Short?

Most people do not know the difference between a "Short" and an OPEN or intermittent.. As I said an intermittent can cause issues to neighbors.
Graphically I will try to display the difference

First SHORT

=======|=== In this case you have two wires and the "Pipe" symbol represents a cross connection between them

Open
------ ------- In this case as you can see the wire does not run all the way. it has been cut or sepearated


Intermittant (this one is hard)

------^^---- The ^^ represents electricity jumping the gap in the almost open wires. This creates all sorts of NOISE on the line and can cause issues. voltage spikes and such. not good for what's inside your RV either.


Glad you got it fixed.

I went back to MS today and it turn out I did have a bad power cord. I thought I was pretty sharp on electrical stuff, but I’m still a little puzzled. First I don’t believe I had a “short” as not breakers were tripped in the Rv or on the pedestal. On the power cord the two flat lugs had black on them, but no pitting like it would if it shorted. I did not plug the old cord back in, but I did plug the new one in and no problems every thing checked out ok.

We had that once. It was our cord - one wire was disconnected right where the cord and molded plug come together.

Acampingwewillgo wrote:
Interesting only because a couple years back I had purchased one of those Voltage/Polarity plug in testers(the common RV one with the alarm). So here I was at an older campsite, 30 amp power and my Polarity Alarm goes off. Before I panic, I go out to the pedestal and use my rather large homemade pedestal checker...it also shows a polarity problem. Ummm...so I call the Ranger, they send someone over to check the pedestal. Of course they have fewer tools than I do but he relates how the pedestals are piggybacked.

Rather than drawing this out any further, just as soon as a suspect Motorhome left a site two away from me, as soon as he unplugged, the polarity problem went away. The next person who pulled into that site, plugged in and still we had recurring no issue.

More than likely, you had a poor or completely bad ground wire connection upstream of the "problem" motorhome in the campground wiring. For whatever reason (possibly an electrical problem in that motorhome), the ground was being pulled to hot. While the symptoms went away when the motorhome left, the underlying fault in the campground electrical system did not and the safety ground was still compromised.

Those testers, and the EMS units, are not capable of actually detecting reverse polarity, open ground, etc. in isolation; all they do is measure the relative voltages between the various wires. If there is zero volts (or practically zero volts) between neutral and ground, and 120 between hot and neutral (and of course also hot and ground), all is "good." If there instead is zero volts between hot and ground and 120 between hot and neutral, then it's "reverse polarity," even if the underlying cause is something more subtle. Similarly, "open ground" just means that ground is not bonded to neutral.

Interesting only because a couple years back I had purchased one of those Voltage/Polarity plug in testers(the common RV one with the alarm). So here I was at an older campsite, 30 amp power and my Polarity Alarm goes off. Before I panic, I go out to the pedestal and use my rather large homemade pedestal checker...it also shows a polarity problem. Ummm...so I call the Ranger, they send someone over to check the pedestal. Of course they have fewer tools than I do but he relates how the pedestals are piggybacked.

Rather than drawing this out any further, just as soon as a suspect Motorhome left a site two away from me, as soon as he unplugged, the polarity problem went away. The next person who pulled into that site, plugged in and still we had recurring no issue.

Now I'm sure someone here can explain why another person's RV would interfere with the piggybacked pedestals on the entire circuit? I checked other pedestals in our row of sites and only the ones linked to the suspect RV, including me, had the problem, other ones didn't.
I couldn't explain it....

Don't punish me too hard for going off on a tangent, my apologies to the OP!

Just so you know (And why I suggested checking plugs and outlets)

The one way you MIGHT be able to affect other RV's but no short.

I am in a 50 amp RV.. one day I'm sitting up in Frankenmuth MI on a 50 amp site and half my House lost power.. So I started the tribble hunt. got to the park end of my 50 amp cord and as I moved it ARRRRRRRRC.. ANd power restored. Turns out one of the wires in the plug had come loose.. I re-attached it (to a new plug) a bit later and all was good.. still is as of last week.

Not a short but an intermittent like that can cause problems for others as yoru RV comes on and off line.

All main connections (Plug, outlet, inlet, (optional ATS Twice) and main circuit breaker. all are suspect.

Interested to hear what you find.

Thanks for all the advice. I’m headed that way in the morning and will update what I find.

Please keep us updated when you learn the rest of the story.

If the Power company called you and stated that they disconnected power to your HOME, because it was affecting your next door neighbor, would you not agree that something is fishy? Your Power pedestal is supposed to supply YOU, nobody else. IF you had a problem in your Power cord, it would trip the 30 amp Pedestal breaker. IF you had a problem in your RV, it would trip the inside breaker/s. It could NEVER affect your neighbor, UNLESS, the RV park is NOT wired to code. Doug