Reverse polarity?

[Upslady]

Had our coach in for new cooling unit for fridge. Then we had them work on our front rt slide. Just got it back and hooked power cord with the surge protector on it and it says reversed polerity! It was not reading this when we unplugged and took in for repairs! We are parked back in same spot as before and nothing was changed there! Could they of changed something at repair shop? Of course it's now closed till Monday and 2 hours away!
What can we do we need to plug in! Will it hurt to plug in and use?
Brenda
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[captsteve]

DO NOT PLUG IT IN!!!! You will have to figure out what changed. Did you have them install the surge protector? Does the rv work right on generator?

If you have a Multi Meter you can check to see if the pedestal is in fact right. The surge protector is just reading what it is seeing from the pedestal it should have no bearing on what was or was not done to the coach.

There is either a problem with the feed or (I doubt this) the surge protector went south.

 

[Upslady]

We plugged into same pedestal we had been plugged into before taking coach in for repair work! They did some wiring work with the slide repair! Gen is running and things seem to be working.

 

[captsteve]

Again, The surge protector is kinda dumb. It can only tell you what it see's from the pedestal and it see's that there is a problem. Something changed in that pedestal.

 

[captsteve]

is it 30 amp or 50 amp? If you have enough cord, try a different pedestal and see what you get.

 

[Upslady]

It's 50amp. Ill have hubby try another pedestal . Is there a chance they could of wired something with the slide that would cause this? They had to redo a few different plugs on slide and such to get slide to work.

 

[captsteve]

I really don't think there is any possible way for that. 1. the slide is all 12 volt  2. the surge protector only looks at the incoming power, it cannot see into the coach. ( unless it is a custom installed built in unit the reads gen. power also)

My money is on the pedestal.

 

[Upslady]

Wonder what might of changed in the pedestal? No one else is parked in the small camp ground! No work has been done on pedestals. Hmmmmm

 

[Lou Schneider]

Reverse polarity means the surge protector is seeing voltage on the neutral line that it's not expecting.  Normally the neutral line remains at zero voltage, dividing the incoming 240 volts on the two hot pins into two 120 volt circuits.  Voltage on the neutral means it is not dividing the incoming voltage properly.

If the surge protector is plugged directly into the pedestal, and the rig's cable is then connected to the output of the protector, the problem has to be in the pedestal.

It could be that the vibration from unplugging and then plugging back into the pedestal wiggled a loose connection enough to make voltage show up on the neutral line, which then triggered the Reverse Polarity warning.

In any event, it's something that you need to have checked out and corrected NOW.  If you're not comfortable using a multimeter to read the voltages on the pedestal socket, find someone who is.

And don't use shore power from that socket until the problem is corrected.

 

[SargeW]

There also could have been work on the parks electrical outside the gates. If a repairman switched a wire, then you could have the same situation. If no one else is in the park, all the pedestals may be that way and you wouldn't know.

 

[Ken & Sheila]

If the pedestal checks out OK and your surge suppressor is hard wired (mounted in the coach) then you could have a cord/plug problem and the repair shop could have damaged your plug. I had the issue occur when the plug on my 50amp cord was damaged by hitting the stops on the electric cord reel. Everything looked fine but I was getting voltage bleed to the neutral line. I replaced the plug and all was good.

ken

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Is the surge protector between your shore cord and the pedestal, or at the other end of the shore cord, between it and the coach?  If at the coach end, it could be reading a problem in the shore cord, but if located at the pedestal end, it cannot. That would rule out a power cord problem.

I can't think of anything they could have done to the slide that would in any way affect incoming shore power, and the fact that everything works fine with the generator further supports that notion.

 

[captsteve]

Oh well, I guess we don't get an update on this one...