Advice needed for electric pedestal tester
I want to get a good tester to use before hooking up at a campground. Is there one that will check for the usual stuff like polarity, open ground, etc. - as well as tell the voltage? Thanks for ...
Forum Discussion
The low cost checker for a 30A outlet (or 20A one) would be a three-light tester and a plug-in voltmeter. The latter can be found for $5 or less at various online places. You can often rig up a little gizmo with a multiple outlet adapter so there's only one thing to plug in.
It's also entirely possible to make all these checks with a multimeter in a few seconds. The voltage between the hot and the neutral should be ca. 120V, and equal to that between the hot and the ground. There should be no voltage (or at least not any more than a stray volt or two) between the neutral and the ground. The guts of the PI units are just continually making these three measurements, along with power line frequency, and control a heavy-duty relay to connect or disconnect the power as it meets or does not meet specs. Excessive frequency variations on grid power are extremely rare and in my opinion not worth worrying about. The PI units have very loose frequency tolerances, anyhow.
It's also entirely possible to make all these checks with a multimeter in a few seconds. The voltage between the hot and the neutral should be ca. 120V, and equal to that between the hot and the ground. There should be no voltage (or at least not any more than a stray volt or two) between the neutral and the ground. The guts of the PI units are just continually making these three measurements, along with power line frequency, and control a heavy-duty relay to connect or disconnect the power as it meets or does not meet specs. Excessive frequency variations on grid power are extremely rare and in my opinion not worth worrying about. The PI units have very loose frequency tolerances, anyhow.
