Campfire

[SoCalGalcas]

ROAMER!!!

[avalen]

Roamer does have a nice ring to it for a name

[JudyJB]

It is the middle of the night, and I am listening to a wonderful sound--rain! Had a couple if sprinkles this afternoon that dropped temps ten degrees, but this is the heavy real stuff!! Highs next few days in 70s!! Yea!!!

Hope rest of you get some relief.

[Redetotry]

Nice looking RV! What model is it?

It is a 2010 Pleasure Way just turned 20,000 miles! It belonged to a relative and they have kept it like new.

Thanks Shiela and Lyn for the name suggestions, I'm making a list:)

If anyone has super powers and can fix my photo to the right size for my signature line I would appreciate it! I give up

[Cudedog]

If anyone has super powers and can fix my photo to the right size for my signature line I would appreciate it! I give up

Here ya go, BJ!

(Happy to make it smaller if this is still too large).

Anne

[Redetotry]

If anyone has super powers and can fix my photo to the right size for my signature line I would appreciate it! I give up

Here ya go, BJ!

(Happy to make it smaller if this is still too large).

Anne

Thank you so much Anne!

[havingfunnow]

I was reading when I heard this sort of groaning-swooshing sound. It was so odd that Drew and I went out to look. The neighbor's tree had just sort of leaned sideways and landed on their roof. I'm glad it didn't fall sideways onto my van -- it could have; it grew right along my driveway on their side of the property line. Very exciting! I'm ok, Drew is ok, even the van is ok.

I finally met the new(ish) residents. Nice young men. They phoned the owner, who came right away.He'll have people sawing the tree down this weekend (before it crushes the roof, I guess.)

Well! That's enough thrills for one afternoon!

[Bethers]

Some of my friends are aware that I'm not a big proponent of surge protectors for rv's. Every time I ask someone how they know it protected them they say it's because it shut things down. I've seen damage FROM surge protectors. That said, I've used one for several years as a precaution. Then it went bad. I replaced it. All's been well for a few years.

Yesterday my generator shut down. I spent hours working on that when I was on a "relaxing" day at a wonderful nfs cg. Nothing worked. Luckily things cooled off overnight. (And I refused to let it ruin my free day).

What does that have to do with a surge protector? Well, the way I was hooking up, I still had the surge protector connected and when I checked into doing it this way I was told it was an "excellent" idea. It showed good service. I had no service.

Forward to an hour ago when I return to my campsite and plug into the pedestal and, lo and behold, NO electric. The surge guard timed down as normal and lit up with all the correct signs for a good connection. So. I removed the surge guard, plugged back in and everything works... I also unplugged from the pedestal and plugged into the generator and it started right up.

Yep, the surge protector went bad... and still shows that everything is working fine.

I haven't decided whether I'll replace it this time.

[monik7]

What brand of surge protector do you have Beth?
Sandi

[Bethers]

What brand of surge protector do you have Beth?
Sandi

This one is a TRC. But I've seen several brands go bad on friends... This was just a different way to do it.

[OregonLuvr]

I have the Progressive EMS hard wired into my rig. I know it has only shut down my electric twice since I have had it in the past 10 years. And that was for low voltage. I feel safer having one but I think it is a personal choice.

Glad Beth got it all figured out tho.

k

[Birdie]

I have the Progressive EMS too and it has a lifetime, yours, wty. They repaired my first one and replaced mine the second time as it was blown by something. I was glad it blew and not my rig's system. It's like plugging your PC into a protected elec socket, not required until you need it.

I recently experienced a different thing with plugging a 12 gauge wire into 110 outlet, plugged in my 110/30 step down then plugged my EMS into that and then plugged a 30 amp cord from another rig that was hard wired with an EMS into that. I didn't know the other rig was hard wired until a few minutes later. It was getting real low power like 111, 112 but at my EMS it was 117, 119. So I unplugged my EMS and the power went right up to 119. I thought that was weird.

You do what you gotta do Beth.

[OTW]

Speaking of surge protectors, the one recommended by my trailer-savvy friend was somewhere in the $350 range (Progressive EMS PT30x) but since my start-up expenses have turned out to be so high, he said for the time being a simple $5-$10 receptacle tester can be pretty helpful - at least it can rule out a mis-wired campground receptacle or if something's just not working right with it, and in the case of thunder/lightening, just unplug. Also as I looked at them (Amazon had right one but with a different letter at the end), the Progressive ones that have model numbers ending in C are made in China, the ones with X are made in USA.

[Redetotry]

Speaking of surge protectors, the one recommended by my trailer-savvy friend was somewhere in the $350 range (Progressive EMS PT30x) but since my start-up expenses have turned out to be so high, he said for the time being a simple $5-$10 receptacle tester can be pretty helpful - at least it can rule out a mis-wired campground receptacle or if something's just not working right with it, and in the case of thunder/lightening, just unplug. Also as I looked at them (Amazon had right one but with a different letter at the end), the Progressive ones that have model numbers ending in C are made in China, the ones with X are made in USA.

Here is a link the Progressive EMS PT 30 for $256.00 a very good price, well compared to other places that sell it. I also added an earlier discussion on Surge Protectors that might help.

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/it ... gIZ_PD_BwE

MelissaD » Wed May 17, 2017 9:51 pm

Redetotry wrote:I haven't used a surge protector before so I am not sure if I need have a Surge Protector at the post and also an inside voltage meter like Karen suggested?

How do you check the electric at the post to be sure above 110 before plugging in. If you plug in the surge protector will that tell you or do you need to use a Polarity check like these before the surge protector is plugged in? I have the 3 wire circuit analyzer but it confuses me. http://www.myrv.us/electric/Pg/testing.htm


Really it's a EMS or Energy Management System more than a "Surge Protector" if that helps. It's not really named right.

On my unit (I have the Progressive EMS-HW50C hardwired inside my RV) when I plug into the pedestal and turn on the breaker, the unit runs all the checks and if its happy with the voltage (high or low), polarity, ground, etc... at around the 30 second mark it turns on power to the RV. The delay is to protect AC compressors from cycling stresses of power flickers. Mounted inside my cabinet with all my tanks and switches is a display which reads the voltage and amps for each leg (50 amp service is two 50 amp rated lines (L-1 and L-2) or 100 amps total. If I have a problem it will display an error code.

Side note: 30 amp service is a little bit more straight forward as there is only one 30 amp line. Since a the 50 amp service for an RV looks like a 220 volt house outlet and they are wired differently. Some electricians have made the honest mistake of wiring the pedestal like a house which is incorrect for an RV. It will supply 220 volts ac to the trailer instead of 110 volts. I have caught one CG wire the 30 amp and the 20 amp lines to a 50 amp break thinking he was making a 50 amp breaker. Yes 20+30=50 but 50 amp service is two 50 amp lines (100 amps total) Since the 30 amp line (L-1) and 20 amp line (l-2) are not each rated for 50 amps this is a real hazard. Another time using my EMS system I was also able to prove the CG had a faulty breaker and had them replace the breaker. Since a "50 amp" trailer can draw 3x the power of a "30 amp" trailer. It's why so many CG electrical grids are overloaded. They were not built for these loads.

Hope that helped before I confused you.

[OTW]

Yes, Camping World is one of the places I checked and you're right, good price there. Thanks for the info link - all things electrical seem to boggle my brain for some reason so I will look that over carefully when I get time and see if its explanations puncture through that resistant part of my brain. I did order that little circuit analyzer in the meantime though for the short term -- need to find out what the lighting codes mean in real life -- same reaction to it that you had, lol.