Greetings Everyone,
A little background on me, I an engineer and work in the electric power industry but have never owned a camper before so I have to research and spend time doing things that most of you probably already know innately. I have a 13BHB that recently purchased and I am getting ready to pull the trigger on a portable inverter style generator for a week long camping trip. I was out of town sitting in the hotel and looking some things up on the interweb and began to wonder about the AC system in the camper I have, specifically how it relates to generator safety. I stumbled upon this very good article which discusses neutral bonding and it is very important that it is done properly. Anyway I thought I might pass it on since I am guessing that many people have portable generators and it seems from my research that the vast majority of the generators out there have a floating neutral. This is probably to prevent a double bonding issue if someone were to connect it to their home breaker box in an emergency power situation. I have not checked yet since I just got into town but I will tomorrow, the camper should not have the ground and neutral bonded. Which means that something needs to be done to bond the neutral and ground at the generator. This article describes a great and inexpensive method and I thought it was worth passing along.
http://www.noshockzone.org/generator-ground-neutral-bonding/
I hope this is helpful to someone but maybe it is well understood already in the RV community, having never owned one I wouldn't know.
Regards,
Thank you for posting the information and link.
I'm Mike Sokol from www.noshockzone.org. Thanks for posting my article about generator neutral-ground bonding here. Another thing to watch out for is TT-30 RV outlets installed by electricians and DIY guys who get them confused with dryer outlets and mis-wire them with 240-volts instead of 120-volts. That's a very expensive mistake if you plug your camper into one. See my No~Shock~Zone article on the subject at http://www.noshockzone.org/accidentally-plugging-into-240-volt-outlet/
Mike Sokol
www.NoShockZone.org
mike@noshockzone.org
[font size="3"][font face="arial"]There have been reports of campground 30A sockets being miswired. Wrong voltage or reversed hot/neutral. That's why I always use a surge protector on the power pole.
[a href="http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/portable-surge-guards-with-lcd-display-30-amp/58464"]link[/a]
One campground I stayed at had the hot/neutral reversed so I just switched to the 50A socket with a dog bone adapter. Camp on!
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I'm also a big fan of surge protectors. If it's out of your budget then I would suggest picking up a multimeter and learn how to safely use it. They're inexpensive and can be used for MANY other things. That way you can at least test the pole before you connect.
[quote source="/post/355/thread" timestamp="1396289315" author="@tinkeringtechie"]I'm also a big fan of surge protectors. If it's out of your budget then I would suggest picking up a multimeter and learn how to safely use it. They're inexpensive and can be used for MANY other things. That way you can at least test the pole before you connect.[/quote]Here's my No~Shock~Zone article on how to use a meter to measure voltages at the pedestal BEFORE you connect. : http://www.noshockzone.org/rv-electrical-safety-part-iii-%E2%80%93-outlets/
And here's my article on general voltmeter usage: http://www.noshockzone.org/rv-electrical-safety-part-ii-meters/
Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org
www.NoShockZone.org
The 30 and 50 amp wiring info is great. Printed them out and put them in my camper. Always take my meter with me. Thanks.
[quote source="/post/352/thread" timestamp="1396270513" author="@charliem"][font size="3"][font face="arial"]One campground I stayed at had the hot/neutral reversed so I just switched to the 50A socket with a dog bone adapter. Camp on!
[/font][/font][/quote]I wish I could find support to create a user-updated national database of campgrounds that had improper pedestal power. That might shame some of them into fixing their electrical problems.
Mike Sokol
www.NoShockZone.org
[quote source="/post/386/thread" timestamp="1396481655" author="@jmsokol"][quote source="/post/352/thread" timestamp="1396270513" author="@charliem"][font size="3"][font face="arial"]One campground I stayed at had the hot/neutral reversed so I just switched to the 50A socket with a dog bone adapter. Camp on!
[/font][/font][/quote]I wish I could find support to create a user-updated national database of campgrounds that had improper pedestal power. That might shame some of them into fixing their electrical problems.
Mike Sokol
www.NoShockZone.org
[/quote][font size="3"][font face="arial"]Well, I left a note at the check-in as I left. Unfortunately it was staff meeting day so no one was there to tell. Who knows if they ignored it or fixed it. [/font][/font]
[quote source="/post/380/thread" timestamp="1396446544" author="@djsamuel"]The 30 and 50 amp wiring info is great. Printed them out and put them in my camper. Always take my meter with me. Thanks.[/quote][p]My current harbor fright ad has a free multi-meter coupon in it (say it right ! "coo-pun")[/p][p]
[/p][p]So that's the one to bring.[/p][p]
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[quote source="/post/388/thread" timestamp="1396488233" author="@pinstriper"][quote source="/post/380/thread" timestamp="1396446544" author="@djsamuel"]The 30 and 50 amp wiring info is great. Printed them out and put them in my camper. Always take my meter with me. Thanks.[/quote][p]My current harbor fright ad has a free multi-meter coupon in it (say it right ! "coo-pun")[/p][p]
[/p][p]So that's the one to bring.[/p][p]
[/p][/quote]That's the one I keep in my camper. Those things are indestructible! :)
FYI: I just published my first eBook about RV Electrical Safety on Amazon/Kindle. You don't need a kindle to read it since there are free Kindle readers available for most any iPad or Tablet as well as all Mac or PC computers. The eBook includes everything published on my No~Shock~Zone blog as well as additional content and graphics, all in one handy place. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L2DWBD8
I'm also working on a paperback print version which should be available in a few weeks. Please pass this on to anyone you know with an RV since you know the importance of RV electrical safety.
[quote source="/post/1654/thread" timestamp="1403482437" author="@jmsokol"]Just a heads-up... My No~Shock~Zone RV Electrical Safety book is now available in paperback as well as Kindle versions. See http://www.amazon.com/No~Shock~Zone-Electrical-Safety-Michael-Sokol/dp/0990527913/ref=tmm_pap_title_0</abbr>
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Just bought your book and got it electronically so we can read it on an IPAD. Look forward to reading it and getting educated on RV electronics! I am headed for Harbor Freight this week. We do not pick up our 21 BHS until late March or early April but doing a lot of reading and studying RV basics! MonteD Georgia Dawg.
[quote timestamp="1396521640" source="/post/394/thread" author="@djsamuel"]
Quote from: @pinstriper" timestamp="1396488233" source="/post/388/thread[p]
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That's the one I keep in my camper. Those things are indestructible! :)
[/quote]If you have it set to measure amps for which the maximum is 10 and forget it's in this mode and try to measure voltage again. It will cook it. I've fried quite a few this way. Fortunately they have sales where their only two bucks. So it's not a big deal when I forget.
Good information, I plan to take my EU3000i so I'll go ahead and build a bonding plug for it..