surge guard protectors

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

No thanks. Here is why. My comfort level for brown out is 108 volts. The current crop of surge devices shut off the power at 104, so that "feature" is useless to me.

A careful RV'er will check the voltage and polarity before plugging the RV into an unknown power source.

A careful RV'er does monitor voltage after plugging in.

Below 108 volts, I power just the converter, and then power the rest of the RV from my inverter. I have a surge device on the converter which cost a whole $2.00. It meets my needs.

If voltage is "hovering" just above 108 volts, I'll use my inverter to power any "heavy" loads, such as the hotplates I use for cooking.

It is quite unlikely to have an over voltage situation on a 30 amp service, where as, if a wire comes loose on a 50 amp service it is possible to have nearly double the voltage on one leg.

Anything that an RV'er can afford is going to get creamed by a serious power surge such as a transformer failure, and it will fail to protect the "sensitive electronics" from that surge. For a 30 amp service surge protection is quite close, in my opinion, to the Emperor's new clothes. For 50 amp, there is a valid reason to have such a device.

If I wished to buy something that I might find useful, it would be an autoformer to boost low voltage.

gotsmart wrote:
pianotuna, you may want to consider adding a surge protector to your wish list of things to buy in the future - and store it in the MH even if you don't intend to use it. Why? I've actually been at a couple of parks where they included a supplemental page to their welcome packet that bluntly says that the park's power may fluctuate and suffer brown-outs and outages. The supplemental recommends the use of surge protection and disclaims liability for any damage to the electrical system of the guest's RV.

I think it is a "good-to-have" for when you arrive at a park with power issues, or when you're setting up and your next door neighbor "Hey, if you got a surge protector you ought to use it 'cuz the power has been awful this week".

It falls under the "be prepared for anything" category.

Well you can obviously do what you want for whatever reasons you feel comfortable with, but I will make the following comments on some of your thoughts for others to consider in giving weight to your thoughts.

1. 108 might be your comfort level, but the manufacturers specify something different, especially for A/Cs so your 108 figure is what I would call "artifical" ... nothing wrong with it, but it is not based on any facts or real concerns from an equipment protection concern.

2. While you might check or monitor your voltage, one can't be spending their whole time just watching a meter ... maybe you're out on a walk, grilling, "SLEEPING", and as they say a "watched pot never boils" and "Murphy is watching for you to not be watching". An EMS is there on duty 24/7 and needs NO WATCHING.

3. A very valuable benefit IMO of the EMS with the remote display is you have a way to monitor and learn what each device draws and for heavy electric users this can help prevent popping CBs and can give you a heads up to potential problems if you see a device starting to draw more current than it used to.

4. Lower voltages do no damage to things like your "hot plate" that you are concerned with since that is a resistance only load.

5. EMS systems do provide the "surge" protection aspect that no monitoring, etc. can substitute for and voltage protection devices such as the autoformer don't provide that protection.

6. While you might have been lucky, just like I was for over 30 years before getting my current PI EMS the real issue is that costly damage has occurred that an EMS would have prevented and it's sort of like ERS, or that silly insurance "Elephant" ... it's just there when you "NEED IT" so it's like Clint says "DO YOU FEEL LUCKY TODAY":B

Finally in the overall scheme of things $300 is not a deal breaker when we have spent all the 10's of thousands of dollars on TV, TT and hundreds on WDH/SWAY and all the other less useful goodies that it just IMO makes sense.

Larry