shocking!
I have a 21 foot avion travel trailer that was converted into a motor home by 'mounting' and marrying it with a 1970 Ford E300. We are having an issue - it is shocking you when you touch it if it rai...
Forum Discussion
"For some reason it did NOT trip the breaker..."
Note that residential circuit breakers are NOT designed to detect polarity reversals ( hot to neutral swaps ). Standard residential circuit breakers are designed to stop OVERCURRENT !
While I highly recommend the installation of GFCI outlets in RVs, GFCIs can be 'fooled', too. A GFCI merely measures any current difference between the hot and neutral. If it detects one, it breaks the circuit before your heart can be 'toasted'. If current were to flow from hot - - through one side of your ungrounded body to the other, the GFCI would not measure a difference in current and would not trip. So if you were to plug a zip cord into a GFCI protected outlet while standing on a residential or RV floor, and touched the bare ends of that zip cord, you could be fatally shocked.
Your safety in your RV is only as good as the pylon that you are connected to. I highly recommend that RVers test the electrical source before hooking up. You'd be surprised how often there is something wrong with the voltage or with the ground.
Note that the EU series of HONDA generators (and their ilk) does not come with a neutral bond as required by OHSA for site power. You can hook up a HONDA EU series generator to power your house (with the appropriate transfer switch to prevent back feeding) and you will still have a neutral bond at one point as required by the electrical code (...that's a good thing). Some folks buy bonded contractor generators and use them with their RV. That's okay from a Code standpoint as long as your RV is not otherwise hooked up to the grid because the RV panel is always wired like a sub-panel.
For those of us with just one RV power source so that only one power device can be attached at one time, no transfer or isolation switch is needed - - there is no possibility of back-feeding. The circuit breaker panel on your RV should NOT be bonded - - think of it as a sub-panel for when it is connected to an RV park power source.
If you have created a 'floating' system, you have to be more careful in your RV as any fault or mis-wiring becomes potentially more lethal since circuit breakers might not trip in some circumstances in an unbonded system. Another good reason to add GFCI protection to your RV.
Above all, _always_ respect the NEUTRAL conductor ! It can kill you just as dead if _you_ get in series with it.
Note that residential circuit breakers are NOT designed to detect polarity reversals ( hot to neutral swaps ). Standard residential circuit breakers are designed to stop OVERCURRENT !
While I highly recommend the installation of GFCI outlets in RVs, GFCIs can be 'fooled', too. A GFCI merely measures any current difference between the hot and neutral. If it detects one, it breaks the circuit before your heart can be 'toasted'. If current were to flow from hot - - through one side of your ungrounded body to the other, the GFCI would not measure a difference in current and would not trip. So if you were to plug a zip cord into a GFCI protected outlet while standing on a residential or RV floor, and touched the bare ends of that zip cord, you could be fatally shocked.
Your safety in your RV is only as good as the pylon that you are connected to. I highly recommend that RVers test the electrical source before hooking up. You'd be surprised how often there is something wrong with the voltage or with the ground.
Note that the EU series of HONDA generators (and their ilk) does not come with a neutral bond as required by OHSA for site power. You can hook up a HONDA EU series generator to power your house (with the appropriate transfer switch to prevent back feeding) and you will still have a neutral bond at one point as required by the electrical code (...that's a good thing). Some folks buy bonded contractor generators and use them with their RV. That's okay from a Code standpoint as long as your RV is not otherwise hooked up to the grid because the RV panel is always wired like a sub-panel.
For those of us with just one RV power source so that only one power device can be attached at one time, no transfer or isolation switch is needed - - there is no possibility of back-feeding. The circuit breaker panel on your RV should NOT be bonded - - think of it as a sub-panel for when it is connected to an RV park power source.
If you have created a 'floating' system, you have to be more careful in your RV as any fault or mis-wiring becomes potentially more lethal since circuit breakers might not trip in some circumstances in an unbonded system. Another good reason to add GFCI protection to your RV.
Above all, _always_ respect the NEUTRAL conductor ! It can kill you just as dead if _you_ get in series with it.
