Surge protectors

[cmcguire48]

The green horn is back again and need help with suggestions on buying a surge protector for my TT. I found some at camper world but they go some really bad reviews. I also found some at Tweety's rv sales and they were around 80 dollars. Does that sound too cheap? My friend had his mounted under the dash in his tow truck but it was very expensive. I just bought the trailer and need to save cash everywhere i can. Suggestions please!!

[TonyDi]

Bear in mind that even if a surge protector is expensive, it is still cheaper than the appliances that can be zapped. Progressive industries makes several different protectors that should fit the bill for you. Remember it not just a surge in voltage that can be harmful.

There are several threads in here that will give you more input.

Best of luck with your search.

[Old-Biscuit]

Not sure why your friend has his mounted under dash of tow truck....hard to protect trailer wiring/components from an AC electrical surge mounted there


Lower priced 'surge protectors' only protect from a voltage surge on AC supply power....very limited protection. They can provide 'indication' on open ground and lost/open neutral

The higher end surge protectors will have higher surge protection, test for proper voltage, test for open neutral, test for open ground, frequency testing and HI/LO voltage tripping with delay prior to re-establishing power.

All depends on level of protection you are wanting and how much money you are willing to spend.

Which ever you decide.....buy a Progressive Industries Model.
Life Time Warranty (for real!) and Great Customer Service

Surge Guard by TRC... 1 Yr Limited Warranty (IF that!!!!) and so-so customer service.

Progressive Industries....Portable or Hardwired 30A or 50A
We have a 50A portable.......used it for 7 yrs full time traveling cause never knew what kind of cg AC Power we would be hooking up to.
First time in 40 yrs of RV ever used one. But in past we normally went to basically the same places and didn't have a concern.
Traveling we just never knew........found a few open neutral conditions, some open ground issues, a dead hot leg (50A) and had some LO Voltage trips

Progressive Industries RV Surge and Electrical Protection industry lea

[vsheetz]

Progressive Industries EMS is my recommendation. Not just the surge model, but the one that qualifies the input power before enabling power through to the RV (checks for high/low voltage, correct grounding, line frequency, etc).

[Dale & Mark Bruss]

Surge protection alone is hardly worth the effort. Electrical Management System (EMS) should be a mandatory item. RV park wiring is suspect even in the best of parks. Low voltage, high voltage, and Neutral problems are far more likely to damage your electrical devices than a lightening hit.

Unfortunately, one of the EMS system uses the name SurgeGuard but they also make a low cost surge protector. progressive EMS is a very good unit with excellent customer service. I image the EMS SurgeGuard is a good unit too.

[cmcguire48]

I found a surge protector on Progressive Industries website and it list the following:
Polarity Indication; Open ground indication; lost/open neutral indication; surge fault indication; thermally protected; weather resistance and portable. Life time warranty
I know very little about electricity so what does all this mean and what am I trying to protect. I know what a surge protector does for my computer but anything else I am lost. please educate me and thanks for helping

[easdsa]

Here are some basics of Progressive Industries (PI) models. There are four basic versions, 30A and 50A portable and 30A and 50A hardwired. The portable models plug into the power pedestal and then your coach plugs into that. They will provide protection against spikes (really high voltage for a very short time) and surges (high voltage for a brief period of time). They do nothing for low voltage. The hardwired models (aka EMS) provide the same protection as the portable models. In addition they will protect you against low voltage. They also provide a readout that will let you check on the voltage and current draw. In the case of the 50A model that information is available for each of the two legs.

Why would you care about low voltage? Simple. An electrical device (television, refrigerator, computer, coffee maker, etc.) requires a certain voltage and draws a certain current at that voltage. Voltage times amperage equals watts. Example: a light bulb that is rated for 120V @ 1 amp is a 120W bulb. If the voltage drops to 100V it will draw 1.2A. Not much difference, right? Now consider an electric space heater rated at 120V @ 13A. That's 1560W. Drop the voltage to 100V and the current goes up to 15.6A. The light bulb or heater don't care, but if you have a slightly larger heater you could be overloading the wiring which can lead to a fire. Your electronics (television, computer, etc.) are even more sensitive to proper voltage. Low or high voltage can severely damage them.

BTW, I mentioned that the 50A hardwired model give you information on both legs. A 30A RV system provides a maximum of 120V @ 30A, or 3600W. A 50A RV system has two legs, 120V @50A each, or 12,000W total. If you look at a 30A plug and a 50A plug you see that the 30A plug has three prongs, while the 50A one has four. Each plug has a ground pin (the round one) and a neutral one (a flat one). The other one or two flat prongs are the "hot" ones. In your house you have one or more 240V outlets (electric stove, for example). The plug is very much like the 50A RV plug. Measuring across the two hot prongs gives 240V, while measuring from one hot to the neutral gives 120V, and same with the other hot to neutral. Your RV doesn't have anything that uses 240V, though, so you just use the two 120V legs.

Hope this helps.

[pasdad1]

Originally Posted by cmcguire48

I found a surge protector on Progressive Industries website and it list the following:
Polarity Indication; Open ground indication; lost/open neutral indication; surge fault indication; thermally protected; weather resistance and portable. Life time warranty
I know very little about electricity so what does all this mean and what am I trying to protect. I know what a surge protector does for my computer but anything else I am lost. please educate me and thanks for helping

Like others have said, don't go for the surge protector only unit ....go for the unit that will really protect you shown below. It also comes as a hard wired unit if you prefer.

[Old-Biscuit]

Originally Posted by kb0zke

Here are some basics of Progressive Industries (PI) models. There are four basic versions, 30A and 50A portable and 30A and 50A hardwired. The portable models plug into the power pedestal and then your coach plugs into that. They will provide protection against spikes (really high voltage for a very short time) and surges (high voltage for a brief period of time). They do nothing for low voltage. The hardwired models (aka EMS) provide the same protection as the portable models. In addition they will protect you against low voltage. They also provide a readout that will let you check on the voltage and current draw. In the case of the 50A model that information is available for each of the two legs.

Hope this helps.

Portable Or Hardwired......
Several different versions from low protection to full protection and are available in either model.
Our portable does every thing the EMS hardwired one does...
Line check prior to allow power thru, HI/LO Voltage trips, Auto rest with delay when voltage back in range, Open ground test, Open neutral test, Reverse Polarity test etc. just no remote display

[papaw.1]

Hi cmcquire48,
just purchased a 50amp Progressive Ind.from Chris Penn @ rvingtech.com you can not find a better deal and he is a Great person to deal with and you get it with the same warranty.Good Luck OH! by the way I had a TRC 50 Surge Protector and it cost me 2 microwaves and 2 tv's.

[rarebear.nm]

One of the first mods I did on my 5th was to install a hardwired PI 50 Amp EMS system. Hardest part was bending the heavy cable into place. I really love the remote display that confirms everything is good or tells you exactly what's wrong with the shore power. And yes I've been at parks where it did exactly what it is designed to, stopped bad power! No real way to determine what it saved me, but I'm very pleased knowing its doing it thing. With these devices make sure the shore power breaker is OFF prior to plugging in the cable. If the various plug pins connect at slightly different times, think angled insertion, the EMS may sense a failure and shut down power when everything is otherwise OK.

[Mr_D]

We have the hard wired 50 amp unit. At one campground we couldn't get any power, reported it to the campground the next morning and they sent two men out to fix it. Didn't charge me for the spot either since we ran on battery all night.
On the trip back we stayed at a friends house. He has a 20 amp plug and sewer beside the house. The EMS wouldn't connect to that circuit so I used another plug close by. Turns out that one also ran to his shop, everytime he turned on his saw the voltage went low and cut over to battery power.
This is the first rig we've ever had with an EMS and the only thing we noticed when it went to battery power was a slight flicker of the lights. The laptop nor TV's never cut out at all so it's very quick.

[cmcguire48]

I found the following at Tweety's. The Progressive Industries SSP 50 Smart Surge 120 Volt/50Amp RV Surge Protector is a state of the art RV Surge Protection System. It offers 4-mode, 1650 joule protection with surge indicator denoting condition of surge protector. It comes with built in polarity tester to check the power source for proper wiring. Also standard is a surge status indicator with fuse protection. This Smart Surge is a portable, weather resistant RV Surge Protector that requires no installation.

Features

Three Mode Surge Protection - Line to Neutral, Line to Ground and Neutral to Ground. The SSP50 is rated for 240 Volts/50 Amps with 1650 joules and 45,000 surge amps. It has less than one nano second response time. Here are the possible scenarios the surge protector cold encounter.


#1 Red light On & #2 Red light Off - Correct Wiring This is Safe for you and equipment
#1 Red light Off & #2 Red light On - Reverse Polarity This is Bad for sensitive equipment
#1 Red light On & #2 Red light On - Open Neutral This means No power
#1 Red light Off & #2 Red light Off - Open Ground This Could result in fatal shock
Green Surge Light on This means there is Good surge protection Green light off = Surge protection bad.
It says it a 50AMP is that okay to plug into a 30amp at the campground or is that just top amps

[Mr_D]

Originally Posted by cmcguire48

It says it a 50AMP is that okay to plug into a 30amp at the campground or is that just top amps

Just use the correct adapter and also realize that you'll only have 3,600 watts on a 30 amp setup rather than the 12,000 watts that a 50 amp RV setup will give you.