners say to me they believe in if it isn't broke don't mess with it, which I hope my upcoming used unit won't be purchased from one of those anti-preventative maintenance owners and those not savvy enough to protect themselves from power problems as much as reasonable. 
 
What portable surge protector make and model would you recomend for 30 amp RV
 
RodgerS said:
If you have a surge guard, hopefully it does more than just that. Surge Guard does make some high quality power monitoring and analysis models. Personally, I would probably buy a Progressive unit for myself, but then I would also check out the power supply before plugging anything into it anyway, plus have a voltage monitor inside my unit and also annually, at least, do polarity checks on the RV outlets, and check the power distribution panels to be sure everything is tight....an a lot of other stuff.

Just one of those things for RV owners to learn to trust, but verify, and expand their preventative maintenance. I did have some owners say to me they believe in if it isn't broke don't mess with it, which I hope my upcoming used unit won't be purchased from one of those anti-preventative maintenance owners and those not savvy enough to protect themselves from power problems as much as reasonable.
Click to expand...
Checking the power before you plug in is a good step but it does nothing to protect you later. Having a voltage monitor is nice but won't protect you even if you sat and watched it you couldn't respond before damage was done.
I recommend you start looking for a surge protector.
Bill
 
UTTransplant and quadrider Look hear.
http://trci.net/products/surge-guard-rv
They have both portable and hard mounted units. I like the portable because I can use it as I did in this case to go to a different site to check the power before I moved.
Bill
 
The Progressive Industries 30A portable is a good one, and the TRC (Surge Guard) equivalent is close enough as makes no difference. Ya pays your money and ya takes your pick...

http://www.progressiveindustries.net/#!ssp-30xl/c24gs

http://trci.net/products/surge-guard-rv/hardwires-portables/30a-hardwire
 
quadrider said:
What portable surge protector make and model would you recomend for 30 amp RV
Click to expand...

Just don't get the $100 one. They are useless. Pay around $300 and you will end up much happier

From experience: We had the el cheapo one, and every time there was a low voltage, it did it's job, but then when the problem was corrected it had to be manually reset. T
This translated to if we were gone for the whole day and there was a fault, we would have no air conditioning until we got back and the trailer would be unbearable.

We now have the high dollar one, and it manually resets - End of problem!
We now can kayak or bike all day long and not worry

Jack L
 
just couple of days ago connected to the elec hookup in the hotel i was staying in (first time for the past 2 months) and got 135V from there. Progressive surge guard didn't let it thru, although it was close to its passable limit of 132V. there were no RVs but plenty of rooms occupied and everybody were watching TVs, the computer in the office and everything was on 135V. tried to connect the fridge (the only thing i have to keep switched ON) and something clicked inside and it wasn't working.
didn't like the sound and plugged back to the inverter, compressor kicked on in a few minutes... i'm as happy as i just bought another fridge )))
 
JackL said:
Just don't get the $100 one. They are useless. Pay around $300 and you will end up much happier

From experience: We had the el cheapo one, and every time there was a low voltage, it did it's job, but then when the problem was corrected it had to be manually reset. T
This translated to if we were gone for the whole day and there was a fault, we would have no air conditioning until we got back and the trailer would be unbearable.

We now have the high dollar one, and it manually resets - End of problem!
We now can kayak or bike all day long and not worry

Jack L
Click to expand...


Tell me...how did you reset the Progressive unit since there is no reset button ?
I've got mine since 2010, we had power failures and power surges and it did its job and no reset required in any situalion!
 
  Progressive has two 30 amp portable protectors. One is 100 dollars and the other is 300 dollars. Is the 100 dollar good enough or do you need the 300 dollar unit.
 
legrandnormand said:
Tell me...how did you reset the Progressive unit since there is no reset button ?
I've got mine since 2010, we had power failures and power surges and it did its job and no reset required in any situalion!
Click to expand...

I guess you didn't understand what I said.
The cheap one needs to be reset manually. It won't reset automatically.
The more expensive one resets itself as soon as the fault is cleared
 
quadrider said:
  Progressive has two 30 amp portable protectors. One is 100 dollars and the other is 300 dollars. Is the 100 dollar good enough or do you need the 300 dollar unit.
Click to expand...

No. read my post above.
I gave my $100 dollar one away and now have the $300 dollar one

Jack L
 
The $89 SSP-30X (& the fancier $117 SSP-30XL) provides surge protection and a one-time check for proper outlet wiring (open ground or neutral and revered polarity). There is no continuous monitoring for over/under voltage or frequency. It's an excellent value (certainly not "worthless", in my opinion), but not in the same league  as the $310 EMS-PT30C. The EMS-PT30C monitors the power source continuously for high/low voltage and has a small display to tell you what is happening or what fault was detected.

Whether or not voltage monitoring is needed depends on where you go, which I guess is the whole point. If you visit a lot of different campgrounds and have no idea how good their power is, the $310 unit eliminates just about all possible power worries.
 
I don't care how good the power was in the past. You can't tell if something will cause a problem in the future. This was the first problem in about 45 campgrounds. I have since moved to Mustang Island State Park and didn't have a problem at the new site.
Just island hoping down the Texas coast. 85 today and the water temp in the gulf is 80.
Bill
 
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