Trailer shocked me...HARD!

Earthing is peculiar. I rented a Mexican house years ago. The local kids would not set foot on the steps. Said it shocked them in bare feet. Concrete meeting soil. Turned out to be a phase leakage through a bad connection buried in the ground. The service drop was against the house. Waving the voltage detector near bare ground caused it to alarm.

BB_TX wrote:
Almost surely a bad/open safety ground, i.e. the green wire ground. Problem could be in your cord, cord connectors. the park pedastal, internal connection in the trailer. You need to make sure it is not a problem with your equipment. A potentially lethal problem.

This is why I make sure my trailer tong jack and stabilizer jacks are on the ground (or a metal plate on the ground), not on plastic or wood block.

tragusa3 wrote:
I just got back from picking up a receptacle tester. Plugged into the house and all outlets in the trailer were wired correctly.

Personally I would perform one more very simple and fast test. Grab the 30 amp plug from your trailer and pull, wiggle, and push on the ground pin. Make sure it's not loose in the end of the plug. I remember a post where somebody had a loose ground pin. It would usually make good contact because it was pushed in when plugging into the outlet. But if the cord was disturbed it would allow the pin to pull out slightly and break the ground.

A green 120 vac LED pilot lamp connected between hot and earth ground is a good way to tell if chassis ground exists inside the rig. I learned the hard way to connect a RED 120 vac pilot LED between chassis and earth ground. Muse the possible combinations of yes/no red and or green lamps.

I learned this the hard way. A worker at an RV park worked at the park's general panel when I was north in Barra de Navidad. When I returned I grabbed the door latch. Spent the remainder in bed with a badly irregular heartbeat. I have one set of lights stacked near the main entry door, the second beside the stove in the galley. No power draw. Reliable. My ground rod "fix" blew the hell out of the Boca de Iguana's RV electrical system. I related this story some months ago, here. "Blowing the hell out of" is defined as smoke boiling out of concrete ground hatches, fire and a melted distribution panel near the office. They could not find a breaker so they wired around it. NEUTRAL IS NOT FUSED OR BREAKERED. A neutral to ground short is wide open as much as the wiring will tolerate.

US campgrounds are different. If I die down here, the management would fix the problem after paying the cops and they would all shake their head sadly and say "Heart. Obviously. What a shame"

After I pound in the ground stake and the campground grid goes up in a mushroom cloud it's pure Tough S---

tragusa3 wrote:
Could it? The tester shows all receptacles wired correctly (when plugged in at home).

Yes of course.

This is why electricity is a mystery. You need to catch the issue when it happens. Unless you go back to that RV spot and continue testing the answer will not be known.

Still good to know your home is wired correctly.

robsouth wrote:
Check pedastal for correct polarity. Likely wired incorrectly puting the hot side to your camper instead of the neutral. Could also be ground fault at the pedastal. I would suspect that first. Do you have a polarity checker with you? If not get one, and check every pedastal before plugging in. May be something else, but I would start there.

If wired to code this would NOT result in a shock. By code the trailer ground is to ONLY be connected to ground. Neutral MUST NOT BE BONDED TO GROUND Neutral will be completely isolated from ground and the trailer frame. neutral/ground bonding is against code at the trailer.
If the trailer has a GFI circuit, they will also trip if they see neutral/ground bonding downstream of the GFI device.

Therefore even if hot and neutral are reversed, the trailer frame is at ground potential and the only way to get across a 120V potential is to also be touching in some form the hot or neutral wire or connection, not the trailer frame.

and by code, anything he has plugged in also must have the ground and neutral isolated.

The OP would only get a shock for hot/ground reversed if he is touching a neutral Wire and earth ground. Which doesn't sound like he was doing.

So. two possiblities are
1) pedistal ground isn't really ground
2) trailer ground is bonded to neutral in the trailer against code and pedistal hot and neutral are reversed.
3) trailer ground isn't connected to ground but to neutral and hot/neutral reversed, or trailer ground connected to hot

maybe a few others. the post above by john&bet describes a very possible senerio on how the frame could end up hot.

Could it? The tester shows all receptacles wired correctly (when plugged in at home).

We had this happen to our new 50 amp service 5er when it was plugged into 30amp service. When I plugged into 50amp service and turned the c/b on it immediately tripped signifying a dead short. I took it to dealer since it was under warranty. They found where the wire from the back to the load center was not installed right and had rubbed on the frame. The two hot wires were bare and touching each other and the frame and the green wire was broken so no safety ground.
The problem could be in your trailer.

tragusa3 wrote:
I just got back from picking up a receptacle tester. Plugged into the house and all outlets in the trailer were wired correctly.

Thanks for the tip on using the pigtail to check pedestals prior to plugging in the trailer. I'll make that a habit.

So...have I isolated the condition to the pedestal at that campground? I've already emailed them to have it checked.

Take your shoes off and see if you get a shock...LOL

Seriously, I would bet that there was a problem with the pedestal at the last CG. If everything checks out OK now, that rulkes out any issues with the trailer wiring.

We camped at a state park in Ohio last fall and the 30A outlet was toast...burn marks by the contact slots and so loose the plug would barely stay in. Fortunately it was October and way past a/c season, so I used my pigtail to grab the 20A outlet so we had power to keep the batteries charged from furnace use. If I had needed to use the a/c I would have demanded that the park change the outlet.

I really should have a Progressive unit for surge and low voltage protection but just haven't found the spare cash for one yet...