Rv surge protector
Hi all, I'm shopping for a surge protector, and I would like some help please, as I know very little about what is the most important feature to look for. Thanks Steve
Forum Discussion
wa8yxm wrote:
Progressive Industries makes a low cost "Spike Suppressor" which is advertised (industry standard by the way for advertising this type of product) as a "Surge Protector"
Progressive makes many models. Each claim to protect from some similar anomalies and some different anomalies. To claim all surge protectors are spike protectors is bogus; not from first learning manufacturer specifications.
Listed were surges that a campground protector must protection from including high voltage, brownouts, reverse polarity, open neutral, and floating ground. None of them is a spike. Spikes that can do damage typically occur maybe once every seven years. Not all RV protectors even claim to protect from transients (spikes) that are rare.
A protector that would protect from spikes must be connected as short as practicable to earth ground. That means a protector typically chained to a pole - to make a low impedance (as short as possible) connection to earth. Surges such as brownout or loss of one phase are many times more common. And what a typical RV protector detects and protects from.
Most who assume an RV protector is for spike protection do not read spec sheets and do not learn each function for that unique model. A word 'surge' is very arbitrary. Completely insufficient to make any informed recommendation. Best recommendations will list numbers for each 'protected from' anomaly - with numbers. No spec numbers for each anomaly means a recommendation is best ignored.
